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[ "By . Michael Gadd For Mailonline . Benidorm is the fastest growing destination for British holidaymakers for this coming bank holiday with the Spanish seaside resort town boasting a 164 per cent increase in departures compared to last year. Spain, Portugal, Greece and Turkey continue to top the figures for bank holiday popularity, according to figures from travel comparison website TravelSupermarket. The news isn't so sunny for Crete, Ibiza and the Black Sea, however, destinations which have all recorded significant drops in popularity over the past year. Best for British: Benidorm is 164 per cent more popular for the August bank holiday than it was last year . Old favourite: The perennial short break go-to destination is booming, says website TravelSupermarket . It's not just golden rays and sands being sought out for short breaks with Barcelona, Disneyland Paris, Paris and Amsterdam among the top 20 destinations being searched for with departure dates between August 20 and 23. Last year only Barcelona made the same list while Dubai and the Middle East have dropped out of the top 20 altogether. France is a hot destination as well this weekend, with Nice (156 per cent), Paris (104 per cent) and Disneyland Paris (76 per cent) all attracting more interest than in 2013. Sun-downer: Crete has suffered a 90 per cent drop in departures compared to last year . Benidorm – up 164% . Nice – up 156% . Halkidiki – up 119% . Paris – up 104% . Tuscany – up 91% . Mykonos – up 86% . Valencia – up 83% . Brussels – up 81% . Dublin – up 77% . Euro Disney – up 76% . Lake Como – up 72% . Jamaica – up 66% . Marrakech – up 66% . Corsica – up 65% . Florence – up 64% . Barcelona – up 62% . Bourgas – up 61% . Corfu – up 60% . Copenhagen – up 58% . Amsterdam – 58% . Crete – down 90% . Ibiza – down 68% . Varna – down 57% . Dalaman – down 55% . Costa Dorada – down 55% . Costa Blanca – down 44% . Caribbean – down 42% . Gran Canaria – down 34% . Costa Brava – down 32% . Cyprus East – down 31% . Rhodes – down 31% . Alicante – down 28% . Bali – down 27% . Krakow – down 26% . Sri Lanka – down 24% . Skiathos – down 23% . Los Angeles – down 23% . Cuba – down 22% . Vienna – down 18% . New York – down 18% . Benidorm is the undisputed king of the Costas, however, with Costa Dorada (down 55 per cent), the wider Costa Blanca area (down 44 per cent) and the Costa Brava (down 32 per cent) recording drops in interest. TravelSupermarket spokesman Bob Atkinson said: 'With the Bank Holiday weekend here and many looking to get that last chance for a break before the long run into Christmas, it’s interesting to see so many people switching back into both the short break market, as well as value-led destinations in Europe and Egypt for their overseas holidays.' 'With the economy appearing to be strengthening, those who have put off taking extra or second holidays are embracing the chance for a few days away in places that are familiar, yet not too much of a stretch on the budget. Vive la France: Nice has enjoyed a 156 per cent rise in searches with Paris and Disneyland Paris also popular . 'And our love of eternal classics such as Benidorm, the Canary Islands, Balearics and the Algarve seems to be re-enforced this bank holiday, with getting more holiday for less money, high on the agenda for Brits. There are no long haul destinations in this year’s top 20, however Atkinson expects to see a rise in interest for locations such as Dubai and the Caribbean, along with Florida, New York and Las Vegas, when the sun well and truly disappears in the UK." ]

[ "A jet-setting owl has posted photos from its travels on Facebook after it was 'kidnapped' from a Nottinghamshire pub. Landlord Richard Stevenson, 32, had mascot Ollie the Owl snatched from the lounge area of the Admiral Rodney, in Nottingham, last month. He thought the £7.99 ornament had been lost forever until he received a letter in the post on March 6 demanding a donation to charity for its safe return. Those responsible for the theft even created a Facebook page to keep fans updated about Ollie's adventures since being snatched. The owl has been pictured sunning itself on a beach after it was 'kidnapped' from a Nottingham pub . The wooden ornament even took a trip on the back of a camel on its travels . Incredibly, the wooden statue has already jetted off to Belfast, Benidorm and even Tunisia despite only going missing a month ago. Pictures posted on the 'Oliver Howel' Facebook page show Ollie sunbathing on a beach towel with an iPod and even taking a ride on the back of a camel. He can also be seen perched on a wall overlooking a beach in Benidorm and is seen sitting on a bar next to pint of Guinness in Belfast. After boarding a plane from the Spanish holiday resort, Ollie teased his owners with a status update saying: 'Hi I'm off again another plane journey.. This one is going to be hot, keep checking in to see where I am.' Today, landlord Richard, who runs the pub with partner Christy Jamieson, 28, said: 'We are missing Ollie but it's been amazing where he's been. The £7.99 model perches on a stone rail high above a beach in Benidorm . The journey began in Nottingham, pictured here at the National Ice Centre in the city . 'He's had three holidays already and he's only been gone for a month. 'I did have a few clues to who had taken him but they found out and apparently passed Ollie on to someone else. 'We also received a card from a child though the post with a donation of £1 which has gone to the air ambulance.' Pub regular John Wiles, 45, added: 'I can't believe he has got as far as Tunisia. He will need his wings clipping.' The wooden statue is enjoying some sunnier climes than the usual shelf in Nottingham . The owl has had three holidays in less than a month since he was stolen from a pub shelf . Ollie's kidnappers have also taken the owl to more local locations with pictures of him joining a stag party in a city centre bar and visiting Nottingham Castle. He also posted a picture to his 138 Facebook friends perched on the city's famous Robin Hood statue as well as another image showing him at an ice hockey game. The bird has also popped in to Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem - reputed to be the oldest pub in England. Landlord Richard Stevenson and landlady Christy Jamieson of the Admiral Rodney in Nottingham with ransom letters sent to the pub following the 'kidnapping' of their owl ornament . It's thirsty work for the owl as it continues to travel around the world; pictured here at a Belfast bar . The owl has managed to take in some sights of Belfast, visiting the historic places in the Northern Irish capital . Landlord Richard bought Ollie from homeware store The Range 18 months ago when the couple took over the pub. The three-inch ornament is part of a set of three that had sat on a shelf in the pub lounge. In the ransom letter posted to the pub shortly after Ollie went missing, the kidnappers said the bird will be back in time for a charity festival on the August Bank Holiday weekend. The jovial note, which arrived in a brown envelope with a Nottingham postal stamp, stated: 'I have been taken against my will...kidnapped. The visit to Belfast also brings the opportunity for the owl to read up some history of the city . The owl took the opportunity of freedom to pose for a photo with Nottingham's most famous resident - Robin Hood . 'I was frightened at first but I really like the people who have taken me from your top shelf. 'I am going to be away for a while, and I am going to travel to lots of different places in England and abroad. 'I've been sitting on your shelf for too long... so I am going to find a girlfriend.' The owl could escape the queues for the Belfast boat tours by flying in, surely... Richard, who lives above the pub, added: 'It's a little bit crazy and just a bit weird how it all came about. 'I absolutely wet myself laughing, especially when I got a friend request on Facebook. 'We've seen a picture of a pink owl, which must be his new girlfriend. I suppose I'm a bit jealous of his travelling, and the regulars think it's hilarious.' Hopefully nobody will mistake the now-famous ornament for recyclable goods...", "They are the pensioners who have left the cold British climate behind for a better life by the sea. And one Spanish photographer loves nothing more than capturing the everyday lives of these sun-seekers, who have set up home in the resort town of Benidorm. Maria Moldes, originally from Galicia, first beacme interested in her subjects when she moved to the nearby city of Alicante and started travelling to Benidorm to capture life on the resort's streets. Moldes said she was drawn in particular to the characters who have made Benidorm their home, shedding their inhibitions as they take to a life on a the coast. Scroll down for video . Maria Moldes finds her subjects on the beaches of Benidorm, Spain, which is quite near to where she lives . The amateur photographer loves capturing candid shots of everyday life on the beach, such as exercise classes held on the sands . The intimate photos show everyday life on the streets of the town as well as on its beaches . Former psychologist Moldes has risen to Internet fame for her series of photographs of pensioners . Uploading the candid shots she snapped to her Instagram page, Moldes captured everything from exercise classes on the sands and women soaking up the sun to couple strolling along the narrow streets and shopping in markets. Speaking about why she liked to photograph older subjects, she explained: 'They teach you the marks of life. 'If you observe them for long enough, you end up discovering interesting people.' Moldes used to use a reflex camera for her photographs, until recently switching to using her mobile phone. The pictures show how ex-pats have adapted to their new homes with a more relaxed way of life . She admits that she prefers snapping 60-somethings because she loves the 'character' in their faces . Moldes says she loves nothing more than snapping the foreign residents in their new homes as it shows them at their happiest . Her favourite image, Moldes says that this woman reminds her of a retired Hollywood actress . By watching her subjects closely, Moldes says she discovers new and interesting things about them . Benidorm has recently become the less-than-flattering star of the comedy TV series of the same name, which focuses on the older population of the popular resort town . The former psychologist told MailOnline: 'There are women who really dress up, who look very beautiful, but above all, I like that they lose their inhibitions here. 'They look happy.' She added: 'This last year, I have dedicated myself 100 per cent to photography and I hope to continue this way. 'Next month I have an exhibition of a series called Gammacity, with urban photos I've taken. 'These beach shots form a series called Radioactive Life. 'In this area where I live now, there is a large population of older people - many retirees. 'That's why I photograph them.' The glamour of some of the women particularly enchants Moldes, show says it is interesting seeing them all dressed up for a day out . The aspiring photographer calls her series of beach shots, Radioactive Life . Moldes is also expanding her exhibition to include a series of urban photographs, called Gammacity . The colourful assortment of images shows older couples heading to yoga classes, doing exercises on the beach and soaking up the rays. Spain's Costa Blanca, home to Benidorm and a string of other seaside resorts, first became popular with Britons in 1957 with the dawn of the package holiday. It boomed in the 1960s, but then experienced a decline for a decade after tour operator Court Line went bust stranding tens of thousands of people abroad. In peak holiday season, expat residents mingle with holidaymakers on the busy beaches . Moldes says that her favourite part of her hobby is seeing how the women who 'lose their inhibitions here' But Benidorm picked up again following the death of General Franco in 1974, which prompted a boom in Spain as it opened up to tourism and international business. Benidorm's reputation has suffered in recent years and has even become the subject of the television comedy series of the same name that paints it in a less-than-flattering light. However, with new luxury hotels being built and low property prices, the seaside town is hoping to boom once again. For more candid shots from Maria Moldes, visit her website.", "From package holidays to second homes, Britons are now returning to Benidorm in droves. In the 1970s it was the holiday destination of choice for sun-seeking Britons. The region is the most popular on Spain’s mainland for foreign buyers, according to land registry figures which show the proportion of villas and apartments bought by overseas buyers has almost tripled in the past four years to 11.15 per cent. Holidaymakers enjoy the sun and the beach life of Benidorm during its 1970s heyday. The region went from a must-go holiday resort to a place to be avoided to now a place for people to buy a second home . A view of the Europe's tallest residential building at 650 ft high, in the eastern coastal village of Benidorm . British buyers have taken advantage of the pound’s strength against the euro. Typically, a three-bedroom, two-bathroom villa with a pool is £158,000. The area is also popular because budget airlines fly to nearby Alicante from regional UK airports and not just London ones. But there is also a sense of nostalgia for Britons returning to a region of Spain that became famous for being among the first destinations for mass market package tours. Even the name Costa Blanca for the 125-mile coastline was invented by British airline BEA when it opened a route to Valencia, the capital of the region, in 1957. Sunny ladies: Anne Bolger and Linda Limmer sunbathe on a beach in Benidorm in 1975 before it became known as a haven for drunken louts . In the following decade, newly launched cheap package holidays took off with Benidorm, Altea and Alicante being among the first places to attract hordes of British sunseekers. Unfortunately the region suffered from an image of ugly high rise hotels, parades of British pubs and legions of lager louts from Britain getting drunk in nightclubs. Kieran Byrne, the managing director of HomeEspana said: ‘The sustained weakness of the euro this year is helping to attract more British and Scandinavian buyers. ‘We don't expect a rapid turnaround in market conditions in Spain, but at least in the Costa Blanca we have seen increased buyer interest in the first quarter of 2014. ‘More second homebuyers from abroad are discovering how far their money goes here.’ Benidorm has tried to shed its image as a haven for British lager louts, although it is still portrayed as downmarket in ITV comedy Benidorm. Benidorm 2013 - Youngsters enjoy a drink at a pub in Levante beach, Benidorm . An aerial view of Benidorm showing the sprawling mass of the region .", "Britain is facing gridlock this Easter weekend as engineering works on the railways will lead to long queues during the Bank Holiday getaway. As many as 16 million motorists are set to take to the roads over Easter, with four million travelling on Good Friday and 4.5 million on Easter Sunday. Disruption to the train lines coupled with the gloomy weather forecast, has meant Britain's roads will be even busier than usual for the Easter break. Drivers could face travel misery this Easter as disruption to railways will see more people opt to use their cars . More people are planning to drive because of works on the rail network and a surge in people travelling abroad to seek sunshine . 'The first spring bank holiday of the year traditionally heralds the start of busier weekends on the nation's roads,' said RAC head of external affairs Pete Williams. He went on: 'This Easter is set to be a hectic one with 16 million of us getting behind the wheel for an Easter break, but at least we will benefit from the longer days and lighter evenings to complete our journeys.' Despite the surge in traffic, the Highways Agency (which becomes Highways England on April 1) is maintaining 55 sets of roadworks over the Bank Holiday weekend. Parts of the M1, M3, M4 and M6 likely to be hit by lane closures or speed restrictions. However, the agency said that 62 other roadworks would be temporarily lifted to ease the congestion. The increase in the number of people planning to travel by car is thought to have been in part triggered by a significant shutdown of the rail network. A string of engineering projects is expected to cause delays and overcrowding on some of Britain's busiest lines. Work is planned on three key routes - the West Coast main line, First Great Western and Greater Anglia - forcing passengers to make diversions on slower trains or spend hours on the dreaded replacement coaches. Network Rail said engineering works were planned over the Easter holidays because passenger numbers fell by 20 per cent. A spokesman told MailOnline: 'More than 90 per cent of the rail network is unaffected by our improvement work but a few lines are significantly impacted and passengers should check our website before travelling. 'The work is designed to improve the railway delivering new facilities, new signalling, new bridges, new track and flyovers all to give passengers a better, more reliable railway.' This map shows the traffic hotspots, rail closures and delays that are due to take place this Easter weekend . Last Christmas, thousands of passengers were crammed together outside Finsbury Park station, a small commuter stop in north London, in freezing conditions because Kings Cross had failed to reopen . In a move that has been described by an expert as 'adding insult to injury', Virgin Trains and London Midland have cancelled advanced cheap fares forcing passengers to purchase more expensive off-peak tickets. Both Virgin and London Midland say they cannot offer advance fares as the tickets would not be valid with other operators and replacement services. A trip from London to Manchester will cost £82 instead of the usual £15 advanced single ticket and take three hours, 53 minutes for a trip via Sheffield, compared to the usual two hours, eight minutes direct service. A journey from London to Liverpool will see passengers fork out £31.50 instead of £12 for a six-hour trip that involves four trains and a bus, instead of the normal direct service taking three hours, 16 minutes. Ian Baldry, of IBPTS consultants, told the Sunday Express: 'It's a rip-off. Paying more for journeys taking longer adds insult to injury. 'Passengers should be entitled to reduced, not increased, fares when engineering works affect journeys.' A Virgin Trains spokesman said: 'All Easter weekend trains in and out of London Euston to all destinations have not had usual discounted advance fares made available. 'Advance fares are only available on our services and due to the engineering works, there will not be any Virgin Trains services to travel on.' London Midland said: 'We’re unable to offer usual advance fares from London through the Trent Valley, to Birmingham and Northampton from Good Friday; and from Saturday lunchtime also for journeys from Birmingham to Liverpool. 'Advance fares are for particular trains. Engineering work means there is no way to put advance purchase fares on buses or alternative operators’ services.' Terry Oliver, London Midland's Head of West Coast services, has even encouraged passengers to avoid travelling this Easter. He said: 'London Midland will be running rail-replacement bus services over the Bank Holiday weekend, but journeys will involve changes and will take much longer than normal.' A string of engineering projects is expected to cause delays and overcrowding on some of the busiest lines . Last Christmas, Mark Carne, the chief executive of Network Rail, was forced to forego his annual bonus worth up to £135,000 after chaos on the railways caused by over-running engineering projects. Thousands of passengers were crammed together outside Finsbury Park station, a small commuter stop in north London, in freezing conditions because Kings Cross had failed to reopen. Mr Carne said: 'Our improvement programme this Easter is focused on delivering a better service for passengers. 'We are acutely conscious that many people want to use the railway during the holidays, which is why the vast majority of the network is running normally over the holiday period - but there will be disruption for some. 'I would like to apologise to any passengers whose plans are affected by our improvement work, but I hope they will understand that this is a quieter time on the railway and we want to minimise the overall impact of these vital projects on passengers.' The gloomy weather forecast this Bank Holiday weekend will increase the traffic on Britain's roads as travellers go abroad in search of sunshine. Figures from Gatwick airport show that more than two million passengers are expected to fly off for foreign holidays over the Easter break - a four per cent rise on the same period last year. Almost 50,000 more people than last year have bought air tickets for travel over the Easter weekend compared with last year. Barcelona, Dublin and Malaga are the most popular destinations.", "By . James Rush . A woman whose husband is dying of cancer was told by a holiday company to 'take someone else with you' when she tried to cancel their Spanish anniversary holiday. Chris Quick, 58, and her husband Keith, 61, of Southsea, had booked and paid for a trip to Benidorm next month to celebrate their 38th wedding anniversary. They were also looking forward to another trip in October to the Spanish resort, where they have friends. Chris Quick (pictured on a previous holiday with her husband Keith) was told by a holiday company 'to take someone else with you' when she tried to cancel two holidays after her husband was diagnosed with lung cancer . But when Mr Quick went to the GP about a persistent cough, the couple were given the devastating news he had lung cancer. Last week they were told it is terminal and they told travel operator Thomson's Hilsea branch that the two Benidorm breaks would have to be scrapped. The company warned however that not all of the money would be refunded and suggested Mrs Quick should find another travel companion. Mr Quick said ‘I’m so disgusted we have been treated this way. 'I never expected to get cancer, yet this isn’t an exceptional circumstance for them. 'All of this has been so emotional and hasn’t helped at all. 'I wanted to say goodbye to my friends one last time, and I won’t be able to.' Mrs Quick, who worked at a women’s refuge before she retired, said: 'We go out to Benidorm about four times a year every year to see our friends out there. 'I am so angry about this. It’s not about the money as we are sorting it with our insurance. The couple were given the devastating news that Mr Quick had lung cancer after he went to the GP about a persistent cough . 'I want an apology for the way we have been spoken to. This has been a very emotional time for us. 'When we got given this terrible news I told my daughter to ring Thomson to cancel the holiday for us.' Their daughter Kerry Holt, 36, called Thomson with the news and was warned that not all the money would be refunded. She said 'The attitude of the person on the phone was appalling - I was told to \"shut up\" at one point. 'There was no empathy to my dad’s situation. He didn’t want this to happen. 'Mum and dad have used Thomson for the past four years and thought they would show more compassion. Mrs Quick said the couple (pictured on a previous holiday to Benidorm) go out to the destination about four times a year every year to see friends . The couple had booked and paid for a trip to Benidorm next month to celebrate their 38th wedding anniversary (file picture) 'Instead they suggested my mum should go on holiday with someone else.' Thomson have so far paid back £538 for the holiday in June, which cost £1,900. Refunds for the October holiday have still not been sorted out. According to Thomson's website, customers who have travel insurance with Thomson Insurance may be covered if they were unaware they had a condition at the time of booking. The company does say however the insurance does not cover those who knew there was a possibility they may have to cancel. In more general circumstances, the Citizens Advice Bureau says under package holiday regulations, customers 'only have the right to cancel if your organiser has made major changes to your holiday.' It goes on to say: 'If your organiser hasn’t made any changes to your holiday your right to cancel will depend on the terms and conditions of your holiday contract. You may be able to cancel your holiday but your organiser might charge you a cancellation fee. 'You will normally be able to find information about your organiser’s cancellation policy in your holiday brochure or with your booking information'. A spokesman said: 'Thomson is very sorry to hear that Mr and Mrs Quick were unhappy with the service they received when cancelling their holiday. 'We sympathise with their situation and understand this must be a very difficult time. 'Our customer service and retail teams always aim to offer the best possible service to all customers and this includes providing them with details of all the options available to them. 'We would like to reassure the couple that we never intended to cause offence or undue upset by providing this information. 'As their holiday has now been cancelled we have advised Mr and Mrs Quick to contact their insurance provider to settle their claim.' In February this year, MailOnline reported on grandfather Bruce Crawcour who won a full refund from Thomson Holidays in a landmark case. Mr Crawcour, 66, launched his battle with parent company TUI Travel after he was forced to cancel a holiday when his wife Kay, 63, fell ill. Instead they charged him the full £2,256 for the two-week break the couple were due to have last May in Majorca at the luxury Protur Biomar Gran Hotel. But the retired civil servant managed to prove the company was not out of pocket after the flights and hotel room vanished from the Thomson website before the departure date. He argued this meant they had managed to sell the package on. In February, he became one of the first holidaymakers in the UK to be awarded damages from a tour operator for a cancelled holiday. The pensioner, who represented himself at Telford Small Claims Court, was awarded a full refund as well as £300 court costs. At the time it was reported the ruling could spell major changes for holidaymakers who follow suit and sue travel firms over cancellation clauses in package holiday contracts. Experts believed it may force tour operators to change their policies on late cancellation fees.", "By . Rob King . UPDATED: . 05:50 EST, 9 March 2012 . Missed: Tyrone Jones died after falling off a wall while trying to climb into his holiday apartment in Benidorm . A British man fell to his death on the last day of a holiday in Spain as he tried to get into his apartment after locking himself out. Father-of-four Tyrone Jones, 42, had lost his key and tried to get into the Benidorm flat by stepping on to a wall, unaware of a four-metre drop on the other side. The top bricks of the wall were loose and he toppled over, suffering fatal head wounds. His grieving relatives believe he lay on the ground for up to five hours before he was seen. Mr Jones, known as Ty, had been in Benidorm on a two-week holiday with a friend. The . motor trader from Exeter, Devon, was taken to hospital and treated in . intensive care but died without having regained consciousness. Hie was the eldest son of David and Margaret Jones, who had flown to Spain to be at his bedside. David Jones, also from Exeter, said: 'It was the last day of the holiday . and it seems Ty had been out and was returning to his apartment in the . early hours of the morning. 'He . had mislaid his keys and to reach his apartment he had tried to gain . entry by stepping up on to a wall, not knowing there was at last a . four-metre drop on the other side. 'The top course of bricks were loose causing him to topple and fall and he suffered severe head injuries. 'There were no witnesses and it appears he lay there on his own for about five hours before he was spotted.' Tragedy: Tyrone Jones died on the last day of his holiday in Benidorm, one of the most popular holiday resorts in Spain . Mr Jones died on February 13 - a day after his parents arrived in Spain. His father said: 'We were just talking about arranging . to pick him up from the airport the next day when we got the call out . of the blue about the accident. 'We finally got to the right hospital and Ty was in intensive care on life support.' Some of Mr Jones's organs were donated and helped transform the lives of three people, his family said. David Jones said: 'Nothing more could have been done for him. Skyline: Benidorm was the first resort town to be built on the southern Spanish coast and has one of the highest concentrations of tall apartment buildings in the world . 'The surgeons asked if Ty had considered organ donation and we said he had. 'Margaret and I discussed it and said . yes and we later found out that he had helped to save three people . having donated his kidneys, pancreas and liver. 'It helped a little to . know that.' Mr Jones's parents were joined in Spain by his three eldest children - Anna, 21, Nathan 17 and Charlie, nine. The man's death was initially treated as suspicious, but a local judge later spoke to the family and told them it appeared to have been an accident. David Jones said: 'He saw us in chambers and spoke to us for about 90 minutes. 'He was nearly reduced to tears and . said that as a father himself, if it was his son he would have to accept . that it was a tragic accident and try to move on.' Mr Jones's body was released for cremation and a family service was held in Spain. His relatives then brought his ashes back to Exeter, where a memorial service for 300 people was held to celebrate his life. Sister Susannah said in a tribute: 'Ty's beaming smile, easy manner and charisma assured him of many friends. 'He loved socialising with his many friends, knowing someone wherever he went. 'He was always up for a party and often danced until dawn.' Mr Jones went to schools in Exeter before completing an apprenticeship in mechanical engineering at Exeter College. He became a manager at a tyre firm before branching out into the motor trade.", "Charlie Pallett, 93, last boarded a plane during the Second World War when he was evacuated from Germany on a stretcher. His wife of 71 years, Madge, 91, has never stepped foot in an aircraft and her sole overseas jaunt was a day trip by ferry to Le Touqet in France. That's all about to change for the sprightly nonagenarian duo as they head off for a week in Benidorm to spend their first overseas holiday together. Time to pack: Madge, 91, and Charlie Pallett, 93,  prepare for their first ever overseas holiday to Benidorm . Hitting the pool: Charlie, 93, shows off his swimming trunks from the 1960s he found while packing . Charlie and Madge, from Shepway, Kent, have always taken their trips away to the British seaside but will soon be sunning themselves at Spain's Hotel Sol Pelicanos, a filming location for the hit TV series Benidorm. Royal Army Service Corps veteran Charlie joked that the plane's legroom may not be up to the standard he's accustomed to after his medical evacuation on a stretcher. 'I flew in a Dakota from Germany to France when I broke my ankle during the war but that was a hospital plane,' he said. 'It was lovely, I got to lie down on a stretcher but I'm not sure if I'll get the same legroom this time. 'I never wanted to go back to Europe after the war, but I have put that all behind me now.' Madge, who made camouflage nets during World War Two, is putting her own anxieties behind her as the pair set off for the resort at which hit TV series Benidorm is filmed. Jet-setting: Charlie has not been on a plane since the Second World War and Madge has only left England once . 'Madge has never set foot on a plane and she gets very anxious on public transport, you can't even get her on a bus. I fell off my chair when she said yes [to the trip],' Charlie said. She said: 'I'm very nervous but I'm also very excited about it. It's going into the unknown for me.' Charlie will however have to buy a new pair of swimming trunks after finding a pair of old favourites while packing: 'I think [they] are from the 1960s. They were very fashionable back then, but I don't think I'll take them with me. 'I was asked what the pocket inside them was for and I said that's where I'm going to keep my false teeth.' The grandparents of five and great-grandparents of seven will make the trip with daughters Doreen England, 67, Yvonne Elliott, 65, and their granddaughter Leigh Plumbly, 46. Fun in the sun: The Palletts will stay at the Sol Pelicanos Ocas Hotel, where the TV show Benidorm is filmed . Beside the seaside: Mr and Mrs Pallett, who have been married 71 years, have always holidayed in Britain . 'Our daughters had been talking about going away and we were enthusing over the brochures,' Charlie said. Yvonne, a retired cook, said: 'We didn't really have many family holidays when I was little because we couldn't afford them. 'I remember going to Dymchurch, when my dad was a driver and we went in the back of his three-tonne lorry. 'When we got there everything stunk of diesel. I never thought in my life I would be going abroad with my mum and dad.' Other favourite holiday haunts for the couple have included Great Yarmouth, Norfolk and Dorset. Fish out of water: The Costa Blanca resort trip is just the start of the Pallett's new wave of adventures . Famous faces: The cast of hit ITV television show Benidorm, which is filmed at Hotel Sol Pelicanos . Far from their age being any sort of disadvantage, the Palletts got a pleasant surprise when they went to update their long-overdue passports. 'You get them free when you are older than 90, but that's not the reason we've waited until now,' Charlie said. 'The next time we have to get them renewed is when we are 101 and 103.' And if Madge thinks this breakaway adventure is a one-off, she's got another thing coming with Charlie already planning his next flight... on the outside of a plane. 'I have wanted to do a wing-walk for a long time, and hopefully with this under my belt I will finally do one next year,' he said.", "Swiss tourism bosses fear a huge drop in holiday-makers visiting the country, after a shock economic move sent prices rocketing. The Swiss franc rose nearly 30 per cent against the euro after the Swiss National Bank's announcement that it would remove a three-year-old cap of 1.20 francs per euro. Ski resorts are expected to be hit particularly hard over the winter period, with some businesses already reporting cancellations as visitors rushed to rearrange their plans for the busy winter season. Swiss tourism bosses fear a huge drop in holiday-makers visiting the country, after a shock economic move sent prices rocketing . The price of a six-day ski pass in Verbier, a resort popular with Europeans, rose to 347 euros on Thursday, up from 296 euros before the franc's surge. A cordon bleu schnitzel in Zurich's Zeughauskeller, a popular tourist resort, costs an extra 4 euros at 27.9 euros and a beer is now 6.3 euros. Officials now say that a country already struggling with a reputation for being expensive will find it harder to attract visitors. Tourists from Europe accounted for 37 percent of overnight stays in 2013, according to latest data from the Swiss statistics office, but the country will be out of reach for many after 'SNB Day'. The franc's abrupt surge comes weeks before European school half-term breaks which mark the height of the ski season. The Swiss franc rose nearly 30 percent against the euro after the Swiss National Bank's announcement that it would remove a three-year-old cap of 1.20 francs per euro . Swiss hoteliers vented their fury on social media and politicians urged the Swiss to support the country's tourism industry, while resorts across the French border cheered a 'Godsend' as they looked forward to new Swiss clients. ‘Swiss people! Take your holidays in Switzerland!’ said Swiss tourist office chief Juerg Schmid on a twitter account. In Gstaad, hotelier Thomas Frei tweeted: ‘Great, first rejections, wanting to know the euro rate and whether we can do a better rate. While I'm at it, does anyone want to buy my hotel?’ Tourism contributes three percent of Swiss GDP and hotels and restaurants employ five percent of the labour force. The franc's abrupt surge comes weeks before European school half-term breaks which mark the height of the ski season . ‘The original forecasts predicting growth once again in the Swiss tourism industry over the next two years probably won't stand up any more,’ Christoph Juen, CEO of the Swiss hotel association hotelleriesuisse, told Reuters. That is an ‘existential threat’ to some hoteliers, he said. ‘I'm glad I'm just here for one day,’ said Amit Raj, 29 from Seville in Spain. ‘I'm definitely going to be a lot more cautious tonight and won't withdraw any more money,’ he added. Even before the decision to allow the Franc to surge, Europe's economic woes had seen the number of German travellers to Switzerland drop 19 percent over five years to 1.9 million by 2013, according to the latest available German tourism association data. In Alpine ski resorts, the economic chill has worsened in the past year as the number of Russian visitors fell sharply due to Moscow's standoff with the West over Ukraine and because of a weaker Russian rouble. Tourism from Japan has also been hit as the yen weakened. The news comes after it was revealed that British holidaymakers are looking to alternative ski destinations after the Alps experienced one of the worst starts to a season in living memory. Until a blizzard hit in late December France's top skiing destinations were mostly void of snow . An even bigger test for the mainly small businesses in the hotel and restaurant industry could come during the summer. In the busiest summer months 2.5 million nights per month are booked by foreigners at Swiss hotels, 70 percent more than during the peak ski season, says Eurostat. Over in France, Clement Marie, co-manager of the Savoyarde Hotel in Val d'Isere, a ski resort less than three hours by car from Geneva, saw the franc's appreciation as a chance to attract Swiss customers. ‘This could be great for business,’ he said. ‘Considering how little snow and how few customers we have had this January, this could be a Godsend.’ The news comes after it was revealed that British holidaymakers are looking to alternative ski destinations after the Alps experienced one of the worst starts to a season in living memory. A study has shown that online searches for destinations in Norway have soared while queries for traditional getaways in France have plummeted by more than half, according to travel website Kayak. The sudden interest in Norwegian resorts reflects the perfect conditions at the country’s ski runs. A study by Kayak suggests that interest in Norwegian ski resorts has soared after the Alps' slow start . Kayak said searches for flights going to Kristiansund Airport have doubled over last year, while searches for Chambery Airport in the French Alps have decreased by 56 per cent. Until a blizzard hit in late December – stranding thousands of holidaymakers – France's top skiing destinations were mostly void of snow and openings were delayed at resorts where slopes were bare. It came after a spell of unseasonably warm weather that was responsible for one of the ‘least snowy’ winters in the French Alps in 35 years. Kayak said Denver, Calgary, Helsinki and Vancouver airports – all located near popular skiing destinations – have also seen a surge of interest. In comparison searches to all five of the Alps’ main airports, including Chambery, are down, according to the travel website. The others are Friedrichshagen, Germany (down 37 per cent), Grenoble (down 26 per cent), Lyon (down 14 per cent) and Geneva (down four per cent). Loella Pehrsson, regional managing director for Kayak, said: ‘It’s clear that the lack of snow in the Alps has had a big impact on searches to airports around the region with Brits looking elsewhere in search of snow.’ The study was based on flight searches between 1 December and 7 January for travel between the dates of 12 January and 1 April.", "The Hemingway family were expecting a relaxing Spanish getaway after spending more than £4,000 on a Thomson holiday. In the glossy brochure the self-catering Levante Lux Apartments in Benidorm looked modern, comfortable and bright. But when they arrived they were greeted by an unpleasant reality. They found 'punch holes' in three of the apartment doors, a loose sink and loose glass in the patio door. The Hemingway family paid £4,800 to stay in the Levante Lux Apartments in Benidorm, pictured left. The family found rusty metal work and exposed wires, pictured right, in the grounds of the apartment block when they arrived. They discovered mould, as well as damaged, unstable wardrobes in the bedroom. The Hemingways - including diabetic dad Mark - were unable to use the cooker as all the shelves had been removed. Outside, the family saw rusty metalwork and missing drain covers around the swimming pool - and they noticed that most of the sun loungers were broken. Mr Hemingway complained to a Thomson rep and asked to be moved, but was told there were no vacancies elsewhere. Shabby reality: In their apartment the family from Huddesfield found mould on the walls, pictured left, and a broken light, pictured right . After enduring four nights in the damaged flat, the Spanish owners of the complex moved the party of five adults and three children from Huddersfield, to the nearby Levante Beach which was cleaner and in better repair. The Hemingways have since been offered £307 compensation - but the family have turned it down believing they are entitled to £1,000 to cover their stay in the dilapidated apartment. The family also discovered punch holes through three doors . Mr Hemingway, 43, said: 'It looked fantastic in the brochure. The lady who booked it with us said it was a nice apartment and building and that she'd never had any complaints. The Thomson website says the Levante Lux Apartments 'combine the flexibility of self-catering with all the must-haves of a hotel.' The apartments are described as 'modern spaces' that have been 'thoughtfully decorated.' It adds: 'Simple whitewashed walls sport arty prints, while patterned soft furnishings keep things bright. 'All of them have good-sized kitchenettes, kitted out with all the self-catering essentials.' 'When we got there we thought we were in the wrong place,' said Mr Hemingway. 'The gates were rusty and had holes in them and the lights had exposed wires coming out of them. Sharon and Mark Hemingway were offered £307 compensation by Thomson, but they have turned this down . 'The front door of our apartment looked like it had been kicked in. 'When we eventually got moved they closed the rooms we were in to refurbish them.' 'We were unable to have a holiday until we were moved; it caused us some distress,' said the glazer. 'I would never use Thomson again.' A spokesman for Thomson said: 'Thomson is sorry to hear of Mr Hemingway's experience. The Thomson website promises apartments that are 'modern spaces that have been thoughtfully decorated' Thomson says guests will find 'Simple whitewashed walls sport arty prints, while patterned soft furnishings keep things bright' 'Our team in the resort did everything possible to assist Mr Hemingway during his stay. 'Following a review of his complaint we have offered him a gesture of goodwill. 'We would like to reassure customers that this hotel remains a popular choice for our customers.'", "With one of Britain’s biggest music festivals coming up this weekend, one supermarket has clearly worked out that revellers are more likely to want Fosters and vodka instead of fruit and vegetables. These were the scenes at a Tesco store in Reading, Berkshire, ahead of the Reading music festival this weekend which features the likes of Arctic Monkeys, Blink-182 and Queens of the Stone Age. Shelves at the Reading West store - which is a 15-minute walk away from the entrance to the festival site - were packed with Jägermeister and Strongbow, as well as more practical supplies such as tents. Scroll down for video . Stocked up: Shelves at the Reading West store in Berkshire were packed with Jägermeister and Fosters . Alcohol available: During the festival Tesco expects to see 35,000 people a day coming through the store . The store has set up a ‘festival shop’ area and is expected to sell more than 30 pallets of tents this weekend, along with other important items such as sandwiches, water and camping chairs. A Tesco spokesman told The Reading Post: ‘During the festival we expect to see 35,000 people a day coming through the store, and yes, we expect some of them will want to buy alcohol. ‘This is the biggest weekend of the year for our Reading West store - bigger than Christmas. ‘We work really hard to make sure festival goers can get everything they need, including food, wellies and even tents. Believe it or not some people do come to the festival without a tent.’ Essential gear: The Reading West store is a 15-minute walk away from the entrance to the festival site . Prepared: This is the biggest weekend of the year for Tesco's Reading West store - 'bigger than Christmas' Rocking at Reading: More than 70,000 fans camp out at the August Bank holiday weekend festival . Entry for general camping at the festival opens at 8am on Thursday, with the main event running from Friday to Sunday. Also performing are Paramore, Vampire Weekend and You Me At Six. 'During the festival we expect to see 35,000 people a day coming through the store, and yes, we expect some of them will want to buy alcohol' Tesco spokesman . One thing that festival-goers might want to stock up on is toilet roll, after officials decided not to supply toilet paper for the fans set to descend on the site this year. As MailOnline reported last month, organisers of the three-day event - the oldest festival on the calendar - say there will no rolls in the toilets, so people will have to bring their own. More than 70,000 fans camp out at the August Bank holiday weekend festival, which moved to Reading in 1971 from its original site at Richmond.", "Still wish you were here? These are the holiday snaps that might fail to make anyone jealous as two fearless sightseers chase the perfect picture dangling off Europe's most famous buildings. Daredevils Vitaliy Raskalov, 20, and Vadim Makhorov, 24, have scaled some of the most recognisable tourist attractions on the planet and captured every moment. Fed up with queues and typical tours, the thrill-seeking duo have taken to the rooftops of Barcelona's Sagrada Familia, Cologne's Cathedral, and the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame in Paris.Scroll down for video . Sky high: Travellers Vadim Makhorov (pictured dangling from the cathedral in Cologne) and Vitaliy Raskalov have scaled some of the world's most recognisable tourist attractions . Also taking on Giza's pyramids and Dubai's latest skyscrapers, the Russian travellers have been labelled 'The Skywalkers'. In just one month the pair, from Novosibirsk and Moscow, conquered 12 cities in seven countries including Stockholm, Warsaw, Prague, Frankfurt, Cologne, Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, Benidorm, Lisbon, Porto and Madrid and have seen the world like no one else. Mr Raskalov said: ‘We are just chasing the dream and always looking to go to the next highest point to see the things no one else gets to see. Oh la la! Mr Raskalov gets a view of the Eiffel Tower that few tourists in Paris get from a nearby rooftop. The pair capture every thrill-seeking moment on camera . Don't look down: The daredevils have gained the name 'Skywalkers' for photographs such as this, legs dangling from the Eiffel Tower at a dizzy height . From where you'll never be: The pair often stake out locations for hours, trying to find the best way to scale the structures and get past security, who have been known to have beaten the Russian travellers when they've caught them . ‘We don't mean to trespass or harm anyone one so we do often have to wait until the coast is clear. ‘But when you get there the views are spectacular and we want to keep going until we have mastered every city.’ The pair regularly stake out locations in the early hours of the morning, waiting for guards and security staff to turn their back. Mr Raskalov said: ‘Sometimes you can wait around all evening for the perfect chance, but you get there and then you are seen. Say cheese! Mr Raskalov and Mr Makhorov (left to right) pose for a photo 'skywalking' above Warsaw after they got sick of waiting in queues at popular tourist attractions . Cool, calm and collected: Mr Raskalov chats on his mobile phone while sitting on a ledge of a skyscraper building in the Spanish town Benidorm . 'Chasing the dream': The pair have scaled buildings and structures in 12 cities in seven countries including Paris (left) in France and Warsaw (right) in Poland and are 'always looking to go to the next highest point to see the things no one else gets to see,' Mr Raskalov said . Trespass trapeze: Mr Makhorov holds his balance on a structure in Benidorm, one of many off-limits buildings in which the pair sneak past security guards to access . ‘When that happens and you are caught guards can beat you up quite a bit - but it's never too bad. ‘The views are worth it overall as you're taken to the top of the world with some of the most beautiful surroundings. ‘It's usually quite straightforward to scale roofs but in Russia it's a little bit more tricky - that's the main place where it can be dangerous.’ The death-defying ‘skywalkers’ have garnered a huge following online and insist they don't do it for the attention. Mr Makhorov said: ‘A lot of people really like what we do and say 'well done' but we're just focused on enjoying what we do and seeing the most spectacular cities from above. ‘You can get better than that - but we certainly wouldn't recommend everybody having a go because of course it is dangerous.’ Greetings from Benidorm: People and beach umbrellas look like ants from the skywalkers' view from the top, who now have a huge following online but insist they don't do it for the attention . Will master every city: Climbing to death-defying heights to take their photographs, the pair (Mr Makhorov pictured) plan to keep scaling sky high structures in cities around the world . See the world like no one else: Mr Raskalov leans precariously from a building to get his desired shot high above the streets of the picturesque city of Prague in the Czech Republic . Don't look down: The duo, who scaled structures in Paris (left) and Warsaw (right), do not recommend other punters try out their stunts, saying it is too dangerous . Skyscraper scaling: Mr Makhorov and Mr Raskalov (left to right) stand overlooking the Polish city of Warsaw, saying it is 'quite straightforward' to scale roofs . View from the top: Mr Raskalov multitasks his climb and a phone call in Benidorm, terrifyingly high above the world below . No freefall in Frankfurt: The 'skywalkers' say they're focussed on enjoying their adventures and seeing the most spectacular cities in the world from far above . Sunshine on high: The incredible view that Mr Raskalov and Mr Makhorovas enjoyed as the sun goes down over Paris .", "An elderly British couple who fell victim to pickpockets as they returned to their hotel in Benidorm incredibly got their belongings back after confronting the duo - and it was all caught on camera. Brian and Joan Ogden, from Wigan, had been out to eat and were on their way back into the Hotel Don Pancho when the organised pair collaborated to take a wallet. CCTV footage from the hotel shows the thief in a purple top reaching into the pocket of Mr Ogden, 80, while her accomplice attempts to block the view of Mrs Ogden, 78. But they weren't to be fooled. A pickpocket (right in the purple top) follows Bruce Ogden into the Hotel don Pancho in Benidorm . The thief reaches into Mr Ogden's pocket while her accomplice stands between Mr Ogden and his wife Joan . The pickpocket is then shown handing the wallet to her accomplice after taking it from Mr Ogden . Grainy CCTV footage outside the hotel shows Mr Ogden get the wallet back from one of the thieves . After the pickpocket in purple sneakily handed the wallet to her cohort, Mr and Mrs Ogden followed the crooks out of the hotel and in a short exchange asked for the wallet back, and got it. The Ogden's son Mick said his parents were tougher than they look. 'They'd been for something to eat before they got the bus back to Alicante, before they flew home,' he recounted. 'I got a call from them saying they'd been robbed, then we found out what happened - these scumbags had followed them right up to the hotel. 'They'd been following my mum and dad for a bit, and my mum saw them so she hung back as they got to the door, and saw one of them put their hand in my dad's pocket. 'So she runs back after them and gets their stuff back. When they rang me, they thought they'd lost their credit cards, but nothing was lost. Mrs Ogden points at the thieves as they leave while Mr Ogden checks nothing else was taken . Happy grandfather Brian Ogden, with his granddaughter Rosanna, got his wallet back from thieves . Joan Ogden, 78, spotted the thieves in action as they stole from the pocket of Brian Ogden, 80 . 'The annoying point for me, this four star hotel they were at, they said they know (the pickpockets). I've been coming for years and have never seen anything like this before.' Hotel Don Pancho's guest relationship manager, Ana Labord, said pickpockets are a problem in Benidorm 'especially when tourists go to the busy open markets' but there is little that can be done. 'I showed (the Ogdens) the images, we have many security cameras and they were right by the entrance, you can see they were followed from the main road then down the walkway,' she said. 'Usually they don't go that far as there are cameras, but I guess they must have had a bad day. They tried to pickpocket them, but they realised and asked for their things back.' The four-star Hotel don Pancho in Benidorm, where the Ogdens were staying on holiday . Mr and Mrs Ogden were about to catch a bus to Alicante before flying home when they were robbed . She added that the Ogdens were brave to have confronted the thieves, an action she wouldn't necessarily recommend. 'Everyone has to make their own decisions,' she said. 'I personally wouldn't confront a thief like that but in this case they did, and you can see it worked out, they clearly did the right thing as they got their wallets back. 'Everybody should be careful, and sometimes you shouldn't confront them, but in Benidorm it's not violence that's a problem, just the pickpocketing like any other busy tourist area.'", "By . Gerard Couzens . A British fugitive accused of helping two violent robbers escape by attacking a prison van as they travelled to court, has been arrested in Benidorm. Paul Taylor was detained by armed police as he ate at a terrace cafe with friends. An international arrest warrant was issued for Taylor after the spectacular April 30 2013 rush-hour raid on a prison van carrying Ryan MacDonald, 21, and Stevie McMullen, 32, to Manchester Crown Court from Britain's first privately financed prison HMP Altcourse in Merseyside. A British fugitive accused of helping two violent robbers escape by attacking a prison van as they travelled to court, has been arrested in Benidorm . An international arrest warrant was issued for Paul Taylor after the spectacular April 30 2013 rush-hour raid on a prison van carrying Ryan MacDonald, 21, and Stevie McMullen, 32, to Manchester Crown Court from Britain's first privately financed prison HMP Altcourse in Merseyside . McMullen was due to appear on conspiracy to rob charges and MacDonald was due to be formally sentenced for unconnected offences of conspiracy to commit robbery. Three men wearing balaclavas smashed a car into the side of the van on a busy road and threatened one of the guards with a sawn-off shotgun after bringing the vehicle to a halt and breaking its windows with axes and sledgehammers. The prison break fugitives, dubbed the 'most wanted men in Britain' while they on the run, were captured within days after a £10,000 reward was offered for information on their whereabouts. Ryan MacDonald, 20, left, and and Stevie . McMullen, 32, right, were both convicted of conspiracy to possess an . imitation firearm at Minshull Street Crown Court, Manchester. Both . pleaded guilty to conspiracy to escape at earlier hearings . McMullen was held following a police swoop on a car on the A6 near Lancaster and McDonald was nabbed at a house in Ordsall, Greater Manchester. A gang of men and women were later convicted over the daring escape. Taylor, 25, is now being held at a prison near Madrid after an extradition hearing in the Spanish capital. He is expected to be flown back to Britain in the next few days. The two unnamed Brits with him have been bailed after being arrested on suspicion of using a stolen car and motorbike. They now face trial in Spain. The arrests were carried out by Spain's National Police Fugitives Unit, led by Olga Lizana, which last year tracked down and detained 40 British criminals and suspects. Taylor was detained in Benidorm, Costa Blanca . Detective Inspector Lizana, who keeps a 28in machete in her office which she confiscated from fugitive armed robber Andrew Moran after arresting him at his Costa Blanca home last May, has warned British criminals hiding out in Spain she is on their tail. She said recently: 'We will be spoiling their holidays in Spain very soon.' A spokesman for Spain's National Police, identifying the arrested Brit trio only by their initials, said today: 'Spanish National Police officers have arrested in Benidorm a fugitive wanted by the UK for crimes including assisting the escape of prisoners and unlawful possession of a weapon. 'He was located in a cafe in Benidorm together with two other individuals who have also been arrested for driving a motorbike and car stolen in the United Kingdom. 'The arrested fugitive, aided by two armed men, helped two prisoners to escape from a van which was taking them from HMP Altcourse to Manchester Crown Court.' Nearly £4,000 in cash and four mobiles phones were seized from the British trio. Security was stepped up at Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester, today, pictured, amid fears the duo may plan another escape during their trial . Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.", "NHS officials in the West Midlands are proposing to pay family doctors £150 an hour – as well as £200 towards staffing costs - to work on Easter Saturday . GPs are in revolt over NHS plans to offer them a ‘paltry’ £650 for opening their surgeries on the morning of Easter Saturday. Officials in the West Midlands are proposing to pay family doctors £150 an hour – as well as £200 towards staffing costs – to work for three hours that morning. But a number of GPs have condemned the size of the payments and say they’ll only turn up if the money is 'quadrupled'. The offer is being made by NHS managers in the West Midlands to avert an expected surge in A&E attendances over the Easter weekend, in early April. Most GP surgeries will be closed for four days in a row from Good Friday, 3rd April, through to Easter Monday, which is also a bank holiday. Many patients who fall ill in this time will go to A&E as they are still unaware of how to contact their out-of-hours service or of the NHS 111 helpline. A&E units are still under intense pressure even though winter is almost over and the numbers of seriously ill patients has declined. Figures for last week showed that the NHS as a whole failed to meet the target of ensuring that 95 per cent of patients were seen within four hours. This has not been met since September but health officials are hoping that the situation will finally improve in April, when the weather turns milder and winter illnesses begin to abate. But they are concerned that a sudden surge in demand when GPs are closed over Easter will cause extra pressures and set hospitals back again. NHS officials are offering surgeries in the region covering Birmingham, Solihull, Hereford and Worcester £650 to open for three hours. This includes £150 per hour paid to one GP for three hours and the remaining £200 to pay for receptionists or practice nurses. Guidance obtained by Pulse magazine urges practices to sign-up to the arrangement by tomorrow afternoon. It states: ‘We are keen for practices to offer sessions if possible and have agreed a costing. ‘Please confirm if you wish to participate at earliest convenience to allows us to assess impact and by close of play on Wednesday 11th March at the latest.' The offer is being made by NHS managers in the West Midlands to avert an expected surge in A&E attendances over the Easter weekend, but many GPs have said the offer should be 'quadrupled' (file picture) There are 600 practices in two regions being offered the payments which include the Birmingham, Solihull and the Black Country as well as Arden, Herefordshire and Worcestershire. But a number of GPs took to the Pulse website to express their disgust at the size of the payments. One wrote: ‘GPs in England work for such paltry sums it’s embarrassing.’ Another said: ‘Now they’ve established the principle of paying, tell em to quadruple it.’ One, a GP partner, a senior doctor in charge of a surgery, said: ‘I do not get out of bed for less than £300 per hour’ – although it was not clear from his tone whether he was joking. And a practice nurse said: ‘A plumber would get paid more, a solicitor would get that per hour. We are seen of no value.’", "By . Deni Kirkova . A 17 stone woman who was 'mortified' by her holiday pictures vowed to shed her extra weight and did so in spectacular fashion - dropping seven stone and completing a beach babe transformation. Keri Irvine, 23, from Liverpool went on a trip to Benidorm, Spain, with her friends last year and felt she looked 'slim and nice' - but her photographs told a different story. The former Primark sales assistant tipped the scales at 16 stone 11lbs and seeing how large she had become was a shock. Keri Irvine on a trip to Benidorm with her friends last year (l) and after her transformation in just a year (r) Since Keri began a strict diet programme her weight has plummeted seven stone - and she is turning heads wherever she goes, weighing a svelte 10 stone. Thrilled Keri said: 'I was mortified when I saw the holiday photographs. I honestly didn't realise how big I was until seeing them. 'I'm going to Turkey this year so the bikinis will be coming out and there will be no covering up.'I will be showing of my body now I'm able to fit into smaller clothes. 'I have always been a shy girl but in Benidorm I never wore a bikini because I looked huge. I didn't realise I looked so big, though. 'Going out of a night I never really got attention, I just wore T-shirt and shorts on the beach and in the night long dresses to cover up.' Unhappy Keri would binge eat on junk food like crisps, cakes, fizzy drinks and sweets to make herself feel better. Kari was horrified by her holiday snaps and seeing how big she was was the final straw before she took action . In a typical day, the brunette would tuck into a Kit-Kat or chocolate bar for breakfast, her lunch would be a sandwich, chocolate biscuits with Coca-Cola and tea would be pizza. Confidence boost: Keri says she enjoys the attention her new body shape brings . After every evening meal, which was always something 'quick and easy', like a microwave meal, she would gorge herself on ice cream and puddings. But the 5ft 5in beauty ballooned to an unhealthy weight and fatty foods began to take their toll on Keri's body. Three years ago, she had to have her gall bladder removed because her diet of junk food caused gall stones. After seeing the holiday photos she finally joined slimming plan Herbalifeplan - and is now a brand distributor. Keri said: 'Herbalife have a range of foods, like protein bars, vitamins and formulas for milkshakes to fight the flab. The F1 shakes have all the nutrition your body needs to get you through the day. 'I did the plan because it fits in with my lifestyle if I’m on the go I can just take my shake with me or my healthy snacks. 'I lost the weight because I was depressed and ashamed of how I looked. I hated going into shops and having to buy bigger sizes it was embarrassing. I also knew I needed to lose the weight for my health and after seeing holiday snaps from Benidorm I knew I had to take action in getting into shape.' Morning : A biscuit- something quick . Lunch time: A sandwich and crisps . Dinner time: Microwave meal with a side or pizza and garlic bread . Snacks: Crisps,cakes, biscuit, Coca-Cola . Morning: F1 Herbalife shake and beverage teaMid-morning: Fruit or a protein barAfternoon: Shake with tea againMid-afternoon:  Fruit or a protein bar or a small healthy snack and teaDinner time: Chicken or fish with veg . *Shakes are a large part of the diet until target weight is reached. They are then used to help maintain. She said: 'I was depressed had no social . life because I was too scared of what people would think of me. I never . talked to boys because I thought they would not like me because of my . weight. 'I hated . going out the shop and having to buy size 20 clothing so I would just . binge eat to make the feelings go away - but obviously things got worse, . a lot worse. 'I used to be a size 18 to 20 but now I can just pick up a size 10 without trying it on, I feel like a new woman. 'When I walk down the street or I'm out in town boys I can see boys looking at me, they never used to and it's nice. 'I . don't have a boyfriend yet though but I've got a better chance at a . relationship now I'm not so overweight - so I'm sure it's only a matter . of time.' Keri will stop having Herbalife products every day on her strict diet regime when she reaches her target weight of nine-and-a-half stone. She then plans to continue to eat healthy months - and use the shakes or low fat snacks to help hr maintain her new weight. She was a size 18 to 20 but now can just pick up a size 10 without trying it on .", "Whether it's Y-fronts, boxers or patterned trunks, when it comes to underwear most men stick with what they know and like. And while different pockets of the nation yield their own outerwear trends, few would imagine that undergarments are as heavily influenced by geography. But it seems men in some parts of the country have more in common with their neighbours than once thought, with different styles of underwear sweeping Britain's regions. Scroll down for video . The underwear map highlights the different trends among male shoppers by region in Britain last year . While those in Scotland stick with trusty jersey trunks, men in Norwich and across the north west prefer Y-fronts - the favourite of local fictional character Alan Partridge. Label-loving football cities like Manchester and Liverpool sell more designer underwear than any other kind, with Armani boxers a favourite among the male population. Tight, bright and patterned pants are the firm favourite in the north east, while further south,comfort triumphs over style, with those in the south west sticking with loose fitting, woven boxers. The trends were highlighted by consumer trends among male shoppers across Britain in a report carried out by John Lewis. And while most would think a man's underpants were safe from ever-changing trends, experts say what goes on underneath is just as important as what the rest of the world sees. Nick Keyte, Head of Menswear, said at the department store said: 'Understanding regional trends is a really important part of our job. 'While comfort is key to men’s shopping behaviour when it comes to clothing, a continued trend to experiment with colour and prints has been reflected in our shoppers’ underwear choices. 'The modern man wants to express his personality throughout his wardrobe.' Y-fronts were the common choice in the North East made popular by the fictional Norwich DJ Alan Partridge played by Steve Coogan (pictured) Tight, bright and colour underwear is what men in the North East prefer as modelled by Geordie Shore stars . Designer boxers in label-loving Manchester and Liverpool were the most popular with local footballers like David Beckham, a former Manchester United player,  modelling the cities' favourite brand, Armani (pictured) Londoners opted for more eccentric colours and patterns with the capital showing the highest number of sales for pink boxers and socks, a favourite of Prince Harry (pictured) The 2014 report revealed the changing ways Britons shop, with a fifth of all money spent on retail now being handed over online. This Christmas was the first year online shopping was more popular on mobile phones and tablets than at desktop computers. Sunday was the most popular day for web-surfers and certain events saw a surge in specific items throughout the year. Bank Holiday weekends brought about a rise in the number of SatNavs sold, while the popularity of Channel 4 programme Goggle Box encouraged more people to buy TV dinner trays. Speaking of the research, titled How We Live, Shop and Look, John Street, Managing Director of the department store said: 'It seems fitting that in our 150th year as a retailer we are reflecting on the nation’s shopping habits. 'Since our first shop opened in 1864, John Lewis has a barometer for changing trends and tastes. 'This year’s report is even more insightful than last year’s, with richer data, including new sections, such as how the nation shops for its children. We hope that in years to come people will turn to our report for a nostalgic glimpse of the trends that shaped the nation’s shopping habits.'", "By . Gerard Couzens . PUBLISHED: . 06:25 EST, 16 July 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 08:21 EST, 16 July 2013 . Brian Charrington was arrested in Spain by police targeting cocaine smuggling between Europe and South America . A suspected British drugs baron, described as 'one of the top ten most investigated criminals in Europe', has . been arrested in Spain accused of trying to smuggle cocaine into Europe. Brian Charrington, 57, a former . associate of notorious gangster Curtis Warren, was detained along with . his son on the Costa Blanca near Alicante. The former Middlesbrough car . dealer's girlfriend, who detectives allege had travelled to Venezuela to . organise a shipment of cocaine back to Europe on a yacht, has also been . held. More details of the . police operation, which led to the seizure of 485 pounds (220 kilos) of cocaine worth . £10million at an apartment in Albir near Benidorm, were due to be given . later today at a press briefing in Madrid. Britain's Serious Organised Crime . Agency, Venezuelan police and a regional 18-member-state police . organisation called Ameripol set up to fight drugs trafficking, were . also involved. Seven people were arrested in Spain and six in Venezuela during the joint operation. Spanish police described Charrington . today as 'one of the ten most investigated criminals' by European police . forces and 'leader of an international gang of drugs smugglers.' A court on the Costa Blanca has embargoed bank accounts, property and other assets worth more than £5million. Two years ago his fortune was put at £20million. In the eighties he teamed up with Curtis . Warren, whose personal fortune was so large he appeared on the Sunday . Times Rich List, to import cocaine to the UK from Venezuela. Spanish police say they seized 485 pounds of cocaine worth £10million from the Benidorm flat (file picture) The pair were arrested in early 1992 . after a shipment of almost 2,000 pounds (900 kilos) of cocaine sealed inside lead . ingots in steel boxes was discovered. The subsequent trial collapsed after it transpired Charrington was a police informant for the North-East Regional Crime Squad. Britain's security forces went on to re-home him in Australia but his visa was revoked shortly after his arrival. He then moved to Spain where he is accused of building up a drugs empire. Charrington was acquitted in two drugs trials . in the UK before being extradited to Germany and sentenced to seven . years jail in 2003 for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the country. His son Brian Charrington Jr served four years and three months. Charrington senior was extradited to . France following his release in 2006 to serve a two year prison term . over the discovery of 1,433 pounds (650 kilos) of hashish found on his yacht in the . English Channel in 1995. Mark Lilley was arrested in Spain earlier this month at a panic room in his luxury Malaga villa . Fugitive armed robber Andrew Moran was arrested by the swimming pool of his Costa Blanca villa in May . In 2004 he lost a civil suit against . the Assets Recovery Agency over more than £2million found in his loft . which he and Curtis Warren disputed the ownership of. His arrest is the third high-profile detention of a British criminal by Spanish police in the past three months. Fugitive armed robber Andrew Moran was arrested by the swimming pool of his Costa Blanca villa in May. Earlier this month wanted drugs . trafficker Mark Lilley was arrested naked at a panic room in his luxury . villa in Alhaurin de la Torre near Malaga. The 41-year-old, originally from . Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside, is expected to be extradited to the UK . within weeks to start a 23-year-jail sentence. Spain remains a popular destination for British criminals, who exploited the lack of an extradition treaty between the two countries for several years until 1985.", "While Angelina Jolie's wedding dress may not have won a roundly positive reaction - decorated in Crayola-style doodles by her children - the Hollywood couple's choice of wedding location is proving far more popular. News that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie finally tied the knot has prompted a massive surge in traveller interest in the French village where they wed, traffic data from TripAdvisor has revealed. Over a one week period, Correns in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region has seen a huge 1,161 per cent uplift in traffic to its listing when compared to the equivalent period in 2013. Brad and Angelina at the Oscars this year before they finally tied the knot in France . James Kay, a spokesperson for the travel website, said: 'It is amazing how quickly a bit of Hollywood glamour can spark global interest in even the smallest destination. 'And the recent surge in travellers researching Correns on TripAdvisor is further proof of that. 'If you are planning a trip there though, you may have to form an orderly queue since it only has one hotel, or you can book one of the 55 holiday rentals currently listed on TripAdvisor.' One visitor, who stayed at Auberge du Parc, the only hotel in Correns open to the public, said: 'If you are looking for wonderful food, in a lovely little village, that's what you are going to find here. A bird's eye view of Correns in the South of France where the Hollywood couple wed . Chateau Miraval: the wine growing estate in Correns owned by Brad and Angelina . 'We stayed there for one night. The bedroom and bathroom are spacious with quite simple decoration. But the dinner was one of the best we ever had!' Another holiday-goer raved, 'The hotel is small and very charming with beautiful decoration in a sort of Italian-Provencal style. We will be back!' The superstar couple tied the knot over the weekend in a chapel at Chateau Miraval, their sprawling estate nestled in an ancient village in the south of France. The chateau is located in the town of Correns, which, according to Miraval's website, is the first 'organic village' in France. Quiet down: But Correns is expecting an influx of visitors after the celebrity couple got married there . The area is known for wine producing and the village only has one hotel which is open to the public . The property is surrounded by a moat, and boasts a spa, two gyms, and an indoor swimming pool. The grounds feature a lake and are lush with forest, olive trees, and vineyards. The pair first leased the 35-bedroom property in 2008, before purchasing it for a reported $60 million in 2012. They allegedly spend their summers at the 1000-acre estate with their six children. The home is also where Brad proposed to Angelina in early 2012, and where she spent the last few months of her pregnancy with twins Knox and Vivienne in 2008. It's not the first time the sleepy village has found fame. In 1979 the rock group Pink Floyd recorded part of their album The Wall at Studio Miraval in Correns.", "By . Tahira Yaqoob . PUBLISHED: . 03:23 EST, 12 August 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 05:40 EST, 15 August 2013 . Sharjah: The expat and his young son died instantly when their driver lost control of the vehicle . A British father and his seven-year-old son were killed when a dozing driver ploughed into them as they were walking in the street in the United Arab Emirates. The 48-year-old man and his son died instantly in the horrific road accident, which injured six pedestrians and left the driver hospitalised. The incident happened at 1am on Friday during a long bank holiday weekend to mark Eid, the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Police in Dubai said there were nearly 1,600 road accidents over the bank holiday in that emirate alone. Most . were caused by drivers ignoring road regulations by driving too fast, . changing lanes without warning and not paying enough attention to the . road, said colonel Khazraj Majid Mohammad, deputy director of Dubai . police's command and control centre. The . British expatriate and his son were killed in Al Nahda, a residential . district on the border of Dubai and its neighbouring emirate Sharjah. Police . said the Indian driver had fallen asleep at the wheel of their . Chevrolet Tahoe and lost control of the 4x4, which then veered off the . road and ploughed into the group. The driver, who has not been named, told officers he was exhausted and stressed after working throughout the public holiday. He was taken to Kuwait Hospital in Sharjah for treatment and is being held by police while they investigate the incident. The . two victims were among eight people killed over the weekend in Sharjah. Early on Saturday six members of a Pakistani family, including four . children and their parents, died when their Nissan Altima hit a barrier . before flipping over and bursting into flames. All six victims died at . the scene. The UAE's roads . are notoriously lethal with an average 5,000 driving offences committed . every day. According to police records, there were 400 crashes in the . first two months of the year, resulting in 33 deaths. Notorious: There were nearly 1,600 road accidents over the long Eid weekend in Dubai alone, police said . Recent figures from the World Health Organisation show there are 37.1 road deaths every year per 100,000 inhabitants in the UAE - more than 10 times the number caused by road accidents in the UK.Ramadan sees the number of road accidents in the Islamic country soaring as fasting Muslims race to get home in time to break their day-long fast at sunset. Last week a family of five, including a nine-month-old baby, were killed when their car ploughed into a vehicle which had stopped in the middle lane of a motorway. And in July, 20-year-old Mohammad Vahedna, an Indian student based in London and visiting family in Dubai, died when his bright yellow Ferrari hit a kerb at speed, then flipped and smashed into a tree before turning into a fireball. The supercar hit the tree with such force, it split in two before bursting into flames as his brother Hashim, 16, watched in horror from a car in front. The pair had been out for the day with friends go-karting at Dubai Autodrome. In a separate incident the same month, three restaurant employees sitting on a wall waiting for a lift home after work were mowed down when a Mercedes spun out of control and crashed into their kitchen in Dubai.", "By . Travelmail Reporter . Around 1.6 million Brits will be heading abroad over Easter, with those staying at home facing packed roads, disrupted rail journeys and the threat of unsettled weather. Popular foreign spots for those going overseas include Spain and its islands, Turkey, Tunisia and Florida, according to UK travel organisation Abta. Top city destinations are Paris, Dublin, Amsterdam, Rome and New York, while bookings for UK breaks are described by Abta as 'healthy'. Easter holiday: 1.6 million Brits are set to leave the UK this weekend for a break abroad . Over the Easter weekend, 370,000 passengers will leave from Heathrow airport, 200,000 from Gatwick, 120,000 from Stansted, 60,000 from Luton and 4,500 from Bournemouth. In the north of England and the Midlands, 110,000 will leave from Manchester airport, 45,000 from Birmingham and 23,000 from East Midlands, while more than 100,000 will be leaving via the Scottish airports. Thousands will also take ferry services to the continent, while Channel Tunnel high-speed train company Eurostar is expecting to carry more than 130,000 passengers over the holiday weekend - a 15 per cent increase on numbers at Easter 2013. While those heading for the sunshine abroad can expect high temperatures, those having a break in Britain are being warned by forecasters to expect isolated showers on Good Friday and Easter Saturday. Easter getaway: 370,000 passengers are forecast to leave the UK flying from Heathrow Airport this weekend . Easter holiday: Turkey is one of the most popular destinations for a getaway . Easter Sunday and Easter Monday are expected to bring unsettled weather in the South, with north east England and the Midlands getting the best of the sunshine, the Met Office said. As is usual over bank holiday weekends, Network Rail is carrying out a large programme of engineering works which will see a number of key routes disrupted. The extensive work will affect services to and from a number of major termini, including London's Charing Cross, London Bridge, Paddington and King's Cross stations. Southampton Central and Sheffield are among other major stations where services will be affected over the weekend. Congestion warning: Some 16 million cars are expected on the UK's roads this weekend . With Easter falling earlier last year and proving distinctly chilly, this Easter is expected to see a rise in the number of vehicles taking to the road. Traffic information company Trafficmaster and the AA have forecast as many as 16 million cars will be on the move over the holiday, with drivers from Northern Ireland the most likely to get behind the wheel and Scots the least likely to do so. Another traffic information company, Inrix, has forecast that the worst-affected congestion hotspots in south east and south west England will be twice as busy over Easter as during non-holiday periods. The company said this Easter's busiest periods will be all day on Thursday, between 10am and 3pm on Good Friday and between 10am and 4pm on Easter Monday. Inrix listed the sections of road likely to be the most congested over the holiday. These include the M4 between Hampshire and the West Country, the western section of the M25, the A303 in Wiltshire, the M55 between Preston and Blackpool, and the M4 between London and Reading in Berkshire.", "By . Deni Kirkova . PUBLISHED: . 11:15 EST, 25 January 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 12:19 EST, 3 February 2013 . A desk bound office worker has stunned his work colleagues by losing over eight stone in five months - by going caveman. IT consultant Jeremy White, 29, of Barry, South Wales ditched his daily snacks at his desk and started eating food from the stone age. Twenty-stone Jeremy knew he had to do something quick after being refused life insurance - and being classified as morbidly obese. Jeremy White, pictured before (right) and after (left), lost over eight stone following the Caveman diet . So after more than 10 years sitting behind a computer screen all day Jeremy, joined a gym. But instead of modern treadmills and cross trainers Jeremy started a programme of climbing ropes and throwing hammers just like his prehistoric forefathers. Jeremy said: 'I've been eating like a caveman - lots of meat and fish, nuts and berries and no processed food at all. 'And when I'm at the gym it is lots of physical lifting and pulling.' Gym addict Jeremy is now super fit and healthy . Jeremy, who is just 5ft 7in, blames his lifestyle sitting behind a desk fixing people's computer problems for his huge waistline. He lived on takeaway meals and avoided any exercise other than hitting the keys on his computer. If he went on holiday he would stay dressed in shorts and T-shirts - just like the Johnny Vegas character in TV's Benidorm. Jeremy said: 'I was too embarrassed to go anywhere near the pool or the beach. His fitness trainer said Jeremy's had the 'best results I have ever seen' as he 'did everything 100 per cent'. Jeremy's girlfriend Rebecca Matthews, 28, is looking at holiday brochures for the pair this summer . 'My family and friends would be trying to get me to go out with them but I didn't want to go anywhere.' Jeremy had promised himself for years that he would lose weight. And with his 30th birthday looming he knew he had to do something. But the crunch came last August when Jeremy was turned down for life insurance. He said: 'I realised I had to do something quick and luckily for me my new caveman lifestyle worked.'I lost a few stone very quickly and the life insurance company changed their minds.' But the most staggering change is when Jeremy is at his desk in work where just six months ago he could hardly fit. The new slimmer Jeremy - now weighing 12 stone - has delighted his girlfriend Rebecca Matthews, 28, who is looking at holiday brochures for the pair this summer. And he now wants to inspire other people to go caveman to lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle. Steve Anning(CORR), his health guru and fitness trainer at he Fighting Fit gym in Barry, said: 'Jeremy's had the best results I have ever seen - he did everything 100 per cent. 'He's trained and eaten exactly as he should have.' Jeremy now wants to inspire other people to go caveman to lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle . The Paleolithic 'Caveman' diet dos and don'ts... SOURCE: . The Paleo Diet .", "A British couple face being stranded in Spain for at least three months after their baby boy was born 12 weeks prematurely during a family holiday. Karla Hornby said she thought she was going to die when she gave birth to baby Freddie, weighing just 2lbs, by emergency caesarean section while on holiday in Benidorm with her partner Jordan Jackson. The couple have now been told they will have to stay in Spain for at least three months while Freddie builds up his strength. But Mr Jackson, 21, a soldier in the army's Royal Logistics corps, who has served in Afghanistan, is meant to report back for service tomorrow. Stranded: Karla Hornby and Jordan Jackson are facing the prospect of spending three months in Spain while their baby boy Freddie builds up his strength. Ms Hornby also has a daughter Charlie, seven (pictured) Premature: Freddie weighed just 2lbs after being born by emergency caesarean section while on holiday in Benidorm. His mother has spoken of her surprise after suddenly going into labour 12 weeks prematurely . The pair had travelled to the Spanish resort for a final relaxing break before Ms Hornby was due to give birth in three months' time. Ms Hornby, who is already a mum to seven-year-old Charlie, had been cleared to fly by medical staff but was given a surprise when she suddenly went into labour. The 29-year-old said: 'On Saturday we were relaxing by the pool when my waters suddenly broke - I was in complete and utter shock.' She was taken to hospital, where doctors found that she was already 2cm dilated and transferred her to a bigger hospital. 'Jordan wasn't allowed in the ambulance with me and the staff didn't speak any English so I had no idea what was going on - my contractions were getting stronger,' Ms Hornby added. Costly trip: Freddie's family from Bolton, Greater Manchester, have so far been able to use insurance to pay for medical costs but they are now facing the prospect of supporting themselves in Spain for three months . Shocked: Ms Hornby thought she was going to die when she gave birth three months prematurely . 'In hospital I was bleeding heavily - it was the scariest thing that has ever happened to me. 'I had one big contraction and bled heavily, so they rushed me to theatre - I was shaking and I couldn't breathe, I thought I was going to die.' An emergency c-section was performed but the couple weren't able to see Freddie until the following evening. She said: 'I couldn't stop crying, I was so relieved that he was OK but he just looked so small - I was desperate to pick him up.' The family from Bolton, Greater Manchester, have been able to use insurance to pay for medical costs but have already had to pay £1,000 for a hotel. They are now facing the prospect of supporting themselves in Spain for at least three months as Freddie gains the strength needed to fly home. Their family and friends are doing everything they can to raise money to help and a funding website has already raised more than £900. Mr Jackson's mother, Vickie Cunliffe, said: 'It has been so frightening for everyone - we are just trying to think of as many ways as possible to raise money to help them.' Ms Hornby's best friend Lisa Johnston said: 'We just want as many people as possible to get in touch and do what they can to help them survive over there.' To donate to the funding page, visit www.gofundme.com/st3kxfk . Katie Amos, 30, with her fiancé Lee Johnston, 29, and their son Dax. The couple's baby boy arrived unexpectedly after Ms Amos went into labour prematurely while the pair were sightseeing in New York . The case of little Freddie is not the first time a premature baby born abroad has left a couple stranded. Earlier this year fellow British couple Katie Amos, 30, and fiancé Lee Johnston, 29, got stuck in New York with a £130,000 medical bill after their baby son was born 11 weeks prematurely while they were on a four-day getaway. The couple welcomed son Dax unexpectedly after Ms Amos went into labour while sightseeing in the Big Apple. The pair, whose son weighed just 3lbs, were told by doctors the newborn was not able to fly back to the family home in Burgh-le-Marsh, Lincolnshire, until March. American doctors said the pair's medical bills would reach £130,000 ($200,000), leaving the couple stranded overseas with limited clothes and money.", "By . Mark Duell . Parts of Britain are today basking in sunshine with temperatures set to hit 21C and people flocking outdoors for a Bank Holiday barbecue. The best sunshine is in the East from London up to Lincoln, although outbreaks of rain are expected to arrive from the West this evening. The high temperatures compare with 18 or 19C in some of the northern and coastal areas of Greece. But the rest of the UK is cooler and unsettled in some areas with Northern Ireland failing to . reach double figures and outbreaks of rain in Scotland. Figures from Asda and Waitrose suggest the sunshine has inspired a wave of impromptu barbecues, with both reporting spikes in sales. Lovely weather: Catalina (left), nine, and Kadie, five, play amongst the bluebells at Witton Country Park in Blackburn, Lancashire . Beautiful day: Marigold Wood, of Winchester, Hampshire, enjoys the sunshine and the stunning flowers at Mottisfont Abbey, near Southampton . Having fun: Freya Burgess, five, plays in fields of dandelion seed heads in Shepton Mallet, Somerset . Picture postcard: People enjoy a walk in the bluebells on Bank Holiday Monday at Rannerdale near Buttermere in Cumbria . Messy: Revellers throw fresh raspberries and powder paint in an event marking the return of Kopparberg Raspberry, at Vibe Bar in Brick Lane, east London . Simply red: Participants pose together after the paint throwing event in Brick Lane, east London . Weather: The best sunshine is in the East from London up to Lincoln, although outbreaks of rain from the West to the East are expected to arrive this evening . But be warned if you're heading for the woods, because zoologists say the mild and damp conditions have provided the perfect breeding ground for ticks. Bristol University zoology professor Richard Wall found up to 300 of the blood-sucking parasites living in 10 sq ft of urban park land in the city. Meanwhile, supermarkets are reporting increases in sales of barbecue meats and picnic food such as cocktail sausages, pork pies and scotch eggs. Steve Peppiatt, branch manager at the Waitrose store in Twyford, Berkshire, said: 'May Bank Holidays often give Brits a first flavour of summer. Flags: Eden Charles-Lyne, four, builds a sandcastle on West Wittering beach in West Sussex as Britons take full advantage of the sunny Bank Holiday weather . Lying down: People sunbathing on Brighton beach in East Sussex as thousands of people visit the area this weekend . Busy: People walking on Brighton Promenade and next to the beach as sunseekers make the most of the weather . On the beach: Leona Jasmin, two, of Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, building sand castles on a day trip to Blackpool, Lancashire, on a sunny Bank Holiday Monday . Music: A young guitarist makes the most of the Bank Holiday hot weather at Avenham Park in Preston, Lancashire . Running for it: A jogger makes his way through Avenham Park in Preston as many people in Britain head outdoors on Bank Holiday Monday . Taking it easy: People enjoying the sunshine at St James's Park in Central London today . Stuck: Traffic queing at the Blackwall Tunnel in South-East London on Bank Holiday Monday . ‘And this weekend has not disappointed. Al fresco dining has clearly been top of the agenda. 'Sales of barbecue meats sizzling and . pre-prepared salads [have been] soaring alongside seasonal favourites . including Jersey Royals and British asparagus - which is up 28 per cent . year on year. ‘Customers . have also been dusting off their picnic blankets and stocking up on . picnic must-haves including cocktail sausages, pork pies and scotch . eggs.' Ticks . should be removed from the skin as soon as possible using fine-tipped . tweezers. Health officials also advise regularly checking your body - . especially skin folds - for the parasites. To . avoid bites, use a repellent on skin, avoid contact with tall . vegetation, walk on paths or tracks rather than in long grass, wear . light coloured clothing and tuck trousers into socks. Pet owners have also been urged to check their cats and dogs for fleas and ticks to ensure their animals are free of them. Ticks . can spread a terrifying array of diseases, including the bacterial . infection Lyme Disease which can be fatal to both humans and dogs. Some of the rarer illnesses passed on by the insects include Q fever, Colorado tick fever and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Late spring, early summer and autumn are peak times for tick bites, with the parasites often found when it is warm and damp. A Lidl spokesman said: ‘We’ve seen an increase of over . one third in sales of our BBQ items this early May Bank Holiday compared to . last year.’ And an Asda spokesman said sales of sausages and barbecue equipment were expected to triple those of April. Professor . Wall's ticks test was carried out at Ashton Park Estate in Bristol, a . popular site for dog walkers and hikers that overlooks the city centre. It . is thought that ferocious winter floods could be responsible for the . increased number of the disease-carrying creatures around the country. Experts say the mild, damp conditions have provided the perfect breeding ground for the blood-sucking parasites. Now . the weather has started to warm up the UK could become overwhelmed by . the tiny creatures, putting pets at risk and spreading deadly bugs like . Lyme Disease. Professor Wall . said: ‘It is important that people check regularly for ticks if they . visit tick infested areas and, if bitten, remove any tick rapidly. ‘The . high number of ticks doesn't make it unsafe to carry on visiting these . areas though - and it is important that is remembered.’ He added: ‘It's important people check both their dog and themselves after a walk. ‘Ticks are often found tucked up in creases of the body, so the arm pits or behind the ears. ‘The best way to remove them is to use tweezers and put them close to the skin and press and twist them out.’ Tonight will see outbreaks of rain pushing eastwards over many parts of the UK, giving a few heavy bursts in places. Early . rain will largely clear tomorrow morning from the East to leave sunny . periods and scattered showers, mainly affecting western parts. Another . rather showery day is expected on Wednesday, with the showers perhaps . merging into longer spells of rain for a time across the South.It will be unsettled for a time on Thursday with showery outbreaks of rain, although it should become drier from the South-West. Nick . Prebble, meteorologist at MeteoGroup, warned today it could be the last . chance to have a barbecue for the next few days as the weather begins . to deteriorate. The Bank Holiday was probably going to prove the warmest day of the week for many, he said. Infestation: A tick embedded in human skin (left), and a close-up of a female tick (right) collected from a deer park in Bristol. Up to 300 were found in 10 sq ft in the park . Infestation: Ronnie Wignall, a researcher, poses with the ticks that she collected at a deer park near Bristol . Test: Miss Wignall collects ticks using a sheet at the park. Zoologists say the mild, damp conditions have provided the perfect breeding ground for the parasites . Experiment: Veterinary surgeon Paul Sands (left) and Bristol University zoology professor Richard Wall (right) with collected ticks, at the deer park near Bristol . Bright start: A jogger at sunrise in Cowpen Bewley Woodland Park near Billingham, County Durham, on Bank Holiday Monday . Beginning of the day: Cattle graze in the early morning sunshine near Weymouth in Dorset . ‘There is fairly patchy rain, with some heavier bursts moving into western Scotland at the moment. I think today will be the last of the completely dry weather so far in some areas. ‘It is going to be unsettled with showers and longer bursts of rain. It is going to be quite changeable. You might see sunshine one minute and then showers the next. ‘Tonight, rain already in western parts will spread eastwards. Showers or rain will move eastwards across the UK.’ A Met Office spokesman said rain overnight would be followed by a fine day with many areas enjoying bright and fairly sunny conditions. ‘We have got showery outbreaks and rain across many western fringes now, it will be going into Wales, the north west of England in the next few hours and western Scotland and that will gradually work its way eastwards.’ The odds on a Thames Water hosepipe ban being enforced this year have been slashed to 6/1 following the Bank Holiday weekend. Bookmakers William Hill said that it is also 8/1 from 10/1 that a temperature of 100F (38C) is recorded in the UK this summer.", "By . Associated Press . Arthur strengthened to a hurricane early Thursday and threatened to give North Carolina a glancing blow on Independence Day, prompting the governor to warn vacationers along the coast not to risk their safety by trying to salvage their picnics and barbecues. Forecasters expect Arthur to whip past the state's Outer Banks on Friday without making landfall. One local remarked that he was more worried about his tomato plants than storm damage. But North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory warned: 'Don't put your stupid hat on.' The first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season prompted a hurricane warning for much of the North Carolina coast and a mandatory evacuation for visitors to the Outer Banks' Hatteras Island as of 5 a.m. Thursday. Residents also were advised to leave the island. A voluntary evacuation was announced for the Outer Banks' Ocracoke Island, accessible only by ferry. The islands are linked by North Carolina Route 12, which has been sliced apart twice in recent years as storms cut temporary channels from the ocean to the sound. Hatteras Island is particularly vulnerable to storm surge and flooding and the road is easily blocked by sand and water. Scroll down for video . In the patch: The Outer Banks of North Carolina are set to get hit with the brunt of Hurricane Arthur on Friday morning, but the storm will blow past New York Friday night with 85mph winds . Upgraded: Arthur was rated a Category I hurricane on Thursday morning after winds picked up to 75mph as it swirled off the coast of South Carolina . Fleeing: Vacationers and residents alike packed up and evacuated the Outer Banks of North Carolina on Wednesday in anticipation of Hurricane Arthur side-swiping the vulnerable barrier islands . In addition to the hurricane warning, tropical storm warnings were in effect for coastal areas in South Carolina and Virginia. Gary Reinhardt, 63, and his wife Lori, both of Sarasota, Florida, said they planned to exit low-lying Hatteras Island on Thursday morning. So were nearly two dozen other family members from California, Nebraska and Michigan. A long line of cars, trailers and recreational vehicles already formed a steady stream of traffic before sunset Wednesday. 'I'm worried about the road. It took way too long to get here,' said Gary Reinhardt, adding that the two-and-a-half-hour delay to get on the island came Sunday, when there was no hurricane threatening. Reinhardt worried their departure would take twice as long Thursday. Mike Rabe of Virginia Beach, Virginia, planned to stay in his beach home the entire weekend. He and his wife, Jan, arrived Wednesday at the house they bought two and a half years ago and set to work stowing lawn furniture and anything else that could be tossed about by hurricane winds. He said he was going to spend Thursday helping a friend and longtime resident prep his nearby water sports shop and campground for bad weather. 'I'm going to help him prepare and then I'm going to ride it out,' said Rabe, 53. Other areas of the Outer Banks were taking a cautious, but still-optimistic approach: No evacuations had been ordered for areas north of Hatteras, including the popular town of Kill Devil Hills, which was the site of the Wright brothers' first controlled, powered airplane flights in December 1903. Warnings: The entire North Carolina coast has been put on notice ahead of Hurricane Arthur . Farther north, the annual Boston Pops Fourth of July concert and fireworks show was moved up a day because of potential heavy rain ahead of Hurricane Arthur. Organizers and public safety officials said the celebration was being rescheduled for Thursday, which appeared to be the best of two potential bad weather days. The holiday weekend was not expected to be a complete loss for the estimated quarter-million visitors vacationing on the Outer Banks. Forecasters said the storm would move through quickly with the worst of the weather near Cape Hatteras about dawn Friday. Then it was expected to clear. In the Myrtle Beach area, the heart of South Carolina's $18 billion tourism industry, Arthur was expected to move by Thursday night, spinning wind gusts from 40 to 50 mph toward the high-rise hotels and condominiums lining the oceanfront. Early Thursday, Arthur was about 340 miles southwest of Cape Hatteras and moving north around 9 mph with maximum sustained winds of 75mph. Rough surf brought great surfing to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Stephen Hunter Hicks is see surfing off Cape Hatteras on Wednesday . Scars: The Hatteras Pier is still broken after it was battered in previous hurricanes . The National Hurricane Center predicted Arthur would swipe the coast early Friday with winds of up to 85mph. The storm would be off the coast of New England later Friday and eventually make landfall in Canada's maritime provinces as a tropical storm, the Hurricane Center predicted. 'Although the current forecast doesn't indicate this will be a major impact, we are taking it very seriously,' McCrory said. 'I don't want you to put at risk not only yourself but also people who may try to help you.' He signed executive orders declaring a state of emergency for 25 counties and one that waives regulations allowing faster restoration of power and debris removal. Generators, lanterns and flashlights, water and other supplies were snapped up in stores on the Outer Banks on Wednesday. Danny Couch of Buxton, who owns and operates a company that offers bus tours of Hatteras and Ocracoke islands, said local businesses have a narrow window to make their money each year. 'We've got that 15-week stretch between Memorial Day and Labor Day, and every week counts. ... The local business community holds its breath as Labor Day approaches but now we're holding our breath for July 4th,' he said. 'These stumbling blocks come up in front of us that have to be surmounted.' But Bill Motley, who works at Ace Hardware in Nags Head and has lived on the Outer Banks for 13 years was not too concerned about storm damage. 'I'm more worried about my tomato plants. With the wind coming, if we get a 50mph gust, it will knock over my tomato plants,' he said. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.", "When Gareth Silk let his five friends plan a stag do, he might have imagined it would involve pranks, costumes and drinking - but denim hotpants and heels were far from his thoughts. Little did he realise his friends from Cwmbran, south Wales, were inspired by the hilarious Money Supermarket advert, featuring a man dressed in shirt and jacket from the waist up and tight booty shorts and stilettos from the waist down. When the men in their matching outfits walked down the street in Benidorm, Spain, they earned cheers, clapping and even policemen driving past waved and laughed. David Rowles snaps the gang, from left to right: Steve Harvey Taylor, Gareth Edwards, Michael Groves, groom Gareth Silk and his father Andrew Silk . David Rowles, 38, who filmed the stag stunt, said: ‘We were in our local pub planning the stag weekend. ‘We decided that whatever the first advert was that came on the TV, that was what we were going to do.’ The Money Supermarket advert featuring 'Dave's epic strut' came on. David said: 'Everyone thought it would be a head-turner.’ The next step for the group was to buy some high heels, and David admitted the men asked their other halves for help in purchasing the right shoes. Each of the men dress in high heels and the video maker noted that some of them were walking 'too well' Michael Groves channels Dave's 'epic strut' from the original ad that quickly went viral . He added: ‘A couple of them were walking a bit too well in their high heels. It looked like they had been practising.’ Wearing heels earned them blisters along with laughs and attention from the crowds . The group of six - which included the groom-to-be Gareth Silk and his stags Gareth Edwards, Steven Harvey Taylor, Michael Groves, dad Andrew Silk and David Rowles - descended on the promenade of the Spanish resort on March 29. David captured them strutting their stuff on his camera phone. They each wear suits from the waist up with braces over their shirts and denim hot pants and high heels from the waist down. In the video, the men mimic the advert, walking towards the camera in a line of five, with groom Gareth in the middle, pulling a variety of humorous poses from the TV commercial. Later in the video the stag do can be seen garnering much attention from locals, holiday goers and even the police. Mr Rowles said: ‘The whole promenade was at a standstill. People were cheering and clapping and all different nationalities stood around to watch and take photos. ‘A police car went past and I was trying to get them to beep their sirens. They waved and laughed – they were fine. ‘I’ve been on many stag weekends and this was probably one of the best. We couldn’t believe the attention.' The stag do garnered a lot of attention from locals, other holiday goers and even the police . Unfortunately for the group however, who wore their outfits from 1pm until 7pm, there were repercussions and the men each had sore feet to contend with for the rest of the trip. ‘We joked before we left saying that someone was bound to break their ankle. Luckily no one did, but they all got blisters,’ said David. According to the filmmaker, the group have already made plans to go on a fishing trip to Ireland in the near future. The original ad stars American Michael Van Schoick, who has been forced to deny he's had buttock implants, insisting his bottom is all natural. In the ad he struts and twerks to the Pussycat Dolls' hit Don't Cha.", "By . Jenny Hope . An NHS hospital paid £1,800  for an agency nurse to work  a single shift at its accident and emergency unit. The huge amount was for 11 hours work – equivalent to a payment of just over £163 an hour. The £1,800 total is thought to be the highest figure ever paid for a nursing shift in the NHS, although the gap between rates for NHS staffers and agency locums at every level has been widening in recent years. An unidentified nurse was paid £1,800 for one shift at the Maidstone Hospital in Kent . The extraordinary shift payment  was made for a nurse covering the  bank holiday on August 26 last year at the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust in Kent. One staff nurse at Maidstone Hospital, who asked not to be named, said:  ‘Most of the nurses here struggle by on £25,000 a year or so. ‘That works out at about £90-£100 a day, so when you see someone coming in and doing the same job as you and getting paid what you take home in a month in just one day it makes you  sick to the stomach.’ A Freedom of Information request found the  Maidstone Trust paid out £4.7million to plug staff shortages between January and November last year, including £2.8million on agency nurses. Other data suggests the total NHS  bill for temporary nurses is set to reach £450million at the end of this financial year – a 21 per cent rise on 2011/12. At least one other trust, the Mid Staffordshire Hospitals Foundation Trust, paid almost £1,800 for a specialist nurse to work 13.5 hours in accident & emergency in December 2011. The Mid Staffordshire Hospitals Foundation Trust paid almost £1,800 for a specialist nurse to work 13.5 hours in accident & emergency in December 2011 . NHS rates for staff filling a  similar permanent post in A&E range between £25,528 and £34,189 a year. In most cases nurses are  provided by private agencies, which normally take commission of at least 20 per cent. David Prior, the chair of the Care Quality Commission, admitted that there are some hospitals in England where you would not want to go as a patient . Such agencies usually pay hourly rates of between £25 and £40 to nursing staff, but have to find more to fill empty positions on bank holidays and meet unexpected surges in demand. Agencies advertise their willingness to pay at least twice as much as full-timers receive for  nurses doing shifts at short notice, and specialist skills attract higher rates. Although Maidstone Hospital may have . paid £1,800 to get the bank holiday shift covered, it does not mean that . 80 per cent of the money automatically went to the nurse. The Royal College of Nursing said it . is up to an agency to decide how much it agrees to pay an individual for . working a shift and this may vary according to demand from its . customers.There are now more than 60 . private firms providing nursing and medical staff to the NHS. Doctors . can earn vast sums for shifts, with one agency doctor at Mid Staffs . getting £5,700 for a day’s work in 2010 and many  consultants raking in . around £3,200 for a single shift. Bosses at the Maidstone and . Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust  said the amounts being paid were too high, . but reflected the rate it had to pay to get workers to come in on public . holidays. Other costs at the trust include 21 agency doctors paid in . excess of £1,000 per shift during 2013. A spokesman for the Maidstone Trust said agency workers were drafted in at critical times, such as peaks in A&E use over bank holidays and staff sickness. A recent report by the Care Quality Commission found that the trust had high use of temporary staff in the past, but that it was improving. The Trust spokesman said: ‘We thoroughly agree that agency charges are too high and that is why we are proactively addressing this issue and have been totally transparent with the Care Quality Commission. ‘Reducing agency use will involve international recruitment, and we need an adult debate about this while the training of more doctors and nurses nationally takes effect.’ There are some hospitals in  England where you would not want to go as a patient, the head of the organisation which inspects them said yesterday. Care Quality Commission chairman David Prior said there  was a postcode lottery in standards of care, adding: ‘The quality of care in one hospital can be very different from the quality of care in another.’ He said England probably  had some of the best-led and best-run hospitals in the world, but added: ‘In those hospitals where you would not wish to go, you have a very poor damaged culture where employees feel they can’t raise concerns, where patients are not listened to.’ He said a number of hospital trusts had been identified as inadequate. ‘Barking, Havering and Redbridge is a good example,’ he told the BBC. ‘Heatherwood and Wexham Park would be another one.’ Mr Prior said many such hospitals were good in parts and added: ‘The critical thing that determines whether a hospital is good, bad or indifferent is the quality of leadership.’", "Multi-million pound yachts, private jets and exclusive bolt-holes are not only the preserve of the super rich. If you know where to look, how to shop and when to book you can save thousands of pounds on exclusive travel deals. From private islands and Aston Martins to castles and 75ft yachts, TravelMail brings you an expert guide to holidaying like millionaire - no six-figure salary or Coutts bank account necessary. Scroll down for video . If you know where to look and when to book you can holiday like millionaire - no six-figure salary necessary . Private jets . If you think chartering a private jet is only possible for the likes of Beyonce, oligarchs and diplomats, you are in luck. Jetsuite.com lets those with a far smaller bank balance book private jets for vastly reduced rates. Look up the SuiteDeals section of their website, which has last minute group bookings where tickets within the US start at $536 (£369) each way (for the whole jet), or use their subscription service to be notified via text message if a route you are planning suddenly becomes available. The routes and times on offer are limited but, if you are flexible, it will more than pay off. Between a group of travellers, the price works out at not much more than a commercial flight. For European or international flights, try PrivateFly's Empty Legs option. ‘Empty legs’ are cut-price return trips made by private jets after dropping off someone who originally chartered the plane - but didn't need the journey back. Instead of sending the jet back empty, the company lists it for up to 75 per cent off for Joe Normal Blogs. If you fill it with eight of your friend it can work out cheaper than EasyJet. Current deals include London to New York on a Legacy 650, or Luxembourg to Singapore with a Legacy 600 Executive. For European or international flights, try PrivateFly's 'Empty Legs' option which will get you 75 per cent off . Private Islands and castles . Websites such as Airbnb, HomeAway and VRBO have changed the way we holiday, and paved the way for exclusive rentals for next to nothing. Stay in a castle in the Lake District (£95 per night), a stately home in Wiltshire (£150 per night) and a private island in the Philippines (£234 per night - based on ten people staying in a two-storey house on the beach) through Airbnb. The company now spans an empire of more than 35,000 cities and 190 countries around the world. Castle Augill in the Lake District, England was built in 1841, sleeps 16 and can be rented for £95 per night . A dining room in Augill Castle in Kirkby Stephen. The property has 15 acres and can be rented via Airbnb . James McClure, Airbnb UK Country Manager says, ‘By opening up their homes and local experiences, hosts give guests insight that can easily rival any of the world's top concierges. 'And with a wide range of choices across every style and size imaginable, we offer life-changing experiences that don't have to break the bank.’ ‘You can enjoy unique travel experiences with prices starting from under £10 a night.... You can stay in an apartment for a night, a castle for a week, a villa for a month or a treehouse for a year.’ Bradley House: You can rent rooms in the home of Queen Jane Seymour's descendants for £150 per night . Rent-an-island: 2,000 sq m Brother Island in the Philippines can be booked for £234 per night for ten people . Mega yachts . Getmyboat.com is the Airbnb of the yacht world. Browse 28,000 boats in 135 different countries that are affordable and able to rent by the day from their owners. If you have a boat you can also list it here to make money while you are not using it. Search by country – popular locations are Croatia, London, Bahamas, Barcelona or California - or vessel, and split the rental cost between a group of friends. Fancy chartering a 75ft Sunseeker Predator? It can be yours for £125 ($187) per person per day. As well as luxury and mega yachts, there are speed boats, kayaks and house boat on offer. The inside of a Sunseeker Predator: one of the many yachts available to rent by the day through Getmyboat . Mark Duncan from YPI says holiday goers can save thousands by travelling in May, June and September . Mark Duncan from Yachting Partners International (YPI) says holiday goers can also save thousands of pounds by booking super yachts either side of high season. ‘You can save anything from 10,000 to 50,000 euros on the high season rate and, these days, with climate change, May, June and September often have better weather than the traditional July and August in the Med.’ Choosing an older, smaller yacht is also wise. Mark advises choosing a 25m to 30m yacht for 12 people to most efficiently spread the finances. ‘[It] makes it no more expensive than a regular high end private resort hotel but with a whole lot more to experience and enjoy and all with your own professional captain, crew and chef.’ Jaguar F-Type: Myriad companies offer the use of a pristine, turbo-charged super car for the day . Super cars . If you have a hot date or romantic weekend plans, a super car may be a worthwhile outlay. Premiere Velocity is one of myriad companies offering the use of a pristine, turbo-charged super car for the day or, sometimes, by the hour. Rent a Aston Martin DB9 from £423 a day, a Jaguar F-Type S 5.0 V8 for £295 or a Porsche Boxster S for as little as £175 a day. There’s also an online option to listen to a 10 second clip of the engine purring. An Aston Martin DB9 can be booked from £423 a day and you can listen to the engine online before buying . Handbags . You’ve booked the island, you’ve chartered the private jet - but what about your holiday wardrobe? Websites dedicated to borrowing designer handbags, dresses and clothing are soaring in popularity, so your suitcase can look the part too. (Left)Tara Palmer-Tomkinson arrives at an airport draped in Louis Vuitton luggage and (right) a Chanel bag . Try fashionhire.co.uk for a £2,000 Chanel bag that you can carry about for £130 per month, or - to travel in style - invest in a classic Louis Vuitton giant holdall for £100 for five days from theborrowersclub.com. Dress up in outfits by designers such as from Lanvin, Peter Pilotto, Ossie Clark or Christopher Kane, for a fraction of their usual price at GirlMeetsDress, DreamWardrobe or RentTheRunway. While you'll have to give it back at the end of the day, for the right occasion it might be worth its weight in gold.", "Swiss ski resorts are being forced to cut prices by up to 20 per cent in a desperate bid to lure back holidaymakers put off by the surge in the Swiss Franc which has sent prices spiralling. The Swiss franc rose nearly 30 per cent to 0.81 against the euro last week following the Swiss National Bank's decision to remove a three-year-old cap of 1.20 francs per euro. It means the cost of ski holiday essentials such as lift passes, ski hire as well as food and drink has rocketed for visitors in a country already well known for its sky high prices. The Swiss ski resort of Zermatt where local businesses are being pushed to cut prices to appeal to tourists following last week's surge in the value of the franc . In the plush resort of Zermatt for example the currency surge means a British visitor now has to pay £80 more for their week-long lift pass bringing the total to £380, while a single day pass went up by around £16 to £60. Meanwhile the cost of enjoying just a small glass of beer while taking in the majestic view of the Matterhorn mountain jumped by around £1.30 to £4.60. A glass coke rose by £1 to almost £4 and a burger and chips at a modest restaurant was up by almost £4 to £15. In Portes du Soleil a skiing area which covers 13 resorts the lift operator has cut the cost of lift passes by 15 per cent. However the Swiss Tourist board said the decision to cut prices was down to individual businesses and insisted they were waiting for the exchange rate to level out before taking any action. The currency surge means a British visitor now has to pay around £80 more for their week-long lift pass in Zermatt bringing the total to £380, while a single day pass went up by around £16 to £60. A spokesman said: 'Measures are being taken and everyone is looking at the situation but one week after the event is too early to make any decisions. As a result of the currency surge holidaymakers who had booked in Switzerland have reportedly been racing to change their travel plans with many hoping to switch to Austria where they can pay in Euros. Some speculators have even suggested that the currency surge could even spell the death knell for the Swiss Tourist Industry altogether. In a bid to keep the tourists arriving, the Zermatt tourist board reportedly sent an email to all 1,100 local businesses with advice ranging from reinstating the 1.20 franc per euro cap, offering discounts of 20 per cent or cutting prices by 10 per cent, according to Bloomberg News. The Swiss franc rose nearly 30 percent against the euro after the Swiss National Bank's announcement that it would remove a three-year-old cap of 1.20 francs per euro . Other resorts are reportedly offering similar deals. Rolf Sigg, who lives in the resort of Morgins on the Swiss-French border for 30 years, told the Telegraph: 'We live and rely on winter tourism and since the Swiss central bank stopped the exchange rate cap we haven't really known what to think – everyone is doing their own thing, introducing special offers to ensure it doesn't become too expensive for tourists. 'Visitors shouldn't hesitate to ask for discounts because we are really having to sell ourselves now as well as offering the very best quality and service.' Tourists from Europe accounted for 37 percent of overnight stays in 2013, according to latest data from the Swiss statistics office, but the country will be out of reach for many after 'SNB Day'. Last week Swiss hoteliers vented their fury on social media and politicians urged the Swiss to support the country's tourism industry, while resorts across the French border cheered a 'Godsend' as they looked forward to new Swiss clients. ‘Swiss people! Take your holidays in Switzerland!’ said Swiss tourist office chief Juerg Schmid on a twitter account. In Gstaad, hotelier Thomas Frei tweeted: ‘Great, first rejections, wanting to know the euro rate and whether we can do a better rate. While I'm at it, does anyone want to buy my hotel?’ Tourism contributes three percent of Swiss GDP and hotels and restaurants employ five percent of the labour force. The franc's abrupt surge comes weeks before European school half-term breaks which mark the height of the ski season . ‘The original forecasts predicting growth once again in the Swiss tourism industry over the next two years probably won't stand up any more,’ Christoph Juen, CEO of the Swiss hotel association hotelleriesuisse, told Reuters. That is an ‘existential threat’ to some hoteliers, he said. ‘I'm glad I'm just here for one day,’ said Amit Raj, 29 from Seville in Spain. ‘I'm definitely going to be a lot more cautious tonight and won't withdraw any more money,’ he added. Even before the decision to allow the Franc to surge, Europe's economic woes had seen the number of German travellers to Switzerland drop 19 percent over five years to 1.9 million by 2013, according to the latest available German tourism association data. In Alpine ski resorts, the economic chill has worsened in the past year as the number of Russian visitors fell sharply due to Moscow's standoff with the West over Ukraine and because of a weaker Russian rouble. Tourism from Japan has also been hit as the yen weakened. An even bigger test for the mainly small businesses in the hotel and restaurant industry could come during the summer. In the busiest summer months 2.5 million nights per month are booked by foreigners at Swiss hotels, 70 percent more than during the peak ski season, says Eurostat.", "Where are you holidaying in 2015? If you are in keeping with the current trends for British travellers, odds are that your destination of choice was inspired by somewhere you've seen on the big screen. MailOnline Travel reported this week that following an influx of film production in the US state of Georgia in recent years thanks to tax incentive, the region is now experiencing a 'screen tourism' boom as fans flock to visit filming locations. According to British Airways, the popularity of filming locations as holiday destinations can be seen all over the world, with the airline reporting a surge in interest for countries that are currently present in popular culture. Reel life: The top travel destinations for 2015 are inspired by the big screen (pictured: Fifty Shades of Grey) Hotpot: Seattle is tipped to see a surge in popularity thanks to Fifty Shades and the return of Twin Peaks . Screen Tourism: The city is showcased in the hugely popular erotic thriller, inspiring fans to visit . Returning to screens: Twin Peaks films in Monroe, Snoqualmie Falls and North Bend in Washington State . While 2014 saw an increase in popularity for places seen on hit TV series Game of Thrones, X Factor, and Keeping Up With The Kardashians, the airline is predicting that Seattle will be the hotspot next year, thanks to the release of the highly anticipated Fifty Shades of Grey and the return of cult series Twin Peaks. Claire Bentley, managing director at British Airways Holidays, said: 'We've realised that popular culture and celebrity events now play a big part in holiday decisions. 'This year the TV series X-Factor created a 400 per cent increase in the number of views on our Bermuda travel page in the days after the destination was featured on the judge's houses episode of the show. Popular: There was a reported a spike in searches for destinations featured on the X Factor judges' houses . Follow in their footsteps: In 2014, filming locations for hit series Game of Thrones were the hotspots . Influencers: Destinations featured on Keeping Up With The Kardashians such as Santorini were also popular . 'We are already preparing for interest in destinations like Seattle, ahead of the buzz created around the return of TV programme 'Twin Peaks' and the launch of the film 'Fifty Shades of Grey', both tipped to be huge hits next year.' As reported by MailOnline Travel, a number of travel comparison websites and airlines experienced a spike in searches for the exotic destinations featured on the judges' houses episodes of the X Factor. Mel B's house in Mexico and Louis Walsh's in Bermuda in particularly inspired increased interest from travellers. Ireland Tourism reported an 11 per cent increase in tourism this year thanks to Game of Thrones as well as Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's honeymoon. Rio de Janeiro . Seattle . Hawaii . Dubai . Singapore . Berlin . Dalaman . Crete . Gran Canaria . Malta . Sporting city: Rio de Janeiro tops the hot list for 2015 as buzz builds ahead of the 2016 Olympic Games . Celebrations: Brazil also hosted the 2014 World Cup, placing it firmly on the world stage . Indeed, other popular culture events are also the catalyst for surges in tourism - Rio de Janeiro's hosting of the World Cup this year as well as the buzz leading up to the 2015 Olympic Games have placed the Brazilian capital firmly at the top of the 2015 hotspot list. While Seattle is set to be popular after being showcased in Fifty Shades of Grey, slated for release on Valentine's Day, it is also the most convenient arrival airport for Twin Peaks fans celebrating the return of the show after 25 years. Three of the series' filming locations - Monroe, Snoqualmie Falls and North Bend - are a 40 minute drive from the city. Not just a stopover: Singapore will be a hot ticket in 2015, according to BA, thanks to the Grand Prix . Celebrity fave: Iconic hotel Marina Bay Sands is popular with stars like David Beckham (pictured last week) Hawaii and Dubai are both tipped to continue their popularity as winter sun breaks, while Singapore - long the stopover of choice en route to far-flung destinations and a business hub - is becoming a destination in its own right. The popularity of Singapore's Grand Prix attracts celebrities, while the glamorous Marina Bay Sands hotel has welcomed David Beckham and Gwyneth Paltrow in the past month alone. Closer to home, British Airways predicts that Berlin, Crete and Malta will be among the hottest destinations for short-haul holidays next year. Follow the stars: Prince William's visit and Brad and Angelina's extended stay has put Malta in the spotlight . In the news: Berlin was making headlines this month as it celebrated 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall . Berlin was again on the world stage this month as the city celebrated 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Next year, football fans will also be jetting there for the 2015 UEFA Champions League final. Prince William made headlines when he stepped in at the last minute to fill in when the Duchess of Cambridge was forced to pull out of her royal visit to Malta due to acute morning sickness. Perhaps even more of an influence are Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, who are living on the island of Gozo for several months while they film their new movie By The Sea. Destinations: Dalaman in Turkey is also predicted to be a popular holiday spot in 2015 . Winter sun: Dubai will remain a favourite for Brits abroad .", "By . Nazia Parveen . PUBLISHED: . 08:52 EST, 19 June 2012 . | . UPDATED: . 18:52 EST, 19 June 2012 . Disbelief: Actor Ricky Tomlinson had been using the caravan as a base while filming a wildlife documentary . When Ricky Tomlinson bought a six-berth static caravan he found it to be the perfect place for a ‘bit of peace and quiet’. But the 72-year-old actor’s peace has been shattered after thieves stole the £12,000 retreat from its picturesque riverside site. Mr Tomlinson – who played Jim Royle in the BBC sitcom The Royle Family – said yesterday that he was ‘gutted’. A gang took the 27ft caravan from the banks of the Dee in what the actor described as a ‘well-organised’ crime. He pleaded for the return of his ‘hobby’ home, which he was using as a base to film wildlife for a  TV documentary, and said: ‘I can’t believe it happened. It must  have been a well-organised gang of thieves because it is a big, six-berth caravan which was not even on wheels. ‘It was 2ft off the floor and resting on railway sleepers and breeze blocks because it was on a flood plain. The caravan was down a country lane over a mile long within a gated private meadow. ‘They took the gate off its hinges and must have had a decent-sized vehicle to take it away. ‘I am gutted because I was in the process of letting one of my mates use it for a little outing for his two kids.’ Although Mr Tomlinson didn’t discover the theft until the weekend he believes the caravan may have been taken late last Wednesday or Thursday. He added: ‘I have only had it for a couple of years and it is still in sparkling condition – it is immaculate. The plastic covering was still on the seats. Swiped: Ricky Tomlinson's caravan, which was sited in a Cheshire meadow and was propped up on breeze blocks and railway sleepers . Starring role: In character as Jim Royle in the BBC sitcom The Royle Family . ‘The caravan was in a great spot and I have filmed wildlife there, including woodpeckers, squirrels and buzzards, for a documentary I have been working on – just a little independent film. ‘There was everything there and it was a lovely place to go for a bit of peace and quiet.’ The Hobby 635 caravan was parked in a meadow in the village of Farndon in Cheshire. Father figure: Ricky Tomlinson pictured centre on the set of The Royle Family with co-stars (from left) Ralph Little, Sue Johnston, Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash . Man of the people: A scene from the 1999 TV drama Dockers, which, with its story of picketing workers in Liverpool, bore a resemblance to Tomlinson's trade union activist past . Lesley Chadderton, landlady of the Greyhound pub in the High Street, said: ‘This is a peaceful village and we often see Ricky walking through and he always waves and says hello. ‘He is lovely and has a good heart and I can’t believe that someone has stolen his caravan – it is disgusting.’ Mr Tomlinson and his wife Rita have a detached house  in a suburb of Liverpool as well as a two-bedroom townhouse  near Benidorm and a three-bedroom penthouse on Turkey’s Aegean coast.Cheshire police are investigating the theft of his caravan.", "Investors have been treated to a Christmas bonus after more than £105billion was added to the value of Britain’s biggest companies in little over a week. The FTSE 100 index gained another 21.44 points yesterday to close at 6598.18. But it was not all good news as the pound fell against the US dollar, making holidays stateside more expensive for British travellers. Investors have been treated to a Christmas bonus after more than £105billion was added to the value of Britain’s biggest companies in little over a week (file picture) The FTSE has now jumped more than 400 points, or 6.7 per cent, in the last six trading sessions, adding £105.6billion to the value of blue-chip firms since early last week. The so-called ‘Santa Rally’, when the stock prices surge in the festive period, is good news for investors and workers saving for a pension who have money tied up in the markets. However, the FTSE is still below the 6743 it reached early this month before tumbling oil prices, the crisis in Russia, and fears over the eurozone sent it crashing to a year low. Sterling fell below $1.55 against a resurgent US dollar for the first time since August last year – a development that will make Christmas trips to America more expensive for UK travellers. Meanwhile stock markets in America soared to record highs last night as ‘astounding’ figures showed the United States economy growing at its fastest pace for 11 years. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average smashed through the 18,000 mark for the first time. In contrast, there were signs that the UK economy is slowing as the year comes to an end. Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed gross domestic product – the total size of the economy – rose by a healthy 0.7 per cent between July and September. The surge is good news for investors and workers saving for a pension who have money tied up in the markets (file picture) But that was lower than the 0.8 per cent growth seen in the second quarter of the year. Output was only 2.6 per cent higher than in the same period of last year, far less than the 3 per cent increase previously reported. The ONS report also showed the economy grew by less than expected in the previous five quarters meaning the recovery since early last year was weaker than thought. David Kern, chief economist at the British Chambers of Commerce, said: ‘The stark revision in annual growth confirms that the pace of recovery is slowing.’ But analysts said the recent slump in the price of oil – a drop from $115 a barrel in June to below $60 last night – will breathe new life into the economy in 2015 as tumbling petrol prices leave households with more money to spend. Former Bank of England economist Rob Wood, now at Berenberg Bank, said: ‘The oil price rout is like a big tax cut for consumers, and UK consumers tend to spend extra income. ‘In our view, now is the time to be optimistic about the UK. A tax cut funded by Russia and the Middle East and falling mortgage rates should combine in a powerful cocktail that boosts UK growth next year.’ Martin Beck, senior economic adviser to the Ernst & Young Item Club, said: ‘Looking ahead to 2015 the UK may experience some softening in growth. ‘However, the plunge in oil prices promises to provide the economy with renewed momentum, by improving household purchasing power and boosting global growth. ‘Overall, the chance that growth in output in 2015 could outpace 2014’s expansion cannot be ruled out.’ In the US, official figures showed the American economy grew at an annual rate of 5 per cent in the third quarter of the year – its best performance for 11 years.", "By . Daily Mail Reporter . and Reuters Reporter . A day after the government proudly declared it had met its weekend deadline for making HealthCare.gov operate smoothly for most users, it admitted Americans would still have problems enrolling online. Aides to the president admitted Sunday that peak traffic volumes could make the site crash. While saying HealthCare.gov had improved, . President Barack Obama's adviser Jeffrey Zients also warned that peak traffic volumes . during the coming weeks could overwhelm it as consumers scramble to sign . up before a December 23 deadline for coverage that begins January 1. Could crash: Jeffrey Zients, standing here next to President Obama, admits that peak traffic volumes during the coming weeks could overwhelm the site as consumers scramble to sign up before a December 23 deadline . Networks of volunteer organizations are expected to resume enrollment activities after a long U.S. Thanksgiving holiday weekend, many of them with backlogs of would-be applicants waiting for access. Enroll America, the nonprofit group that serves as a flagship for private sector enrollment efforts under Obama's landmark healthcare law, said it planned to launch a new 'Coverage is Coming' push, with more than 1,000 events over the next three weeks ranging from commemorations of World AIDS Day to community health summits and holiday toy drives, according to Enroll America spokesman Justin Nisly. AIDS Alabama, a statewide non-profit organization that received a federal grant to help people enroll, had been relying largely on paper applications to sign people up until last week, when they noticed major improvement in the website, said Lauren Banks, the organization's director of policy and advocacy. One glitch the organization came across last week involved apparently incorrect information about tax subsidies, Banks said. For example, she said, people who appeared to be eligible for subsidies given their income levels were told they did not qualify. On time: Healthcare officials said Sunday that they made the self-imposed deadline to make the Obamacare website usable for 50,000 applicants at one time . Banks said the organization planned a . radio campaign as part of a push to get people enrolled by December 23 . so they could have coverage starting next year. 'We really are going to push super-hard the next 23 days to get people enrolled for the January 1st deadline,' Banks said. The . White House, which plans to hold public education events about the . healthcare law throughout December, will hold a Youth Summit on . Wednesday to help drive outreach and enrollment over the remaining . four-month enrollment period. The . number who need coverage starting January 1 could include millions of . uninsured Americans with preexisting health conditions and others who . have been notified that their current health plans will expire at . year-end because they do not meet Obamacare's standards for benefits and . consumer protection. Good news: According to the eight-page report released this morning, the website has made 'dramatic progress' in 'doubling' site capacity . Zients . said on Sunday a five-week emergency 'tech surge' had doubled the . capacity of the online health insurance portal that is crucial to . helping people shop for insurance plans, while making it more responsive . and less prone to errors. The . administration said the effort's key improvement was to increase . HealthCare.gov's capacity to 50,000 simultaneous users, which would . allow the site to handle a minimum of 800,000 users per day. Officials . acknowledged however that the site may not operate smoothly for some . visitors even when the capacity has not been exceeded, and said they . were still scrambling to repair and install functions at the crucial . 'back end' of the system that are needed to finalize enrollments with . insurers. 'The real challenges remain, and that's downstream,' said Rick Howard, research director for the technology consultant Gartner. 'The . real error rate will be in the billing transactions and how accurate . the billing information is and how accurate the premium calculation is.' Not over yet: The real error rate will be in the billing transactions and how accurate the billing information is and how accurate the premium calculation is, say researchers . Craig . Garthwaite, a health economist at Northwestern University's Kellogg . School of Management, said Sunday's announcement represented 'dramatic . progress', but that the fixes mainly brought the website to 'the . baseline of what we need the site to be able to do'. Officials . are working to correct errors in the consumer enrollment data sent to . insurers and have not built in several necessary functions, including . one that will enable the government to pay federal subsidies to insurers . on behalf of low-income enrollees. Without . those functions working properly, HealthCare.gov and websites for 14 . state-run marketplaces could have difficulty operating in 2014. Even so, officials said, the site is dramatically better than when it was launched on October 1. Necessary: Officials are working to correct errors in the consumer enrollment data sent to insurers and have not built in several necessary functions. Without them, the site could have difficulty operating in 2014 . It . was overwhelmed by users in a debacle that fueled Republicans' complaints about the Democratic president's healthcare overhaul and . threatened to make his signature domestic achievement a drag on . Democrats heading into the 2014 elections. The . Zients team's success could mark a more upbeat chapter for the Patient . Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The law is designed to help provide coverage to millions of uninsured and under-insured Americans. Longer-term . questions remain about whether the program will be able to enroll the . estimated 7 million people it needs by the end of March to be . financially viable, including millions of healthy, young enrollees who . are needed to keep the program's costs in check. 'The . issue is really the management capacity of the Obama administration,' said Robert Blendon, a Harvard expert on healthcare and public opinion. 'If . the website really is still working a week from now, it'll make people . feel at least they have the capacity to turn things around and move . ahead.' Glitch: One of the issues people have experienced is those who appeared to be eligible for tax subsidies given their income levels were told they did not qualify ." ]

[ "Your father was a hamster and your mother smells of elderberries." ]

[ "Thats what gets me. Regardless of what it is they explicitly said someone was on their way, not they would send someone, but they just straight up lied because clearly no one was on their way", "Really painful way down inside, like someone's punching you in the stomach, coupled with hundreds of \"what-ifs\" flowing around your mind. At least that's what it's like for me", "Asked someone for directions then went the other way", "What if it is the other way around?", "It is shallow I’m afraid.\n\nJustifying a claim with “Cause God” is just insulting.\n\nWhat separates your god from the gods of other religions ?", "As a parent and a husband, it's simple - be someone that will improve their child's life in every way that matters.", "That’s an incredible way of looking at it. What a great example.", "This is a very long way to ask \"What's your dream?\"", "What is even going on? Why am I this way?", "Better question; in what way am I NOT a failure?", "what is the best way to preserve human meat?", "That if I keep trying someone will love me the way I love them", "These numbers are insulting low. We gotta pump those numbers up", "Because someone else already commented what I was thinking", "the nerve of not knowing what way the battle will turn out", "It doesn't matter what they do to drugs. They could make all of them legal, or even ban them all. But in the end it will not matter because if someone wants drugs, they will find a way to get it.", "Death. That way no matter what happens I win.", "Can someone explain what a shadowban is? Never heard of it before", "In what subs a gamer is considered someone who commits genocide?", "Once someone finds a way, could they kindly relay that info to me? Thank you", "Wait, what happens when to way back machine is gone???", "Because someone already said what I wanted to say" ]

[ "Jack Kilbourn" ]

[ "Did Not Finish", "Did It for the Party", "ridging", "JP Did This 1", "Simpsons Already Did It", "I Did It for Love", "Play No Games", "the playing card", "Google Play", "squeeze play", "slowing the play", "halt in the play", "Play That Song", "Playing with the Boys", "playing the bagpipes" ]

[ "Visit Biography.com to learn more about B.F. Skinner, who developed the theory of behaviorism and wrote Walden Two . American psychologist B.F. Skinner is best known for developing the theory of behaviorism, and for his utopian novel Walden Two (1948)." ]

[ "Operant Conditioning. Skinner coined the term Operant Conditioning as a branch of Watsons Classical Conditioning and studied it by conducting experiments using animals, namely rats, placing them in what he called the Skinner Box..perant Conditioning. Skinner coined the term Operant Conditioning as a branch of Watsons Classical Conditioning and studied it by conducting experiments using animals, namely rats, placing them in what he called the Skinner Box..", "Andy Skinner alleges that Daniel Glover was working in 1998 as an independent contractor for Skinner Enterprises, Inc. building a deck for his personal residence (A. Skinner depo. pgs. 8-11 and Skinner Third Party Complaint, exhibit B).", "Graduation Sayings/Quotes. You will find many sayings you can use to write in a graduation card message, but the following are especially cool. Use these sayings to spice up your message in a simple yet meaningful way. Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.. –B.F. Skinner.", "1: Write, write, write! I think to improve your writing you really need to write something in English more or less every day. In my experience, it's best not to be too hard on yourself, but just write a few lines about what you did or about your opinion of something.: Write, write, write! I think to improve your writing you really need to write something in English more or less every day. In my experience, it's best not to be too hard on yourself, but just write a few lines about what you did or about your opinion of something.", "1 Skinner, B. F. (1988b). 2 What are the scopes and limits of radical behaviorist theory: Reply to Harnard. 3 In A. C. Catania & S. Harnard (Eds.), The selection of behavior: The operant behaviorism of B. F. Skinner: Comments and consequences (pp.465–473). 4 New York: Cambridge University Press. Skinner, B. F. (1988b). 2 What are the scopes and limits of radical behaviorist theory: Reply to Harnard. 3 In A. C. Catania & S. Harnard (Eds.), The selection of behavior: The operant behaviorism of B. F. Skinner: Comments and consequences (pp.465–473). 4 New York: Cambridge University Press.", "Not well at all. The governor of Louisiana should have called and sent in writing what was needed to the president..That is why Bush did pretty much nothing for several days. The protocol is that she must put requests in writing for the federal government to respond.She did not. But to be fair, Bush should have seen that Louisiana needed help NOW and over stepped protocol and just did whatever needed to be done. Also, apparently Louisiana did not have a concrete plan in place.ot well at all. The governor of Louisiana should have called and sent in writing what was needed to the president..", "Why did Henrik Ibsen, writer of the play A Doll's House write played that showcased such grand gestures of Feminism?What could have happened in his life that would lead to him writing plays that... Why did Henrik Ibsen, writer of the play A Doll's House write played that showcased such grand gestures of Feminism? What could have happened in his life that would lead to him writing plays that included feminism?", "What two periods did Shakespeare write in? How many Henrys did Shakespeare Write? Shakespeare wrote seven plays with Henry in the title: two parts of Henry IV, three parts of Henry VI, Henry V and the oft-forgotten Henry VIII.", "B.F Skinner was a behaviorist like John Watson, skinner coined a term called Operant to describe any active behavior that operates upon the environment to generate consequences. ... Skinner distinguished two kinds of reinforcing stimuli; primary and conditioning. ...kinner. ... The main principles of operant conditioning, as defined by Skinner, are reinforcement, punishment, shaping, extinction, discrimination, and generalization.Reinforcement is the key element in Skinner\\'s theory. ... The child received four A's and one B. ...", "The US got involved in the Vietnam War because it did not want another country going to communism (and therefore the Soviet sphere of influence) after what happened in China. (Also, check Tom Ray's comment on this one - frankly, he did a better job writing his comment than I did writing my answer)", "Get answers to your English & Literature questions like What did Frantz Fanon write? from BookRags.com", "Like many English last names, Skinner comes from a trade. A skinner deals in animal hides.", "The Walking Dead Season 8 Carl Theory - How Many Letters Did Carl Write? What's In Rick's Letter?", "Non-communicative approach that involves heavy use of mimicry, imitation and drill. Speech and not writing is emphasized. It is perhaps unfair to associate this approach with B.F. Skinner whose theories would in no way preclude a communicative approach to second language acquisition instruction.", "That means the average McDonald's employee would have to work for 3.86 months straight at an overtime wage -- or 1.5 times her regular hourly pay -- to match what Skinner made in an hour, according to NerdWallet.y comparison, former McDonald's CEO James Skinner raked in $9,247 for an hour of his precious time last year, according to NerdWallet.", "Express Scripts - I just spent 30 minutes writing what ES did and. I just spent 30 minutes writing what ES did and said to me. Would appreciate an executive director contact me via my home phone, . Unfortunately my cell phone quit working, and for the most part is turned off.", "It added thousands of new words, updated usage suggestions, and was meant to capture language on the cutting edge of American culture. Instead, it sent scholars and wordsmiths into a frenzy. In his new book, The Story of Ain't, David Skinner writes about the maelstrom that followed this controversial dictionary.", "Synthesizing a thought, e.g., writing a story about what you did last weekend, such as going to the park. Working out how you are going to write it: I . . . ran . . . fast . . . in . . . the . . . park. The physical act of writing; getting those words and physically writing them.", "In Chapter Four Skinner notes forms of control by verbal stimuli. One form is textual behavior which refers to the type of behavior we might typically call reading or writing. A vocal response is controlled by a verbal stimulus that is not heard.t is a behavior under the functional control of a verbal stimulus. The verbal response and the verbal stimulus share what is called point to point correspondence (a formal similarity.) The speaker repeats what is said. In echoic behavior, the stimulus is auditory and response is vocal.", "That is, rather than place causal status in hypothetical entities or constructs, Skinner's radical behaviorism attempted to demonstrate orderly relations between behavior and environment. This approach is, at its core, a perspective of selection (Donahoe, 2003; Skinner, 1966; 1972).hat is, rather than place causal status in hypothetical entities or constructs, Skinner's radical behaviorism attempted to demonstrate orderly relations between behavior and environment. This approach is, at its core, a perspective of selection (Donahoe, 2003; Skinner, 1966; 1972).", "3. Ask yourself questions about your paper. In order to write a thorough informative abstract, you should ask yourself various questions about the purpose and results of your work. 1 For instance, ask yourself why you did the study, what you did, how you did it, what you found, and what those findings signify.", "When you are writing about a reflection, there are factors that can affect how you express it. These are: Why you are writing; Whether others will read it; How you feel about your writing; Your emotions at the time of writing; How capable you are at writing reflectively ; Process of Reflection. There are three areas of reflection and these are detailed below: 1 Technical - This is what worked or did not work and why, problems solving techniques, and theories that were used or tested. 2 Group - This is the team dynamics; how everyone worked together and why, how could they have done better, and what worked or did not work and why.", "At the top of each column, write the following labels: date, time, antecedent, behavior, consequence, possible function. To put the chart into use, keep it with you at all times. Each time the student exhibits a problematic behavior, write the date and time. Next, move to the behavior column and write what the student did. Then, write what came immediately before the behavior in the antecedent column, and describe what followed in the consequence column.", "The Literary Present Tense. When writing about literature, we should use what is called the literary present tense. In other words, if we are writing about what a character did in a story or anything related to the plot by using literary analysis, we should write it in the present tense. For example, let's imagine we are writing an essay about the character 'Pip' in Great Expectations.", "Sadly, i can't really confirm that their writing is older than the Sumerians. If anything, i have found that the Scythians did NOT have writing. So what is the deal? And on a side note, i found the following very fascinating.", "agriculture? 2. How did the development of agriculture in Mesopotamia lead to the development of writing? 3. What were the consequences of agriculture for humans?", "From Pearl Jam to The Beatles, what's the meaning behind these band names. 1. Lynyrd Skynyrd AP. The band's name came from band member's Gary Rossington and Bob Burns' strict high school gym teacher named Leonard Skinner. The teens were often caught butting heads with Skinner for letting their long hair grow.", "In the brain, the process involves: 1 Synthesizing a thought, e.g., writing a story about what you did last weekend, such as going to the park. 2 Working out how you are going to write it: I . . . ran . . . fast . . . in 3 . The physical act of writing; getting those words and physically writing them.", "9. classical/operant conditioning. Skinner came up with the theory that operant conditioning is a change or changes in behavior which are the result of an individual's response to events or stimuli that can occur in the environment.... Reinforcement is the key element in Skinner's stimulus-response theory.kinner. ... The main principles of operant conditioning, as defined by Skinner, are reinforcement, punishment, shaping, extinction, discrimination, and generalization.Reinforcement is the key element in Skinner\\'s theory. ... The child received four A's and one B. ...", "Answer Wiki. Depends on the industry, but annually makes sense. It's a good idea to keep a journal (or spreadsheet, whatever, nerds) that lists your accomplishments. Ask yourself every Friday, what did I do to improve this company? or how did I contribute? or what wins did I have at work? and write them down.", "What to write in a thank you note after an interview. So you went in for an interview, did an awesome job, and now you’re ready to thank your interviewer. And yes, you should always write thank you notes. Here are some tips on what to write in a thank you note after an interview: Image courtesy of Paperless Post.", "Enersen, Skinner To Divorce. Times Staff. Local TV news anchor Jean Enersen and her husband of more than 12 years, businessman Paul Skinner, are divorcing. Enersen and Skinner confirmed in a brief statement, released through a KING-TV publicist, that the marriage-Enersen's second-was ending.We are sorry to confirm we are divorcing.imes Staff. Local TV news anchor Jean Enersen and her husband of more than 12 years, businessman Paul Skinner, are divorcing. Enersen and Skinner confirmed in a brief statement, released through a KING-TV publicist, that the marriage-Enersen's second-was ending. We are sorry to confirm we are divorcing." ]

[ "By . Jill Reilly . Craning your neck up to admire the ornate roofs of churches and cathedrals can be back-breaking work. But one photographer has made the experience a whole lot easier by creating panoramic shots that showcase the rich religious architecture across the world. Richard Silver, from Brooklyn, New York, travels around the world taking stunning photos since he gave up his job as a stockbroker and pursued the hobby full-time. View from below: Craning your neck up to admire the ornate roofs of churches and cathedrals can be back-breaking work. But one photographer has made the experience a whole lot easier by creating panoramic shots showcasing the rich religious architecture across the world . Richard Silver, from Brooklyn, New York, has travelled around the world taking photos since he gave up his job as a stockbroker and pursued his hobby full-time. From left: Santa Domingo Church, Bolivia, Santiago Abierto Potosi and Sister Church of St Joseph, Poland . He has become an expert creating the awe-inspiring photos which features houses of worship including place such as New York, Mexico City, Budapest, Krakow, Cape Town and Goa. Mr Silver told MailOnline that he first came up with the idea after being inspired by buildings in his home city. 'The first time I photographed a church using my Vertical Panorama technique was in New York City,' he says. 'New York is filled with a number of iconic buildings to photograph but I decided to walk into and look at its local churches. When traveling the world I always walk into and seek out the churches when I am there, why not do it at home? He has become an expert creating the awe-inspiring photos which features places of worship in places including New York, Mexico City, Budapest, Krakow, Cape Town and Goa. Left, Divina Providencia, Mexico City and right, St Vincent De Paul California . Mr Silver told MailOnline that he first came up with the idea after being inspired by buildings in his home city.  Cathedral of the Holy Name, Mumbai, Hallgrímskirkja, Iceland and St. Catejan, Goa, India . To create them he ensures that he finds the right spot to capture the building in all its glory for the 180 degree shot. Right: Augustiner Church Vienna . 'Being fascinated with the . amount of work taken to decorate the ceilings of a church I came up with . the notion to try and capture the ceiling photographically. It took me a . few tries to figure out mechanically how to take the shots but now I . have it down to a science.' To create them Mr Silver ensures that he finds the right spot to capture the building in all its glory for the 180 degree shot. It takes between six and 10 photographs to complete the masterpiece, which he expertly blends together in his studio using Photoshop. A programme called Lightroom allows him to bring out the vivid colours and detail of the stained glass windows. Mr Silver, who is not religious, often . has to battle churchgoers and tourists in his quest to make sure the . photos are not packed full of people. He says his favourite place to photograph was the Serbian Orthodox church in New York. 'I pass by this amazing church almost every day and it is only open on Sunday's for worship,' he explained. 'The . friar actually opened up the church just for me to photograph during . the week. I felt honored to be able to photograph such a wonderful piece . of architecture. I ended up printing the photos out for him to keep in . his office.' Mr Silver . views the project as ongoing saying: 'There are cities I have been to . already that I wish I would have figured this method of photographing . out before I went. I am looking to go back to Rome and London and shoot . there as the churches are so colorful and exquisitely decorated. My goal . is to do a book of my work.' Visit Mr Silver's website at www.richardsilverphoto.com . Mr Silver says his favourite place to photograph was the Serbian Orthodox church in New York. From left: Vertical Basilica of Bom Jesus, Goa India, Vertical St Thomas Mumbai India,  and Cathedral of Christ the King Johannesburg . Mr Silver, who is not religious, often has to . battle churchgoers and tourists in his quest to make sure the photos are . not packed full of people.  Left:  Church of the Transfiguration Krakow and right, St Mathias, Budapest . Mr Silver views the project as ongoing saying: I am looking to go back to Rome and London and shoot there as the churches are so colorful and exquisitely decorated.  Dominican Church Krakow, left, and Franciszkanska Church right, Krakow ." ]

[ "Jetting across the world without a care in the world except what Prada shoe to wear. This is Dorothy Wang, the 26-year-old heiress to one of China's largest mall chains, worth $4 billion, and star of Rich Kids Of Beverly Hills. In the future, she says, she wants to 'do it all' to follow her father into wealth and success - jewelry design, cooking, publishing, fashion. But for now, she describes herself as 'funemployed' as she has a raucous time living luxuriously rather than toiling through job ads. Scroll down for video . 'Funemployed': Dorothy Wang, 26, scales the world - going to parties and appearing on Rich Kids Of Beverly Hills . Living the life: This is one of many private jet photos budding entrepreneur Wang has posted on her Instagram . Wang wrote: Sleeping on it #mirrorrollieselfie #ismyoldwatchstillsickertho #41mm #badbitchproblems . Packed up and ready to go: Dorothy wrote 'living the Rimowa life' in reference to the luggage design brand . And her Instagram feed that scales the globe, from LA to Shanghai, gives credence to her motto. 'How cute are these #richkid survival baskets?' she asks her followers, with a picture of expensive liquor and chocolate. 'Who's ready to conquer the great outdoors???' she says, boarding a private jet. Another picture shows her wearing two Rolex watches, with another golden one beside her, and the hash tag #badbitchproblems. However, in an interview with Business Insider this week, Wang insists it is not all fun and games. Landing a role on Rich Kids Of Beverly Hills was an attempt to prove that she can earn a living without her father's support, she explains. Rolling: Wang, whose father is worth $4bn after creating a Chinese mall chain, is picture in a limousine . She asks whether she should wear the silver or black Prada strappy sandals, adding 'double shoe problems' Night on the town: Wang shared a picture dining on oysters and red wine with a friend, who sports a massive diamond ring . Heiress and proud: Wang posted a picture of these faux designer sweaters about being an heiress . Shopping spree: The 26-year-old posted this image with a shopping bag after '20 hours' in Las Vegas . She says she has been dogged by assumptions that Roger Wang, founder of Golden Eagle International Group, will make life easy for her and her sister. 'It was important for me to do the show and get it on the air, on my own, and I didn't even tell my dad about it so no one could say anything like that,' she says. 'He didn't invest anything in it, he didn't even know about it. 'And so that was important for me to have for myself as well to carve my own path, which is very different from my dad's. 'But I can turn this into a business, just not in the traditional sense like my father's, but I think it can be just as successful in another way.' Jewelry line: Wang claims she has invested her business energy into creating this line of hash tag jewelry . 'This is my life now!': She posted a picture on Instagram hard at work posting her collection to customers . Choices: Promoting her line, she photographed a selection of her own jewelry box . 'Proud': Wang shares a picture of her with friends watching her own reality show . In between holidays to Hawaii and shopping sprees in Las Vegas, Wang has developed a jewelry line, turning her catchphrases on Rich Kids Of Beverly Hills into necklaces. Fans can buy silver and gold chains with the words: #rich, #fabuluxe or #nofilter - an Instagram phrase which means a picture is naturally impressive, without the use of photo editing. While she hopes the business venture takes off - with more collections planned, including a necklace with the phrase #funemployed on it - Wang continues to entertain her growing fan base with snap shots of her luxurious lifestyle. Many posts feature idyllic scenes as she asks people to guess which country or city she has traveled to. 'Live life in XS': Wang proudly held up this sign at a David Guetta gig for her Instagram followers . The funemployed heiress nips down to the store to do some grocery shopping with her best friend . News flash: Followers concerned about Wang's shoe choice for the day are assured she is 'going for the gold' The jet-setting posts come between numerous shots of designers bags, shoes, and dresses. 'Running errands with Vivs,' she says, with a picture of two Hermes purses worth around $100,000. Another, with a picture of glistening silver-capped brogues, reads: 'Breaking in my new shoes #miumiu #ouchies'. And during New York Fashion Week, Wang posted a shot of herself wearing two different colors of the same Prada strappy sandals: 'Silver or black @prada? #doubleshoeproblems'. In another post she says: 'I love traveling and getting to stay at great hotels all over the world, but there's nothing like sleeping in your own bed after a long trip!!!'", "Apple is turning its retail stores into art galleries featuring the work of photographers and other artists who use iPads, iPhones and Mac computers to create. They include paintings, photographs and short films by both professional and amateur Apple fans. The firm is set to install the artworks in all of its stores in an unprecedented move, saying it hopes to inspire others. Scroll down to see all the artworks and videos . Artwork from artists Craig Redman and Karl Maier is on display on the wall of an Apple Store in New York. The pairs both used iPad Air 2's to create the piece through apps iDraw and waterlogue. The also used FaceTime to chat about the work. 'Every piece in this gallery was created on an Apple product,' Apple said. 'Every brushstroke, every pixel, and every frame of film was brought to life by talented Apple users from around the world. 'As you explore their work, we hope it inspires you to create something new.' Travel photographer Austin Mann told MailOnline he used an iPhone 6 to take otherworldly panoramic photos of an Icelandic glacier. He said it was 'surreal' seeing the artwork blown up in the firm's Soho store in New York. He originally began taking pictures as a way to help review Apple products for a website. He said the larger screen was a major change. 'It's so nice to shoot with a big screen - it's almost like the old medium format cameras,' he said. Mann, who recalls mowing lawns for a summer as a 7th grader to save up for his first, bright green iMac in 1998, says his use of an iPhone and high-end cameras is 'split pretty even' when it comes to professional work. 'In the photography industry especially, when you are getting started you are always seeking gear, 'If I could only get this $1,000 lens,'' he said. Using just an iPhone to take great photos encourages people to 'shift away from focusing on gear and equipment.' Austin Mann told MailOnline he was driving along the Icelandic coast when a bank of fog lifted to reveal the biggest glacier he had ever seen. To reach it and get the shot, Mann left all his gear in the car, put his iPhone 6 Plus in his pocket, and climbed down a steep rock face to capture the photo in panorama mode. He then used the VSCOCam app to edit the image in the car on his way back to a hotel. Apple commissioned the work of 12 artists at various stages of their career to create works meant to inspire. Showcasing the people who use its technology - in this case, painters, photographers, filmmakers and other visual artists — is a shift for a company long focused on making its products front and center. The artwork, done on iOS devices and Macs using various apps, is displayed on Apple's website as part of an ad campaign called 'Start something new.' And the Cupertino, California-based company is replacing all product signage in its retail stores with the artwork. Just as technology has transformed the way we work and interact with one another, it has also changed the way we create. Jules Julien used iDraw on an iMac to create the modern interpretation on emoji . Jimmy Chin, a professional photographer, used and iPhone 6 and Pixelmator app to capture these stunning mountain scenes . For painter Roz Hall, that's meant shifting away from the canvases and acrylic paint he started out using in art school to an iPhone app called Brushes. After not painting for many years, Hall in 2010 read about a group of artists who started using their iPhones and sometimes iPads, which had just come out. 'I had an iPhone at home and I downloaded the Brushes app,' he says. 'That was a wonderful, simple application.' It was also challenging. When he painted on a canvas, he painted life-size works. Painting on a 3.5 inch-screen was an entirely different thing. 'What I liked about it was that there was no setup,' Hall says. With all the prep work that comes with traditional painting, he says, 'by the time you have everything out the moment has (often) passed.' Roz Hall used the app Procreate to paint with his fingers on the iPad . Brazilian artist Marcelo Gomes shot handfuls of colorful paper from different angles with an iPhone 6 Plus. He slowly moved the camera as a painter might move a brush, while using the Slow Shutter! app to lengthen the exposure time . Hall, whose website lists exhibitions in cities from San Francisco to New York to Shanghai, says he has not painted traditionally for many years. And he prefers painting on the iPad to using a traditional computer. Using the app Procreate to paint with his fingers on the iPad, 'you don't feel like you are fighting a computer to create your art. 'You feel connected to the artwork,' he says. 'When I first used an iPad, it made me think of cave paintings, or when a child first paints using their finger.' While some artists may look at digital painting as 'cheating' — after all, you can delete mistaken brush strokes — Hall, who lives in Britain, thinks it actually makes artists more daring. 'If you spent 50 pounds ($75) on canvas and another 50 pounds on paint, at some point you are going to get careful. You don't want to waste what you spent,' he says. For Apple's display, Hall used Procreate to paint portraits of people he encountered at the university where he lectures. Alistair Taylor-Young took photos of rainy cityscapes from behind a sheet of glasswith the iPhone 6 for Apple's project. 'Crystal Mosaic' uses the phone's own camera app to bring drops of rain on glass into focus, showing ordinary scenes through a different perspective. Chad Riley used the burst mode funtion of the iPad Air 2 to capture the swimmer . They include a bearded, mustached young man with bright yellow glasses and an intense stare, and a woman in a floppy black hat lost in thought. Alistair Taylor-Young, whose photography career spans two decades and has shot for fashion icons such as Armani and Fendi and magazines ranging from Conde Nast Traveler to French Vogue, took photos of rainy cityscapes with the iPhone 6 for Apple's project. 'Crystal Mosaic' uses the phone's own camera app to bring drops of rain on glass into focus, showing ordinary scenes through a different perspective. Jingyao Guo used iDraw on an iMac to create this image of Chinese New Year. she also used the Photo Booth app to capture her own facial expressions, which were then transposed onto the figures in the artwork. Taylor-Young bought an iPhone in 2007, when they first came out. Having worked with Polaroid cameras early in his career, he found the quality of the original iPhone's camera very similar. 'It was quite soft and the colors were muted and distorted,' he says. 'The moment I picked up the phone and started taking pictures, it reminded me of photography in its infancy. 'You couldn't focus, change exposure. 'You just saw something and took a photo.' The artist known only as Nomoco used an iPad Air 2 and the Brushes 3 app, painting with her fingers . Photographs from photographer Christian Weber are on display on the wall of an Apple Store in New York, as seen through a glass staircase. The artist used an iPhone 6 and the VSCO app to create them . The quality of phone cameras has certainly improved in the last several years. But more importantly, the ease of use and always-in-hand nature of a smartphone camera has in many ways democratized photography, encouraging anyone to make a photo diary of daily moments, not just special events or trips. 'Digital hasn't made any nicer pictures,' Taylor-Young says. 'But they have opened up the world to people who would have not necessarily thought of taking pictures, or sharing them.' Artwork from artists Jared Chambers, left, Jules Julien, center, and Alistair Taylor Young is on display on the wall of an Apple Store in New York, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2015. Artwork from artist Roz Hall is on display on the wall of an Apple Store in New York, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2015. Apple is turning its retail stores into art galleries featuring the work of professional photographers and other artists who use iPads, iPhones and Mac computers to create.", "Google Street View, the interactive panorama feature within Google Maps, has shared eye-level images of Antarctica, gone inside NASA's Kennedy Space Center, floated down rivers in the Amazon and strolled the halls of famous museums. Now the company is going underwater. The company on Wednesday added panoramic undersea images of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the waters off the Apo Islands in the Philippines and underwater life around the Hawaiian islands. The stunning photos capture fish, plants, turtles and other marine critters going about their business in faraway oceans. Now anyone can get an immersive view of the seas without getting wet or worrying about the bends. Zoom in to check out a manta ray's belly, join a school of fish or study intricate coral up close. More Australia wildlife news: Albino whale puts on show . The photos are part of a partnership with the Catlin Seaview Survey, an ambitious project focused on documenting the world's reefs using high-resolution 360-degree images. Catlin is working to create a thorough archive off the world's reefs that scientists can use to study the effects of climate change. By documenting reefs with photographs, it will be possible to determine the impact increased water temperatures and acidity will have on the areas over time. \"If you want to reach millions of people worldwide, the first place you knock on the door is Google,\" said Richard Vevers, project director of the Catlin Seaview Survey. The partnership with Google (which also involved a live Google Hangout with a diver and a sea turtle earlier this year), is an attempt to get people invested in the fate of these ecosystems and the role the oceans play in sustaining the planet. For the 99% of people who have never been diving, a panoramic photo is a vivid introduction. \"It's about introducing to the wide number of people on this planet the impact we're having on these coral reefs,\" said Vevers. \"Until we make coral reefs and the important ecosystem in the ocean relevant to people on the planet, we're not going to get action.\" Google has used cars, trikes, snowmobiles and people outfitted with custom cameras to capture 360-degree images around the world. For this project, the images were taken by a camera custom-designed for the Catlin Seaview Survey, the SVII, whose design was inspired by sharks. The rapid-fire camera can be controlled by a tablet in watertight housing, and it records GPS data as well as the exact angle at which the photo was taken. To capture images at greater depths, between 30 and 100 meters (about 98 to 328 feet), the group plans to send down special remotely operated vehicles outfitted with remote-controlled digital single-lens reflex cameras. Nearly 90% of the Great Barrier Reef is below 30 meters of water. So far, the project has taken 15,000 panoramic photos underwater, and each of those is made of three separate shots. They hope to have between 50,000 and 100,000 panoramic photos by the end of next year. Future sites will include Bermuda, the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean and the Coral Triangle, an area where coral reefs retreated to after the last ice age. Only the most interesting images will be used for Google Maps, but all will be accessible to scientists through the project's main site. \"One of the central concepts of this activity is to bring people on this jouney with scientists,\" said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland. The Street View (perhaps Reef View?) ocean project was first announced in February. Since it launched in 2007, Google Street View has captured 20 petabytes of data in 48 countries. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that 95% of the ocean is still unexplored.", "By . Catherine Hardy . Cristiano Ronaldo has unveiled his new underwear collection by showing the public just how he good he looks in it. Revealing photos of the muscular footballer modelling his second collection of CR7 by Cristiano Ronaldo underwear were projected onto iconic locations in seven fashion capitals across the globe. Shot by internationally acclaimed fashion photographer Rankin, the campaign images were launched this weekend in London, New York, Berlin, Lisbon, Paris, Milan, and Madrid. Scroll down fro video . London calling: A gigantic image of the footballer was projected onto a building near Waterloo Station . Feeling the va-va-voom! Ronaldo, shown in Paris, was recently named the fittest man alive by Men's Health . Twice as nice: Two photos from the new campaign are shown on the Arco Della Pace in Milan . The buildings chosen for this fashion stunt included Praca Do Comercio in Lisbon, Arco Della Pace in Milan, a building near Waterloo Station in London and Bowery in New York. The Rankin X Ronaldo for CR7 Underwear campaign showcases the second collection of Ronaldo’s premium underwear range, presenting it in a bold stylised way and highlighting the range’s focus on vibrant colour. The campaign provides a stylistic interpretation of Ronaldo’s best loved football moves, with his infamous physique centre-stage. Combining football and fashion: The campaign photos were inspired by Ronaldo's footballing moves . Lucky number seven: This is the second collection of CR7 underwear by Cristiano Ronaldo . 'I am really proud of my second CR7 Underwear collection and wanted to launch it in a way that was personal to me, and to have some fun with it' said the Real Madrid star. 'The number seven has always been close to my heart, so I was honoured to unveil my new collection in seven cities around the globe. 'It was a pleasure to collaborate with Rankin and incredible to see the images released in this unique way.' Pecs appeal: 'To me, it is important that underwear should look stylish and also fit perfectly while being comfortable- quality is also important' says Ronaldo . The footballing pin-up is working on the brand with menswear designer Richard Chai. Together, Chai and Ronaldo have created a new collection for the Autumn/Winter 2014 season, offering dynamic colours with classic but contemporary design. Ready to roll: The footballing pin-up graces the side of Atocha Station in Madrid . Dream team: Ronaldo with fashion photographer Rankin, and pictured on a building in Germany . Ronaldo said, 'Launching my own underwear brand was a dream come true and I am so proud that it has been such a success all around the world, and excited to be launching a second range. 'Since having the opportunity to work on my own brand, fashion and design have become a passion of mine and I’ve really enjoyed working on the second collection. We used our experiences with the first collection to build on the range and I am really pleased with the new styles. 'To me, it is important that underwear should look stylish and also fit perfectly while being comfortable- quality is also important.' Passion for design: Ronaldo, pictured on the Praca Do Comercio in Lisbon, said he really enjoyed working on his second underwear collection . The Big Apple: Ronaldo makes his mark on the Bowery in New York with a revealing photo from the campaign . This season’s global projections takeover follows the brand’s dramatic launch last year, in which a 52 foot campaign image of Ronaldo was uncovered in Madrid’s famous Palacio de Cibeles. Ronaldo has recently been named the fittest man alive by Men’s Health magazine and will appear on the cover of their September issue. The new collection of CR7 Underwear is available at www.CR7Underwear.com .", "London (CNN) -- It may appear to be the height of bad taste: a collection of handguns clad in silver and studded with precious stones. But although these weapons, which were produced by Tiffany & Co in the late 19th Century, were able to deliver lethal force, they were never designed to be fired. \"So far as we know, the guns never killed anybody,\" says Pierre Terjanian, the head of the Arms and Armor department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where a collection of seven such guns is kept. \"They were produced to symbolize the potency of American manufacturing and craftsmanship, and were created using techniques that nobody else could equal.\" Guns not blazing . Tiffany & Co had been producing decorative presentation swords that were awarded to American officers during the Civil War and Mexican-American War of 1846-8. In the 1880s, the company moved into firearms, taking delivery of standard-issue Smith & Wesson handguns and transforming them into one-off works of art. They were clad in silver, etched with intricate designs, and studded with precious jewels. Each weapon was unique; one was adorned with an American buffalo hunting scene, while others were inspired by Japanese or Islamic design. These formed the centerpiece of the American display at the World's Fair series of exhibitions, which started with the Great Exhibition in Crystal Palace, London, in 1851, and then were held around Europe and the United States. \"At the time, a great aura surrounded the Wild West in Europe,\" says Terjanian. \"It was at the time of the closing of the frontier, and people were already thinking nostalgically about it. \"Tiffany took Wild West symbolism and combined it with high-quality craftsmanship. It confirmed that Tiffany was an American firm with global ambitions, which could do things that nobody else could.\" Uniquely beautiful objects . Among the techniques that the weapons showcased were advanced enameling -- two colors were blended together in a way that had never been seen before -- and the use of chemical etching, as opposed to straightforward engraving. Tiffany & Co also produced a Winchester rifle, which was famously used in the conquest of the West. Although it was technically able to fire bullets, the thick silver cladding made it impossible to disassemble and clean, and the heavy ebony wood made it too heavy to use effectively. Despite the focus on display, several weapons were purchased by American businessmen, including Jason \"Jay\" Gould, the prominent railroad magnate. According to Terjanian, a particularly beautiful weapon -- which had a butt made of carved ivory -- was acquired by a well-known sharpshooter named John Wynans, who used it to demonstrate his skills. In all, about 50 guns were produced by Tiffany. The project was abruptly discontinued in 1911, when New York adopted gun control laws. \"These are very important objects,\" says Terjanian. \"They showed that objects may have a function, but their symbolic meaning can be greater. \"They stood not for combat but for handiwork and the imagination. They surprised and impressed everybody, and acted as ambassadors for Tiffany & Co and for the United States.\" The future Underground: London's new spaceship-style tube trains . Did artists eerily predict the Ukraine crisis? Would you eat Fukushima soup? The lost art of the American pin-up .", "Sir Richard Branson's Caribbean island home that was destroyed by fire in a suspected lightning strike two years ago has been rebuilt and is now ready to welcome its first guests. Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet had to carry Sir Richard's 90-year-old mother, Eve, to safety when flames tore through The Great House on Necker Island in August 2011. Now the house, which Sir Richard lets out, has been re-modelled on the original design, with some new innovations and a 1,500 sq ft master suite. Those who can afford it can stay at the house for a nightly rate of £37,500. The house can take up to 30 adults plus six children. Scroll down for video . Paradise: Sir Richard Branson has spent two years refurbishing the Great House on Necker Island, in the British Virgin Islands, which is now complete . Luxury: A view of the master bedroom in The Great House which offers panoramic views of the Caribbean, the Atlantic Ocean and neighbouring islands . Tranquil setting: The house, which Sir Richard lets out, has been re-modelled on the original design, with some new innovations . Stunning: The new master bedroom in the Great House will have unbelievable panoramic views of Necker Island . Luxury: The new Great House was modelled on the original, which burned down in the 2011 fire, and has retained the same Balinese design . Premium: Enjoying the private sandy beaches and gorgeous swimming pool comes at a premium price - a staggering £37,500 per night . Sir Richard said: 'Necker Island has . been my home for more than 30 years and for me it is the most beautiful . place in the world. 'The . brand new Great House is the heart of the island and I'm thrilled with . the results. This signals a new dawn for Necker, which I'm very excited . about.' Set in the . Caribbean, Richard Branson's holiday home is a by-word for luxury and . has played host to a vast array of A-list celebrities and royalty. The . private island house, which Branson has owned since 1979, boasts eight . guest rooms, each with a balcony, king-sized bed and en-suite bathroom. The master suite has been . specifically designed to give panoramic views of the Caribbean, the . Atlantic Ocean and neighbouring islands. It includes a two-person Jacuzzi, stand-alone outdoor bath and a kitchenette area with a fully-stocked fridge. The resort can be hired exclusively for . up to 30 adults but this kind of luxury comes at a price per night that . few people earn in a year. Nice if you can get it: For those that can afford to rent the island, guests have the use of the swimming pool . Opulent: As well as sleeping 20 people in the Great House, guests also have access to the beach houses (pictured) Romantic: For even more privacy, guests can choose to stay in the secluded beach house on the 74-acre island that straddles the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean . Al Fresco: Outside a table is laid big enough to seat all the guests on Necker at the same time . Fireside: Guests can lounge by the sea on the beach in hammocks, ornate sofas or eat and drink on the sand . Leisure: Necker boasts two tennis courts and guests can also exercise in the opulent pool or relax in the outdoor spa . Decadent: As well as chefs on the island providing top quality food, the Great House comes with fully-stocked fridges for midnight feasts . An exclusive week's rental, that includes six individual Bali Houses dotted around the island and two tennis courts, costs around £270,000. The . Great House was gutted by the fire on August 22, 2011, which was . believed to have been caused by lightning from Tropical Storm Irene. Kate Winslet, who has since married Branson's nephew Ned Rocknroll, was in the house at the time and helped carry the business tycoon's 90-year-old mother Eve. He told ITV News shortly after the fire: 'She [Winslet] said it was like being on . a film set where you’re waiting for the word 'cut’, but it just didn’t . come.' The Virgin boss said guests, including his son Sam and daughter Holly, were woken at about 5am after hearing loud bangs as gas canisters exploded. He said: 'It was terrifying for me . because my daughter and nephews, nieces, friends were all in the house, so I just ran, naked, towards the house to try to . make sure I could get people out.' Phoenix from the ashes: Sir Richard Branson, pictured with his wife Joan, and daughter Holly, said he is 'thrilled' with the refurbished house . Devastated: The Great House was totally gutted in the 2011 blaze that is believed to have been caused by a lightning strike . Rescue: Kate Winslet, the wife of Branson's nephew Ned Rocknroll, is credited with helping to rescue the billionaire's mother Eve from the blaze . Ablaze: The Great House was gutted by the inferno but all the guests, including Sir Richard Branson's children, managed to escape . The rest of the island has remained open to visitors since the fire. New . features include an expansive outdoor terrace with hammocks and sofas . and a large dining table for guests to eat together al fresco. There is also a fully-stocked bar for cocktails and a crow’s nest on the roof has amazing views. Branson was only 28 when he bought the island for £180,000 and turned it into the superstar resort. Necker Island - aptly for the Virgin boss - is located in the British Virgin Islands. It is a surrounded by turquoise . waters, coral reefs and white sandy beaches and as well as celebrity . guests is also home to diverse wildlife including flamingos, iguanas, . lemurs and giant tortoises. Powerful friends: Sir Richard Branson has known to have hosted Prince Harry and Tony Blair at Necker Island . Royal draw: Diana, Princess of Wales, is pictured on a deck chair on Necker Island during a holiday in January, 1989 . Prince's favourite: Prince William (centre) and Prince Harry (right) arrives at Necker Island by boat during the 1989 trip . Over the years, it has attracted royalty such as Princess Diana, Prince Harry and the Duchess of Cambridge, who visited during her split from Prince William, who took advantage of the privacy the island provides. The list of megastars from Hollywood and the world of sport to have holidayed there is seemingly endless and includes Harrison Ford, Robert De Niro, Oprah Winfrey, the Rolling Stones and the likes of John McEnroe and Novak Djokovic. More surprisingly, it has also been a haven to some of the biggest names in politics such as Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela and Tony Blair. Sir Richard Branson, pictured with his infant son Sam on Necker Island in 1986, bought it when he was just 28 . The 74-acre island of Necker is part of the British Virgin Islands and sits on the boundary of the Caribbean and Atlantic Ocean. It was named after the 17th century Dutch squadron commander Johannes de Neckere but remained uninhabited during the early 20th century. It was bought by Sir Richard Branson in 1979 after he heard some of the Virgin Islands were being sold. Branson was just 28 - and only six years after starting the Virgin Group. He offered a very low bid of £100,000, which was rejected, but eventually secured the paradise island for £180,000. He was forced to build a resort within five years of taking ownership, otherwise the government said it would be taken back by the state. According to reporters, Branson spent about £6.5million creating the luxury resort over the next three years. It has played host to an array of the world's most powerful, rich and famous. Princess Diana chose the island for her holiday with Prince William and Prince Harry. It was also a haven of privacy for the Duchess of Cambridge when she fled Britain during her temporary split from Prince William. Google founder Larry Page even chose it for his wedding to Lucy Southworth in 2007. It was also the site of Sir Richard's daughter Holly Branson's wedding to shipbroker Fred Andrews just months after devastating fire. Her wedding was on the same spot as that of Sir Richard and his wife Joan Templeman's in 1989 when Holly was eight and her brother Sam was four. In April 2011, Branson offered the island to his close friend Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge for the royal couple's honeymoon.", "With a £40,000 price tag per night, it's a holiday that's out of reach for most of us, save those with the deepest of pockets. Luckily, there's another way you can have a snoop around Sir Richard Branson's Necker Island holiday retreat without spending a penny (save the cost of your TV license). BBC2 cameras are going behind the scenes at the Virgin mogul's Caribbean island hideaway as part of a new season of TV shows about the super-rich. Home sweet home: A one-off TV show will show viewers around Branson's Necker Island pile . Cash ready: It cost guests up to £40,000 a night to stay at Sir Richard's Caribbean island hideaway . The one-off documentary, Inside Necker Island, is described as 'an intimate portrait of how the rich, powerful and famous holiday'. Sir Richard bought the island in 1978 when he was just 27 and opened it as a luxury retreat for private hire in 1984. Guests can expect to pay up to £40,000 a night and are waited on by around 100 staff. It hit the headlines three years ago when Oscar-winner Kate Winslet had to carry Sir Richard's 90-year-old mother, Eve, to safety when a fire broke out in the multi-millionaire businessman's house. The blaze severely damaged the island's Great House, however it was rebuilt a year later. Other planned programmes include journalist Jacques Peretti examining how the arrival of the very rich has changed the UK and a one-off documentary about the lives of wealthy Russians who have made their home in London. Before the fire: An image of the island before it was devastated by a blaze which damaged the Great House . Luxury: This year the property was voted first in a survey of celebrity houses Brits would most like to stay in . BBC2 controller Kim Shillinglaw said: 'From exposing the jaw-dropping luxury in which the richest one per cent of society live to exploring the impact such lifestyle extremes have on contemporary Britain, this will be a fascinating and thought-provoking season of films for BBC2.' Earlier this year Necker Island was voted first in a survey of top celebrity houses Brits would most like to stay in, bumping Buckingham Palace into second place. Past guests of the sunny retreat include Princess Diana, Mariah Carey, Robert De Niro and Steven Spielberg and the private island house has eight guest rooms, each with a balcony, king-sized bed and en-suite bathroom. Room with a view: The main house on Necker Island as it was before the fire . A 1,500 square feet master suite sits upstairs that has been specifically designed to give panoramic views of the Caribbean, the Atlantic Ocean and neighbouring islands and includes a two-person Jacuzzi. The Virgin mogul also owns Makepeace Island in Queensland, Australia, a heart-shaped island which you can rent for holidays at a cost of £2,000 a day plus £350 a day per guest, for up to 22 people.", "Mexican artist Frida Kahlo's native garden and studio will be reimagined at the New York Botanical Garden in the spring. The garden will use flowers and plants native to Mexico in the exhibition 'Frida Kahlo: Art, Garden, Life,' which will open May 16 and run through November 1. The exhibition in New York City will reflect the bright colors and textures of Kahlo's portraits and still lifes. Famed for her colourful but disturbing self-portraits, that unabashed mono-brow, a turbulent marital relationship with fellow artist Diego Rivera and a raft of severe health problems, Kahlo, who was born in 1907, has fascinated art lovers for decades. The exhibit will feature about a dozen original paintings and drawings highlighting her use of botanical imagery. Photos of Kahlo and her husband, muralist Diego Rivera, also will be shown. The Enid A. Haupt Conservatory will be transformed into Kahlo's Blue House (Casa Azul) studio and garden outside Mexico City. It was decorated in traditional Mexican folk-art objects, Colonial-era art, native plants and religious ex-voto paintings that depict a tragedy or someone with a grave illness or injury. Among the features at the botanical garden will be a lava rock path lined with flowers. There also will be a scale version of a pyramid at Casa Azul that was created to display pre-Columbian art collected by her husband, muralist Diego Rivera. It will be filled with traditional Mexican terra cotta pots. The exhibition also will have a dozen of her original paintings and drawings on view at the nearby LuEsther T. Mertz Library's art gallery. The exhibition 'will provide an in-depth look at Kahlo's work and artistic environment and also celebrate the energy and sophistication of Mexican culture,' said Gregory Long, president and CEO of the garden. It will be curated by art historian and Mexican art specialist Adriana Zavala. The garden did a similar recreation in 2012 of Claude Monet's flower and water gardens and home at Giverny in the north of France. The same year an exhibition of her clothes, orthopaedic paraphernalia and even prosthetic limbs were displayed inside one of the Mexico City homes she shared with her husband. Mexican artist Frida Kahlo's native garden and studio will be reimagined at the New York Botanical Garden in the spring. This painting  (pictured) will join more than a dozen works by the artist at an exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx borough of New York . Smoke and Mirrors: Frida Kahlo's Dresses displays 300 accessories, corsets, clothes and health contraptions worn by Kahlo that have been locked away for over 50 years since her death in 1954, aged 47. The exhibit explored Kahlo's unique wardrobe which was chiefly inspired by Mexico's indigenous women who were famous for their richly embroidered frocks, flowery headpieces and ornate silver jewellery. But beneath her long dresses, Kahlo hid a body that had been contorted by childhood polio and then only just survived a horrific bus crash. Kahlo contracted polio when she was young, and the disease stunted the growth of her right leg. When she was 18, a metal tube pierced through her abdomen during a bus crash, subjecting her to painful operations and long periods of bed rest throughout her life. She had her right leg amputated in 1953, a year before her death. A photograph of the artist, circa 1945, with a painting of her husband Diego Rivera .", "New York Fashion Week saw the emergence of wearable technology on runways such as Opening Ceremony who debuted their smart MICA bracelet. However for PPQ creating a futuristic vibe on the runway involves a little less technology and a little more tinsel. For their SS15 collection showcased last night Le Peep Boutique on London's Park Lane, the British design duo, Amy Molyneaux and Percy Parker created a 'space safari' with a collection that the designer's are calling 'luna chic.' PPQ's SS15 collection saw a collaboration with Claire's Accessories bringing high end to the high street including mother of pearl pieces like the necklace pictured . An array of silver 'tinsel' dresses, white suits and metallic sequins gave a nod to the 90s party scene that wouldn't look out of place in The Ministry of Sound. The palette conveyed the brand's notion of space age perfectly made-up entirely of silver and white in what the pair hope will be an uplifting collection that looks forward rather than back. This collection sees the brand's high-end design meet high-street affordability as PPQ collaborates with accessories brand Claire's Accessories for their SS15 jewellery range. Despite the affordability the pieces look anything other than cheap, with the statement necklaces dripping with mother of pearl and shell. The collection took a futuristic feel and was entitiled Space Safari and the palette was made up purely of white and silver . Laura Whitmore is a big fan of the British brand and attended last night's show at Le Peep Boutique . For Amy, the collaboration means welcoming those who are so often excluded from the fashion industry. 'A lot of 16-year-old girls are fans of our brand and they aspire to it especially when they see celebs like Dasiy Lowe wearing our pieces. But the sad fact is they just can't afford it.' However, this season could see that change with the intricate yet affordable pieces being readily available to the public. 'The jewellery will available to buy online' says Percy 'We wanted to bring high-end to the high-street.' Given the futuristic nature of the collection it would seem that adding wearable technology to the range would have made perfect sense but for Amy, technology in fashion should involve changes in material rather than megabits. The models channeled a new trend of glittery centre partings, fitting for the futuristic theme . 'I think that if there is a suggestion of technology such as new textures in fabric but if there is technology there just for the sake of it and the design is ugly then it is pointless.' As if a clothing collection weren't enough PPQ also has it's own music label 1234 and for their SS15 show they enlisted one of their own DJs to create the sound track to the catwalk. 'We always want to create something new and fresh when it comes to music' says Percy and Amy agrees. 'Yes and whatever it is it is always really close to home,' The pair claim that their SS15 collection is very wearable despite the heavy metallic and suggest that it has a resort feel. The designers are determined to increase PPQs wearability further as they announce plans for a further high street collaboration with online fashion brand Very.co.uk. For Percy this collaboration is all about bringing down the exclusive nature of the fashion industry whilst maintaining quality. 'We want to be able to share our designs but on an affordable level' he says adding 'it's all about creating accessible elitism.' Friendly frow: From left to right ex Made In Chelsea star Ashley James, actress and model Wallis Day, and actor and model Charlie Mills .", "LONDON, England (CNN) -- Two titans of showbusiness have come together in a perfect pairing: The Rolling Stones, the world's greatest band, play two nights at New York's intimate Beacon Theatre; capturing the night on camera is celebrated film director, Martin Scorsese. Shared history, mutual respect: The Stones and Scorsese . The result is \"Shine a Light,\" which records Jagger, Richards, Watts and Wood's performance at the end of \"Bigger Bang,\" their monumental two-year, record-breaking, $558 million, 144-date global tour that saw 4.6 million ticket holders watch the rock giants. The Stones/Scorsese combo is backed by a team of Oscar-winning cinematographers, more than 18 cameras, duets with the White Stripes' Jack White, pop starlet Christina Aguilera and blues granddaddy Buddy Guy, plus a cameo from a former U.S. president: the Stones juggernaut is well and truly in town. Scorsese is no stranger to the world of rock music. He cut his teeth as an editor on seminal 1970 documentary \"Woodstock\" and aside from making some of the silver screen's finest movies (\"Goodfellas,\" \"Mean Streets,\" \"Raging Bull,\" \"The Departed\"), he is also the master behind definitive rockumentaries \"The Last Waltz,\" which captured The Band's final performance, and Bob Dylan epic, \"No Direction Home.\" But apart from his musical collaborations, rock has underpinned many of the master's greatest moments -- and his relationship with the Stones goes way back. The Stones themselves have provided the backing track for classic Scorsese scenes: notably, Jack Nicholson's Irish mobster's entrance in \"The Departed\" to the thumping sound of \"Gimme Shelter\" and \"Jumpin' Jack Flash\" behind De Niro's introduction in \"Mean Streets\"; while \"Goodfellas\" features \"Monkey Man\" and, again, \"Gimme Shelter.\" Scorsese, who pioneered the use of rock music on \"Mean Streets,\" has said that his use of eclectic soundtracks stems from New York, where all genres of music would blast from the brownstones around his neighborhood. And for him, the Stones provide the sound of the city, the sound of the streets: cool, dangerous, absolutely self-assured, suffused with menace and gangster swagger. He says, \"The Stones were key ... I was creating scenarios in my head as I listened to their music.\" \"There is a drive and an authority to their music, and also an edge to it,\" he continues. \"I've used Gimme Shelter twice now in my pictures.\" (It's left to Jagger to joke that Shine a Light is the first Scorsese film not to feature the track.) So when Jagger decided he wanted a film of their live performance, who better to call. \"It's good to start at the top,\" he says. Initially, guitarist Keith Richards was reluctant to go ahead with the film. He told CNN, \"I wouldn't have done this. They said, 'We wanna shoot a show,' and I said, 'Yeah, so?'\" But Richards, a film buff and longtime fan of Scorsese's work, couldn't resist the chance to be shot by the director. \"You go, whoah,\" he said. \"You can't f*** around with him. I wanted to see what Marty saw in the Stones.\" And Scorsese's response? One word: \"Absolutely.\" But Jagger's idea for the movie centered around the Stones' biggest ever concert, in Rio de Janeiro. Scorsese wasn't convinced that the Brazilian beach extravaganza would hit the right note . \"I wanted to capture the music and their interaction on stage, I wanted people to feel like they were with them in the real film,\" he explains. Eventually he persuaded Jagger to forego the Rio beach gig for a double date at New York's Beacon Theatre. On the night of the performance, we see Scorsese's painstaking preparation come up against the monster of spontaneity that is the Rolling Stones live. As the clock ticks towards curtain time, the filmmaker still doesn't have the final set-list, and is getting jittery. \"It felt like the last minute. It may actually have been an hour or so,\" he recalls. But as the song goes, you can't always get what you want: Scorsese had to place his faith in his meticulous planning, and the hope that he would be able to respond to the performers -- Jagger especially -- on the night. Scorsese believes that the band's live performances are the key to their long-lived success. \"The way they work off of each other and off of the audience ... It's fascinating to see that kind of power,\" he explains. \"They cast a spell, something primal but very orchestrated.\" When it came to the edit, Scorsese ditched any thought of talking-head interviews, choosing instead to splice vintage TV/archive footage between the live shots. That puts the focus firmly on the music, while underlining the Stones' longevity. So where does \"Shine a Light\" stand in relation to other rockumentary greats? Sure enough, it's not The Stones: The Spectacle, Mick Jagger's original concept. This is an intimate and illuminating look at the relationships in rock 'n' roll's greatest band. It pays tribute to their longevity, highlights their rich repertoire and shows how, forty years on, their live shows still crackle with energy. And while fans will decide whether Scorsese has fulfilled his aim to make \"something that's as close as possible to a live performance,\" Keith Richards believes Scorsese got the gold. \"He captured what we do,\" he told CNN. \"We are what we are. We're a rock 'n' roll band.\"", "\"Since I was a child my family has made an almost weekly trip to have lunch in Skaneateles,\" says Rachel Dickinson, based in the nearby New York State town of Ithaca and author of Falconer on the Edge. \"If you're lucky, you can get a table at the Sherwood Inn, where you look out on the small park with the white gazebo that fronts the lake.\" As the weather turns crisp and the days gradually shorten, nature takes its cue to bring on the color—and the leaf-peepers come out in force. Like Dickinson, many head to Skaneateles, one of the best towns for experiencing fall colors, according to Travel + Leisure readers who voted in the America's Favorite Towns survey. The top-scoring towns represent the full color spectrum, from the blazing scarlet, orange, and deep purples of New England's hardwoods to the golden carpet of aspens covering the Rocky Mountains. \"Autumn leaves are nature's stained glass,\" says professional photographer Michael Clemmer, whose images have appeared in National Geographic Society publications and calendars around the world. \"They can be beautiful in moody muted light or when brightly lighted from behind.\" If you want to photograph autumn in all of its deciduous glory, he cautions: \"Don't shoot in the middle of the day unless it's cloudy because the bright sun washes out color. Morning and evening light are best.\" Clemmer's No. 1 rule? \"Don't let taking photos keep you from enjoying the scenery.\" Check out these favorite fall-foliage towns, from Colorado to Vermont, and then get out there to see the colors for yourself. 1. Oakland, Maryland . Oakland took top honors as the best town in America for leaf-peeping, thanks primarily to the blazing colors found just nine miles north of town at Swallow Falls State Park. As the Youghiogheny River flows through rock gorges, the oldest stands of eastern hemlock and white pine—more than 360 years old—blanket the area in gold, orange and red. For five days in early October, residents turn out for the annual Autumn Glory Festival, including two parades, concerts and band competitions. Oakland also embraces the Halloween spirit, hosting a hayride along the lakefront that passes scenes of zombies and ghosts. Travel + Leisure: America's best cities for fall travel . 2. Lake Placid, New York . The Adirondack Mountains are famed for their fall colors, and T+L readers gave Lake Placid the silver medal for autumn foliage. Red and silver maples, birch, aspen, oaks and beech trees stretch out along the Olympic Trail scenic byway (which runs through Lake Placid), providing a striking show of color for its 170 miles. Or take the Fall Foliage Train tour on the Adirondack Scenic Railroad. Prime viewing time tends to be in early to mid-October, which conveniently coincides with the Lake Placid Brewfest. 3. Stillwater, Minnesota . When the leaves start showing their colors in Stillwater—on the western banks of the St. Croix River dividing Minnesota and Wisconsin—visitors converge on the town's many Victorian bed-and-breakfast inns. One of the best ways to take in nature's show is by river cruise on a replica of an 1890s paddleboat. Autumn here kicks off with the annual grape stomp competition, with prizes given for best style, and it culminates in the long-running fine-art and music festival. 4. Stowe, Vermont . As the air gets crisp in Stowe, the sugar maples come alive in intense shades of gold, orange and scarlet blanketing the surrounding Green and Worcester mountain ranges. In general, the best time to capture these brilliant hues is the end of September through mid-October; the Trapp Family Lodge (\"the family that inspired The Sound of Music\") makes a charming base of operations, especially during the popular Stowe Oktoberfest. Travel + Leisure: America's best fall color drives . 5.Ludlow, Vermont . Before the snow bunnies take over Okemo Mountain and its ski resort, the 3,344-foot peak is one of the loveliest places in the valley for fall colors—with a 360-degree view that includes the Green Mountains to the west and the Okemo Valley region to the east. Just drive to the top, park, and hike the short distance to the fire tower. Other prime viewing spots are along the nearby Scenic Route 100 Byway: the President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site and Coolidge State Park, both affording panoramic, mountaintop views. 6. Portsmouth, New Hampshire . Like so many New England towns, Portsmouth is awash in early American history. At Strawbery Banke Museum—a 10-acre outdoor museum—you can take in the fall color as you roam the waterfront district and its restored homes built in the mid-1600s. By car, watch the foliage as you drive down the 18-mile scenic Coastal Byway. Or leave the driving to the captain on a 2.5-hour inland river cruise highlighting foliage and local lore. 7. Whitefish, Montana . The mountains framing Whitefish—doorway to Glacier National Park in the Flathead Valley—are a dramatic study in contrasts in autumn, when the golden aspen and larch flash against a backdrop of dark evergreens. Kayaking or canoeing on Whitefish Lake, the largest natural freshwater lake in the West, is one of the best ways to catch views of Big Mountain and the forests around it. If you prefer driving, follow Highway 35 along the east side of the lake and return in time to polka the night away at the annual two-weekend Oktoberfest. Travel + Leisure: Best carry-on luggage . 8. Snowmass Village, Colorado . Snowmass Village and nearby Aspen—which bears the name of Colorado's most ubiquitous tree—are visited only briefly by autumn. But catch it while you can because it's one of the best times to explore this area, with seasonably mild days and not-too-cold nights, and the predictable celebrity sightings when the Aspen Film Festival rolls into town. The preferred local ways to experience fall color are biking and hiking, whether it's along the exceptionally beautiful Crater Lake Trail near Maroon Bells or the moderate Smuggler's Loop at Hunter Creek. 9. Lake Geneva, Wisconsin . When Chicago's upper crust started putting up mansions on Lake Geneva in the late 19th century, they enlisted some of the top landscape architects to design grounds and plant trees that would showcase autumn colors for as long as possible, from early September through November. Three-mile-long Snake Road on the north end of the lake is one of the best drives in the fall, or enjoy a fall foliage cruise. Better yet, splurge on a view from a hot air balloon. 10. Glenwood Springs, Colorado . Autumn can start making an appearance as soon as early September in these parts, and leaf-peepers trek to Glenwood Springs in droves to watch summer green change to aspen gold at the confluence of the Colorado and Roaring Fork rivers. Bike or hike along the 44-mile Rio Grande Trail that leads up to Aspen. If you have to pick a drive, choose the one over Independence Pass, where a short hike will bring you to a summit overlooking 18 mountains higher than 14,000 feet. You can even choose to leaf peep by Segway. Back in Glenwood Springs, relax at the world's largest natural hot springs pool. See all the top towns for fall colors .", "Elvis Presley had one; so did Clark Gable. It was even the sedan of presidents. Then the name vanished amid an invasion of newer luxury cars from Europe and Asia. Now, the Lincoln Continental is back. Thirteen years after the last Continental rolled off the assembly line, Ford Motor Co. is resurrecting its storied nameplate. The new Continental debuts in concept form at this week's New York auto show. The production version of the full-size sedan goes on sale next year. Scroll down for video . Design: The emblem is illuminated along with the front headlamps on a Lincoln Continental concept car at the New York International Auto Show at the Javits Center on Monday . New look: The concept car being unveiled Monday in New York is painted a deep Prussian blue, a homage to Continentals of the 1950s and 1960s . Features: The driver's seat has a patented split cushion, so if the driver holds one leg out further than another, it will support each leg separately. The moonroof glass turns opaque with the touch of a button . All in the details: The Lincoln logo is seen on a passenger's side front wheel for the concept vehicle (left), and the Continental name also appears on the driver's side door (right) Gleaming: The emblem for a Lincoln Continental shines on the grill of Ford's concept car at the New York International Auto Show . Switch-up: The Continental is expected to replace the seven-year-old MKS, which currently sits atop Lincoln's car lineup . Luxury item: Both Elvis Presley and Clark Gable once owned Lincoln Continentals . Overseas appeal: In China, customers know the Continental name and appreciate brands with a rich history . After more than a decade of toying with alphabetical names like LS and MKS to be more like its foreign rivals, Ford's 98-year-old Lincoln brand is embracing its heritage. It's a measure of the growing confidence at Lincoln, which is finally turning around a decades-long sales decline. And it's a nod to the importance of China, where customers know the Continental name and appreciate brands with a rich history. Ford CEO Mark Fields says the Continental always represented the best of Lincoln. Resurrecting it sets higher expectations, both within the company and outside of it. 'When we get a chance to work on an iconic nameplate like that, it's a mixture of pride and a mixture of fear, because when you put that name out there, it's got to deliver,' Fields told The Associated Press in a recent interview. Classic: This undated photo provided by the Ford Motor Co. shows two people looking at 1940 Lincoln-Zephyr Continental Cabriolet . Tradition: The 1941 Lincoln Continental is seen in this undated photograph . Legacy: In this June 1946 file photo, Henry Ford II, grandson of Ford Motor Co. founder Henry Ford, is seated in a Ford Lincoln Continental . Style: The 1948 Lincoln Continental Cabriolet V12 is seen here. Thirteen years after the last Continental rolled off a Michigan assembly line, Ford Motor Co. is debuting the new Continental in concept form at the New York Auto Show on Monday . Piece of history: A 1948 Lincoln Continental that belonged to baseball great Babe Ruth (2012 photograph) The Continental was born in 1938, when Henry Ford's son Edsel commissioned a convertible he could use on his spring vacation. Thrilled by the reception he got as he drove the elegant sedan around Palm Beach, Edsel made the Continental part of Lincoln's lineup. The Continental soon became the pinnacle of American luxury. Warner Brothers gave Elizabeth Taylor a 1956 Continental with a custom paint color to match her eyes. A darker historical note: John F. Kennedy was riding in the back of a 1961 Continental convertible when he was assassinated in Dallas. Continental sales peaked in 1990 at 62,732. But after that, Lincoln's sales began slipping. Mid-century: The 1956 Lincoln Continental Mk II is seen here. That same year, Warner Brothers gave Elizabeth Taylor a 1956 Continental with a custom paint color to match her eyes . One year later: A 1957 Lincoln Continental cruises by the beach in this undated image . Out for a drive: A woman is seen steering the 1961 Lincoln Continental convertible . This June 1961 photo shows President John F. Kennedy's Lincoln Continental limousine. The limo was the first presidential car equipped with a transparent roof for all compartments and has other options including fabric roof covering, or use as a convertible, as well as combinations for the rear, middle and front compartments . In this June 1961 photo, U.S. Secret Service agents stand on retractable stands on President John F. Kennedy's new plastic-topped Lincoln Continental limousine outside the White House, after its delivery in Washington . Tragedy: President Kennedy, First Lady Jackie Kennedy and Texas governor John Connally are seen in this Nov. 22, 1963 file photo . On display: The 1962 Lincoln Continental convertible is seen here. A production version of the Lincoln Continental being debuted at the New York Auto Show this week will go on sale next year . History: Visitors to the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace get a look at the limousine that was built in 1967 for President Lyndon B. Johnson in August 1996. The modified Lincoln Continental was used by U.S. Presidents, including Nixon, until it was retired in 1978 . Ford had acquired other luxury brands such as Jaguar and Volvo. Lincoln's designs got dull and failed to stand out from lower-priced Fords. The Continental was also squeezed by competition from the midsize Lincoln LS, which debuted in 2000, and the bigger Town Car. Ford also underestimated the threat posed by German rivals, who were expanding their lineups, and newer Japanese luxury brands. By 2000, Lexus was the top-selling luxury brand in the U.S.; last year, BMW was. To make its way back, Lincoln isn't trying isn't trying to be sporty like BMW or showy like Cadillac. Instead, Fields says, it wants to give drivers an experience that is elegant and serene. 'We want folks to get into our vehicles and — for lack of a better term — chill,' Fields said. It appears to be working. Lincoln's U.S. sales rose 16 percent last year, making it one of the fastest-growing luxury brands in the market. The midsize MKZ was the brand's top seller. Full-size sedans like the Continental are a tough sell in the U.S., where buyers tend to prefer midsize sedans or SUVs. U.S. sales of Lincoln's current full-size sedan, the MKS, fell 24 percent last year. Disco era: The 1972 Lincoln Continental Mark IV is seen here. Continental sales peaked in 1990 at 62,732. But after that, Lincoln's sales began slipping . Variation: This image shows a Lincoln Continental Mark V from 1979 . Different look: A 1992 Lincoln Continental is seen here. Full-size sedans like the Continental are a tough sell in the U.S., where buyers tend to prefer midsize sedans or SUVs . Seaside: This undated photo provided by the Ford Motor Co. shows the 1997 Lincoln Continental model . Cruising: A 2000 Lincoln Continental races down a road. The Continental was squeezed by competition from the midsize Lincoln LS, which debuted in 2000, and the bigger Town Car . But globally, the segment is growing, Fields says. Ford has high hopes for the Lincoln brand in China, where it's opening dazzling new dealerships complete with waterfalls. Ford began selling Lincolns in China late last year, and the company will open more than 20 dealerships there this year. The concept car being unveiled Monday in New York is painted a deep Prussian blue, an homage to Continentals of the 1950s and 1960s. But there are few other references to its history. Lincoln's split-wing grille, a feature that dates to the 1940s, has been replaced by a tight, rectangular mesh grille, its shiny chrome patterned with tiny versions of Lincoln's rectangular logo. The sides are smooth; even the door handles are hidden within a narrow strip of chrome at the beltline. The concept is a technology showcase. The driver's seat has a patented split cushion, so if the driver holds one leg out further than another, it will support each leg separately. The moonroof glass turns opaque with the touch of a button. Another button automatically moves the front passenger seat forward and fully reclines the rear passenger seat. That's another nod to China, where luxury car owners often have their own drivers. Under the hood is a 3-liter V6 EcoBoost engine that's unique to Lincoln. Ford isn't yet revealing more details, like whether the car is front- or rear-wheel drive. The Continental switched to a front-wheel-drive sedan in the 1980s, but many of its current competitors — the Infiniti Q70, Mercedes Benz S-Class and Lexus LS — are rear-wheel drive. The Continental is expected to replace the seven-year-old MKS, which currently sits atop Lincoln's car lineup.", "A recent Canadian news article showcasing a New York City artist who makes millions from her invisible works of art has been revealed to be a joke. Though intended as a satire, the September piece on CBC.com about 27-year-old Lana Newstrom, who told the site her 'art is about imagination,' managed to infuriate art world critics who didn't get the joke. Now the writers and readers who cried 'the emperor has no clothes' are the ones left with their pants down. Who's laughing now? Two prankster Canadian radio hosts duped a bunch of media types with a hoax story about a New York artist whose 'invisible' works of art fetch millions of dollars . Guardian art blogger Jonathan Jones wrote on Tuesday that the outrage that grew out of the misunderstood joke because so many are 'shocked and repelled by the art market' and of 'the image of rich people forking out for invisible art.' The CBC article, which was penned by radio pranksters Pat Kelly and Peter Oldring, quoted Newstrom's imaginary art dealer as saying 'her invisible works can fetch upwards of a million dollars.' Jones points out just a couple of the gullible outlets who had knee-jerk reactions to the piece, including sports website Barstool. 'If you’re some artsy fartsy idiot paying money for invisible art, you GOTTA kill yourself,' they wrote. The CBC report was shared and liked tens of thousands of times and the comments sections lit up after outlets reported the hoax as fact, with many readers ridiculing the fictional young woman and her nonexistent art. Another piece published at CBC revealed the pranksters intentions with the joke. 'In the arts, there is much room for interpretation and we thought it would be interesting to push the idea to the extreme–invisible art,' said Pat Kelly. While the audio piece posted along with the CBC article seems to make all but clear that there isn't actually a Lana Newstrom, someone did to the trouble of creating a website and social media accounts for her. 'Just because you can’t see anything, doesn’t mean I didn’t put hours of work into creating a particular piece,' Newstrom writes on the site, where titles like 'Transparent Baloon' and 'Tough Day' are posted below empty spaces. Obviously a joke: The fictional artist, 27-year-old Lana Newstrom, even has a website of her 'works' where titles like 'Strawberry' and 'Tough Day' accompany nothing but empty space .", "By . Misty White Sidell . One ambitious young artist has transplanted a chocolate-making factory line from his native Colombia to New York City to create 7,000 candies per day – all of which will be free to the public. By showcasing Colombia’s popular Chocmelo marshmallow candy as art, Oscar Murillo, 28, hopes to create a narrative about globalization, immigration, and community inside the renowned David Zwirner gallery. The exhibit, titled ‘A Mercantile Novel’, which opens today, brings a piece of Mr Murillo’s hometown of La Paila, Colombia to the U.S. – including 13 factory workers who have never before left their native country. Transplanted: Artist Oscar Murillo has brought Colombia's Colombina chocolate factory to New York City's David Zwirner gallery . In-house operation: The factory will produce 7,000 of Colombina's Chocmelo candies each day, which will be free to the public . Outward view: David Zwirner's 19th Street outpost is located in New York's West Chelsea neighborhood, home to the city's most famous art galleries . Mr Murillo did not choose to feature the Chocmelo on a whim. Rather, he feels a strong connection to candy’s owner, Colombina – his hometown’s largest employer – as generations of his family have worked in the company’s factories, including his own parents. His latest exhibit, housed in Mr Zwirner’s 19th Street location, hopes to offer both strong in-person and social media experiences for gallery-goers. As Mr Murillo explained in a press conference yesterday afternoon, the show is a ‘social endeavor.’ Upon entering A Mercantile Novel, guests are greeted by an acute sugar smell, which materializes all around in crates and trays full of Chocmelos that are free for the taking. Its lobby . is filled with TVs displaying a live feed of the factory line that has . been set up within the gallery – an area which has been cut off from . guests for sanitary purposes. The streaming footage can also be viewed . online throughout the show’s run. It . depicts Colombina employees, dressed in stark white uniforms and . goggles, creating a pillowy confection that is one of Colombina’s . best-sellers throughout Latin America, with nearly 5million pieces . clearing store shelves each year. Bright young thing: Mr Murillo (center, black shirt) is only 28, but has already shown at LACMA and the Saatchi Gallery, since signing with David Zwirner in September 2013 (pictured, Mr Murillo poses with members of the Colombina staff inside his new exhibit) Special design: Mr Murillo has custom created the smiley face wrappers for his exhibition, as a way to merge a NYC icon with that of Colombina . Gallery-goers will receive the . chocolate-covered marshmallows in a wrapper that Mr Murillo has . custom-designed to provide subliminal commentary on the exhibit’s deeper . meaning. The silver . envelopes come branded with Colombina’s signature red, white, and blue . logo, as well as the bright yellow smiley face that adorns many of New . York’s plastic shopping bags. In . merging the two icons, the London-based artist somewhat simplistically . represents the A Mercantile Novel’s personal message – which touches . upon his own experiences with Colombina as well as trans-Atlantic . immigration. It's a touching sentiment that carries throughout his entire body of art which most often takes the form of large-scale paintings. A young success by art's standards, Mr Murillo has already exhibited in esteemed locations including the Saatchi Gallery and LACMA since first joining the David Zwirner gallery in September 2013. Restricted area: While press were able to navigate the factory facilities yesterday, gallery goers will see the candy process on live stream footage, screened on TVs in the gallery lobby . Ever the millennial, Mr Murillo's shiny, Instagram-friendly wrappers also accomplish another of the exhibit’s main objectives – for gallery-goers to share their Chocmelo experience on social media. Because there is no limit to how many Chocmelos guest may take, Mr Murillo hopes that patrons will offer the candies to their friends, families, even strangers, while documenting this shared enjoyment with photos tagged #MercantileNovel. But the . show is much more than just a load of free candy, or even using candy as . a decorative medium, as artists like Will Cotton have so successfully . accomplished in the past. It has afforded 13 Colombians the opportunity to leave their country for the very first time. The . candy technicians have arrived to the U.S. on special artists’ visas, . and will work the gallery’s regular hours of 10am to 6pm from Tuesday . through Saturday. Deeper meaning: Mr Murillo's family, including his mother (pictured) have worked at the Colombina factory, which is his hometown's single largest employer . Throughout A Mercantile Novel’s nearly three-week-long run, they will reside in a community of apartments in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. César Caicedo, Colombina’s CEO, told MailOnline that the experience ‘has been incredible – we were afraid that so many parts in the process would get stuck, but it ended up working perfectly. It’s almost too good to be true.’ From Colombina’s perspective, A Mercantile Novel is an interesting way to introduce its products to the American audience. Mr . Caicedo said that ‘From a commercial point of view it’s nice to show . Americans that there is a company down in South America that has good . vibes, that is making delicious candy…and wants to give prosperity to . people who work for the company.’ Millennial concept: Guests are encouraged to share these packages with friends, families, and even strangers, while documenting the entire experience on Instagram . Last evening at dinner held in the project’s honor at Mr Zwirner’s Manhattan townhouse, the entire Colombina fleet broke out into a celebratory salsa dance. Mr Caicedo says that ’One of the girls told me when we were dancing: “I never dreamt I would be dancing salsa in a beautiful home in New York” It’s a short phrase that describes a lot.’", "(CNN) -- A new book on the history of Straits Chinese culture reveals page after page of dazzling, intricate jewelry combining Malay, Chinese, Indian and European designs. These pieces bring together rich materials of far-flung origins: Swiss gold thread and German organza are spun into patterns of Chinese phoenixes and peonies, while European coronets are studded with jade. Lillian Tong, director of the Pinang Peranakan Mansion in George Town, Malaysia, has curated the best of the museum's collection in her book, Straits Chinese Gold Jewelry. Blending of cultures . By the late 19th century, wealthy families of mixed Chinese-Malay descent (known as the Straits Chinese or Peranakans) created a society that incorporated elements of both Asian and European cultures, reflecting their history under the Malay sultanate and Portuguese, Dutch and British rule. In the ports of Penang and Malacca, they built Victorian-style houses according to the principles of feng shui and amused themselves by playing polo, collecting European antiques, and commissioning jewelry. As Tong explains, jewelry was the \"crowning representation of Straits Chinese identity\", serving as a marker of status as well as the increasingly specialized tastes of these merchant families. Subtlety of craft was prized as much as the display of gems and gold. The Straits Chinese wedding was a showcase of this sophisticated material culture, in which a bride might wear over a hundred gold hairpins, each a fine piece of filigree with rose-cut stones. The result was an unprecedented era of creativity in the region, not only in accessories but in architecture, fashion and graphics. This great age of design reached its height between 1900 and 1940, as artisans worked to fuse the luxuries of imperial China with high European style. Fabulous gems . The jewelry itself is a profusion of busy patterns and extraordinarily detailed workmanship. Even a heavy three-piece brooch in 22-carat gold and diamonds is so meticulously crafted that it manages to seem delicate. A tiny hairpin of pearls and silver is reserved for periods of mourning, to be gradually replaced by ornaments of sapphires and jade. For festive jewelry, Burmese rubies and gold are worked into maximalist designs of flora and fauna. The collection reveals the interests and fantasies of a multicultural, multilingual society. Chinese and European motifs are often combined into one piece, as Dutch tulips appear alongside Buddhist bats and deer, while Victorian silver mesh purses feature auspicious Chinese symbols. Asian blossoms are gathered into English-style garlands and bouquets, and entwined with Malay birds. The mythological and real animals of different countries are seen grazing together. This range of ethnic references might seem wildly eclectic today, but for the Straits Chinese community, it was possible to reconcile Europhilia with an appreciation for traditional crafts. According to Dr Alan Chong, director of Singapore's Peranakan Museum, signature ornaments such as the kerosang (heart-shaped brooch) are derived from European jewels of the 18th and 19th centuries. The Straits Chinese were familiar with the concept of taking the best from each culture: borrowing objects from European and Chinese practice, and giving them local variations and stylistic twists. It is astonishing to look back on this era of playful diversity, when a hybrid mix of influences was the norm. These pieces are not only exquisite but inspiring, pointing towards a time when designers felt free to experiment, pulling ideas from every culture and blending them together. A $33 million Faberge golden egg resurfaces . Spectacular designs shine at Asia's largest gem show . The 20th century's most stunning jewels ... with a price tag to prove it .", "(CNN) -- Fashion lovers crowded into a limestone townhouse on the prestigious Upper East Side of New York City on Wednesday night for an exclusive designer showcase. The house didn't belong to posh members of the high fashion elite, but to the Consulate General of the Russian Federation. The Russian Fashion Industry Showcase and Reception is one of several nationally-driven shows at New York Fashion Week promoting textile and apparel production unique to the countries. Upcoming shows will highlight the best in material and design from Korea, Japan, France and Scandinavia, but Wednesday night was all about the Russians. The evening embodied the Imperial Russia zeitgeist; chandeliers dripped with crystal, women glided about draped in fur, well-tailored men straightened their pocket squares as they passed gilded mirrors. The crowd sipped vodka and ogled designs from a conglomerate of modern Russian designers, including Serguei Teplov, Dmitry Loginov, Tegin, Irina Shaposhnikova, Sergey Polyakov and Aleksandr Khrisanfov. American figure skater Johnny Weir, who has his eyes on a third Olympic Games, in the Russian city of Sochi, stopped in and posed for photos. Russia's storied history was on display: A model's hair was mussed into a babushka headpiece; another stood with the rigid posture of a ballerina in laser-cut leather; all of them wore black outfits reflective of the country's harsh climate and lack of sunshine. \"New York City itself and, by default, Fashion Week is an avowedly international forum where everyone is welcomed and, for the most part, accepted,\" said Stephan Rabimov, the founder and editor in chief of DEPESHA magazine, which co-sponsored the event. \"It's a new type of communication channel to promote national interests: fashion, culture, tourism.\" Rabimov said the U.S. fashion consumer is the perfect client for any ambitious designer. High-style buyers are, on average, well-educated professionals with lots of disposable income. Not only is the U.S. consumer a draw to international outlets, but New York is a global fashion capital on par with Paris, Milan and London. \"The American market is, simply, among the biggest, and they're very creative. As much as we can celebrate the savoir-faire of the French, I think Americans are the most creative,\" said Elisabeth Leontieff-Hirshon, a senior manager of UBIFRANCE. The Academy of Art University in San Francisco is showing a collaborative collection sponsored by UBIFRANCE, the French Trade Commission, on Friday at Lincoln Center in an effort to boost the profile of French mills in the United States. The collaboration was launched after approximately 250 meters of fabric was donated by French mills to the university, according to Leontieff-Hirshon. Leontieff-Hirshon said the appeal of partnering French textiles with American students is that U.S. designers are typically more open to new fabrics and new ideas. \"The American market knows what's good and what's selling; they're visionaries,\" she said. An emerging market stepping onto the catwalk: Asia. Concept Korea is a collaborative show organized by the Ministry of Culture, among other state agencies. On display: true Gangnam style. During Concept Korea's show at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week last September, Korean designer Kathleen Kye showcased for the first time. That appearance later helped launch her collection at Opening Ceremony, a boutique synonymous with fashion ambassadorship, featuring designs from a different country each year. \"It is a must that we create a presence in New York in order to step into global market,\" said Sang-Pyo Hong, chief director at Korea Creative Content Agency. Leather Japan is yet another Asia-driven show sponsored by the country's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Eight Japanese brands will showcase Japanese leather products, hoping to highlight the designers' craftsmanship, said Kaoru Imajo, a spokesman for the event. While the country's economy is flagging, new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has recently advocated stimulating growth by increasing exports; a somewhat contentious strategy because it could correlate with a depreciation of Japan's currency. \"The Japanese yen is expensive now, so that is not good for exporting, but the brands are trying everything they can to make it better,\" said Imajo. Rounding out the globe, there's a Scandinavian showcase with designers SIPILÄ, Viola Blu and Olav making their debut to the U.S. market. Also showing is EDUN, a label working to increase trade with Africa that was launched in 2005 by Ali Hewson and her husband, U2 frontman Bono. While it's common practice for government-run organizations to participate in international trade shows like COTERIE and Première Vision, governments actively orchestrating Fashion Week events is a recent development. \"That's why everyone who actually wants to sell clothes flocks here vying for interest of the best buyers and best media,\" said Rabimov. \"It is a perfect mix to launch a new brand, revamp heavyweights or showcase any country's fashion industry potential.\" Follow Sarah LeTrent on Twitter and CNN Living on Facebook for dispatches from New York Fashion Week.", "It was a fashionable affair in Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur today, as cancer survivors took to the runway in a show organised by an NGO and held during the Islamic Fashion Festival. Malaysian designers such as Calvin Thoo, Salikin Sidek and Jarumas were among the names to support the event, which also saw pieces by creatives from Singapore and Indonesia appear on the runway. According to a local newspaper, the event - named Giving Hope, Touching Hearts - was also intended as an experimental form of therapy which doctors hope will boost the morale of the women. Models wear creations from Calvin Thoo collection and pose together for a photo backstage during the Islamic Fashion Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia . The event was organised by non-governmental organisation Pink Unity in support of women cancer survivors and was watched by Raja Permaisuri Perak Tuanku Zara Salim, the wife of the Sultan of Perak, a state within Malaysia. During the event, the glamorously dressed women strutted the catwalk in brightly coloured garments embellished with intricate beading, studding and feathers. Among them was Salmah Stewart, herself a cancer survivor and now president of Pink Unity, who said events such as the catwalk show give women hope and opportunity. Models present creations by Malaysian designer Munsya during the Islamic Fashion Festival in Kuala Lumpur . Islamic fashion is gaining popularity across the world as more Muslims become adept at mixing style . The Islamic Fashion Festival seeks to raise awareness for Islamic expression, creativity, and culture, say founders of the event . The event was organised by non-governmental organisation Pink Unity in support of women cancer survivors . The organisation is keen to promote diversity and has featured more than 250 designers and labels from diversified cultural and religious backgrounds, including Calvin Thoo, pictured . Designers, including those from Cameroon, France, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Morocco, Palestine and Singapore, have also showcased their designs in the show . Speaking to Malaysian paper,The Sun Daily, the inspirational survivor said:  'We hope to drive home the message that despite facing challenges, cancer survivors can still look and feel good.' Malaysia's Islamic Fashion Festival is keen to promote diversity and features more than 250 designers and labels from diverse cultural and religious backgrounds, including those from Cameroon, France, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Morocco, Palestine and Singapore. Designers include Etro of Italy, Zang Toi of New York, Hindi Mahdi of Paris, Biyan of Jakarta, Milo of Bali, Melinda Looi and Dato’ Tom Abang Saufi of Kuala Lumpur, and the global brand Swarovski. A model presents an intricate headdress by Malaysian designer Calvin Thoo during the Islamic Fashion Festival in Kuala Lumpur . The women prepared to strut the catwalk in brightly coloured garments embellished with intricate beading, studding and feathers .", "New York is set to officially break ground this week on a Ferris wheel that could become the tallest in the world once it is completed in early 2017. But any reign for the New York Wheel would be brief, as Dubai started construction a few days ago on a Ferris wheel that will be just 60ft higher. The humongous attraction on Staten Island promises stunning panoramic views of the Manhattan skyline, in addition to other New York City boroughs and the neighbouring state of New Jersey. Planners for the New York Wheel said it will offer stunning panoramic views of the Manhattan skyline and other New York boroughs . Set near the St George Ferry terminal the giant observation wheel will cost an estimated $25 to $30 for a 38-minute ride . Located next to the Hudson River the 630ft New York Wheel will be able to carry as many as 1,400 passengers at a time, with one full cycle taking about 38 minutes to complete. It will include mobile bar cars, a 20-seat restaurant, a 4-D ride on the ground and an LED light show every night, in addition to alternative energy sources. A shopping mall and 200-room hotel are to be built next door. Ticket prices will range from an estimated $25 to $30 (£17 to £20) as New York Wheel LLC, the company behind the ambitious project, hopes it will join the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building and Times Square as one of New York’s must-visit attractions. Located on the bank of the Hudson River the New York Wheel will be able to carry as many as 1,400 passengers at a time . The $500million (£340million) observation wheel was designed by Perkins Eastman and EEK Architects, and is being built by Starneth BV, the Dutch company which erected the London Eye and is overseeing the Dubai Eye. Wil Armstrong, president of Starneth LLC, told Mashable that the Dubai Eye is ahead, but ‘anything could happen to delay it’ and give New York Wheel the lead. Dubai’s observation wheel will stand 690ft tall when it is complete, making it the world’s biggest. At 550ft, the current record holder is the High Roller in Las Vegas, followed by the Singapore Flyer (541ft), China’s Star of Nanchang (525ft), and the London Eye (443ft). The $500million observation wheel is being built by Starneth BV, the Dutch company which erected the London Eye . Planners hope the New York Wheel will join the Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building as a top attraction in New York City . The original Ferris wheel, built in Chicago, was 264ft tall. New York’s giant Ferris wheel will be located near the St George Ferry Terminal, which welcomes an estimated two million tourists every year. Planners for the New York Wheel believe it will attract more than three million riders every year, and claim it will create about 350 construction and 600 permanent jobs in ticket sales, maintenance and other positions. The company said it is currently in talks with the New York Police Department and a private security firm to prepare a security plan for the tourist attraction.", "King Richard III did plan to be buried in York, not Leicester, a new letter unearthed in the National Archives suggests. The extraordinary letter, discovered by historian and Tory MP Chris Skidmore, provides fresh ammunition to those who believe the King was establishing a major new religious foundation at York Minister with a view to it becoming his mausoleum. It shows that Richard III wanted the 100 priests at the new foundation to use their prayers to make him ‘more acceptable to God and his saints’. A painting of King Richard III from the 16th Century housed in the National Portrait Gallery in London . Writing in tomorrow’s edition of BBC History magazine, Mr Skidmore says the letter, written five months before his death, suggests Richard’s ‘real intention’ in establishing the college at York may have been to follow the 15th Century trend for aristocrats to turn similar foundations into mausoleums. He says: ‘The connection between Richard’s establishment of the foundation at York and the salvation of his own soul could hardly be any clearer.’ Leicester Cathedral has won the tussle to provide the final resting place for Richard III following a lengthy court battle in which campaigners claimed he wanted to be buried at York Minister, . The case was thrown out, with the High Court ruling there was ‘no public law case’ to interfere with the decision to bury the late King in Leicester, where his bones were found under a car park in 2012. But the new letter threatens to reopen the debate over whether he should rightly be buried at York Minister. The document, which has lain undiscovered for centuries, gives a fresh insight into Richard’s decision to establish a 100-strong college of priests at York. The letter, dated 2 March 1485, records the King angrily demanding that the priests be paid so that they can pray for him. The King points out to the authorities at the Duchy of Lancaster that the have been given powers to ‘ask, gather and levy all and any sum… to sustain and bear the charge of the finding of a hundred priests now being of our foundation’. Stressing the personal importance of the issue, he warns he is ‘not willing our said priests to be unpaid of their wages, seeing by their prayers we trust to be made more acceptable to God and his saints’. This letter by King Richard, dated 2 March 1485, suggests he wanted to establish a major new religious foundation at York Minister with a view to it becoming his mausoleum . Mr Skidmore, author of ‘Bosworth: The Birth of the Tudors,’ said Richard’s comments suggest his intentions at York may have been ‘to follow the growing trend for 15th century aristocrats across Europe to establish their own chantry foundations and, ultimately, mausoleums.’ He told the Daily Mail that the letter was significant because it came at a time when Richard was ‘in a dark place’. He said: 'This is an intriguing insight into the mind of Richard III, and demonstrates there are still new finds to be made in the archives. 'At the time of writing the letter, Richard's queen was mortally ill, and would die two weeks later. The king may have been contemplating his own mortality, especially with the growing threat of Henry Tudor who would invade just five months later. 'It doesn't prove that Richard wished to be buried at York, but it certainly raises interesting questions over the king's own piety and intentions.’ Scientists at the University of Leicester said this skeleton found under Greyfriars car park in Leicester was that of King Richard III . Mr Skidmore said that, despite the discovery, he personally favoured burial of Richard at Leicester on the ‘finders, keepers principle’. Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. He was buried in a Leicester church, but the building was lost to later development. His bones were then discovered under a Leicester car park in 2012. Authorities in Leicester have said they will reinter his body with ‘dignity and honour’. But a campaign group, the Plantagenet Alliance, claimed York was a more suitable location for Richard's remains as he had spent his childhood and much of his adult life in the North.", "(CNN) -- Do you find yourself enviously clicking through pictures of celebrity homes on your lunch hour? Instead of turning green over the multibillion-dollar estates of George Clooney or Brad and Angelina, why not follow their lead? Plan your own getaway in a place where the stars have found solace, far from the fray. To make yourself at home (at least temporarily) in your own private villa, contact local rental agencies or do your own research on sites such as HomeAway.com. Or choose a lower priced hotel option and simply savor the same scenery that the stars enjoy. Once you arrive, feel free to pretend paparazzi are hiding around every corner in hope of snatching a candid of you, in all your celeb-y glamour. Lake Como, Italy . Though George Clooney may not have invited you to his private villa, you can still have a grand time in the Italian Alps. The panoramic views from Hotel La Perla are just part of the reason visitors rave about the place. They also appreciate the large rooms with high ceilings, the serenity and the friendly, knowledgeable staff. A Como must-see is the marble and gold-inlay interior and high octagonal dome of the Cattedrale di Como. Under construction from the 14th century to the 18th, the cathedral displays traces of Gothic and Renaissance architectural styles, and is among the most important churches in Northern Italy. And don't miss the spectacular views from the Funicular Railway, which makes the steep climb to the town of Brunate. Then savor the vista over wine and a fine meal at Ristorante Bellavista. North Carolina lures 'Hunger Games' fans . Maui, Hawaii . For a taste of the Hawaii that Oprah enjoys, head to Upcountry Maui, with its fertile, rolling ranches and sweeping views. Vacation rental sites offer affordable Upcountry options, but you can also avoid beachfront crowds with a stay at the Banyan Tree House. After a simple breakfast, stretch out in a hammock, surrounded by flowers and shaded by giant banyan, monkeypod and jacaranda trees, or take a dip in the pool. Take an afternoon stroll to Makawao, a quiet cowboy town that's now a center for artists. Explore the galleries and a glassblower's shop, then stop by the Makawao Garden Café for lunch in a little courtyard, under the shade of a tropical tree. Diners call the restaurant \"a little Eden\" that's kind of like being \"in your own little rainforest.\" Save room for dessert at T. Komoda Store & Bakery, which locals laud for their sticky treats like cinnamon snails and small donuts -- some glazed and some filled with guava jam -- sold five on a wooden stick. Visit Ulupalakua, Maui's second largest cattle ranch, on the slopes of Mount Haleakala, where, in the mid-1800s, ranchers cultivated sweet potatoes, taro and sugarcane in the rich, volcanic soil. Other must-sees include the view from Haleakala Crater, the highest point on Maui, and Wailua Falls, the 200-foot, rainbow-making cascade dropping into a tropical rainforest pool that was featured in the opening scene of \"Fantasy Island.\" World's most outrageous hotel amenities . Aix-en-Provence, France . If a Brangelina-style extended stay at a mammoth South of France château isn't exactly in your mere-mortal budget, why not create a little adventure of your own with a rental in the heart of Aix-en-Provence? Check out Aix en Appartements for listings ranging from garden studios to modern lofts to a terrace apartment overlooking the clocktower. Aix offers endless opportunities to explore thousands of years of history. Visit the Eglise Saint Jean de Malte, a fortified, 13th-century Gothic church. Stop in next door at Palais de Malte, built in 1676, which is now the Granet Museum, featuring archaeology exhibits and collections of 16th to 20th-century paintings, including some by Cézanne. Then stroll the pedestrian streets full of shops in the old Roman town, where you can still see remains of the Medieval ramparts and the market motifs on buildings that played an important role in the region's agricultural commerce. When hunger strikes, don't miss L'Epicurien, a small bistro located just beside the Museum of Natural History, featuring creative cuisine with dishes that highlight seasonal produce. Diners rave about the squash soup with foie gras, the oyster ravioli and the raw, marinated cod. Five must-see Oscar film sites . Taos, New Mexico . Julia Roberts is said to love Taos for the escape it offers from big-city life. Surely you will, too. For a no-hassle getaway stay at the American Artists Gallery Bed & Breakfast, which offers in-room fireplaces, oversized Jacuzzi tubs and heated tile floors, as well as stunning views of the Taos Mountains. With house specialties including stuffed French toast, Navajo cornbake casserole and cheese biscuits, plan to swoon over the gourmet breakfast. You'll appreciate that hearty meal while you're at Rio Grande Gorge, where hiking, biking, horseback riding, whitewater rafting and hot air ballooning are all ways to enjoy the spectacular 800-foot canyon. If, by dinnertime, you're not too worn out for walking, stroll from the inn to Lambert's of Taos for their signature dish: pepper crusted loin of lamb with a red wine demi-glace, sautéed vegetables and garlic linguine. Then, on day two, head for the foothills of the largest peaks in New Mexico to visit Taos Pueblo, a complex of multiple-storied adobe buildings that have been continuously inhabited by Native Americans for more than 1,000 years. Tour the grounds and support the local artisans by buying mica-flecked pottery and silver jewelry at curio shops within the pueblo. Nashville, Tennessee . When Nicole Kidman set up house outside of Nashville with country music megastar Keith Urban, the farm's distance from Los Angeles and New York was a big part of the draw. Nashville's warm, casual, down-home feel is easy to love. Even if you're not a country music fan, visit the Country Music Hall of Fame for the rich Americana and the impressive curation. In addition to the diverse collection of costumes, memorabilia, instruments and photographs, the museum cleverly \"displays\" the music itself using snail-shell spiral pods that allow you to sample recordings spanning decades in the genre's evolution. Once you're ready for a little irreverence about country music, catch a Doyle and Debbie Show, a parody act \"simultaneously lampooning and idolizing\" the iconic duo tradition, which the Nashville Scene called a \"hilarious piece of low-brow inspiration turned into high entertainment.\" For some serious soul food that diners call a \"damn fine meat and three,\" head to At the Table in South Nashville. They close early so make yours a lunch visit. For dinner, try ChaChah for tapas.", "By . Tamara Abraham . PUBLISHED: . 17:19 EST, 25 September 2012 . | . UPDATED: . 01:27 EST, 26 September 2012 . Victoria's Secret is famous for lingerie, but its latest ad campaign draws attention from the Angels' famous bodies to their equally stunning faces. In a behind-the-scenes video from its new fall beauty shoot, Lindsay Ellingson and Candice Swanepoel model the lingerie giant's cosmetics line. The campaign, which was shot in New York, follows the bombshell pair as they go through hair and make-up, before striking a pose clad, naturally, in Victoria's Secret lingerie. Scroll down for behind-the-scenes video . The Angel effect: Supermodel Candice Swanepoel works her magic for the camera in a behind-the-scenes glimpse from the latest Victoria's Secret beauty shoot . Natural beauty: Lindsay Ellingson also stars in the make-up ad, showcasing the brand's new looks for fall . South African-born Miss Swanepoel, 23, . also talks viewers through the process, explaining how shooting a beauty . campaign differs from a lingerie one. She tells the camera: 'With lingerie you have to be more conscious of your body and the way that . you move your body. With beauty it's much more intricate - it's a lot . slower. You have to get certain looks, see the colours, it's totally different. Strike a pose: Though the ads promote Victoria's Secret make-up, both Angels wear lingerie in every shot . Behind-the-scenes: A wider shot sheds light on the production behind every image . 'When you see your face so close-up, you're really conscious of everything - the expression in your eyes, and lips,' she adds. Miss . Swanepoel is seen modelling four different beauty looks in the footage, . though she reveals that her favourites are the bolder, statement looks. 'I always love the classic Victoria's Secret look with thick liner, kind of feline,' she says. 'I love a red lip as well.' Ready for her close-up: Miss Swanepoel reveals that beauty modelling is very different from lingerie . Silver screen siren: Among Miss Ellingson's looks is a metallic theme, with co-ordinating nail polish . Of course, Miss Ellingson, 27, also holds her own on the beauty front. The Californian bombshell, who has walked the catwalk for Chanel and Christian Dior in addition to Victoria's Secret, showcases a metallic look, complete with co-ordinating nail polish, as well as a more natural smokey-eyed look. The Victoria's Secret Angels are all currently in training for the label's upcoming catwalk show this November. Brushing up: Miss Ellingson can be seen having her make-up applied before the shoot . Off-camera: Miss Swanepoel holds still as a make-up artist applies a strong red lip (left); Miss Ellingson is clearly in high spirits as she dances towards the camera (right) Today, Miranda Kerr posted an Instagram photo of herself lifting weights during a personal training session. And Doutzen Kroes has revealed that she has cut out sugar and carbs now, in the run-up to the nationally-televised event. VIDEO: Candice Swanepoel shows us how to work Victoria's Secret makeup!", "It was multimillionaire Mitt Romney’s attempt to portray himself as an ordinary guy to Americans, with tales of living a slumdog’s life in France. But a different picture emerged today of the GOP presidential candidate’s life while serving as a Mormon missionary abroad in the 1960s. Mr Romney reportedly spent most of 1968 at a Parisian ‘palace for rich people’, which was staffed by a Spanish chef and a houseboy. Team: Mr Romney, left, stands with fellow Mormon missionaries in this photo in front of the police station in Limoges, central France, in 1968 . ‘It was a house built by and for rich people,’ Richard Anderson, 70, Kaysville, Utah, told the Daily Telegraph. ‘I would describe it as a palace.’ Mr Anderson is the son of the Mormon mission president when the former Massachusetts governor stayed during his missionary placement abroad. The revelations come after last week Mr Romney recalled spending two and half years knocking on doors and defecating into a bucket. Jean Caussé, 72, met Mr Romney in Bordeaux and told the Daily Telegraph he ‘never knew’ missionaries who ever did such a thing. Toilet experience: Mitt Romney had claimed he defecated into a bucket while serving as a Mormon missionary in France in the 1960s . ‘A number of the apartments I lived in when I was there didn’t have toilets,’ Mr Romney said in Hudson, New Hampshire, reported the New York Times. 'It was a house built by and for rich people. I would describe it as a palace' Richard Anderson . ‘We had instead the little pads on the ground. OK, you know how that works. There was a chain behind you. It was kind of a bucket affair.’ Mr Anderson claimed Mr Romney’s aides had told him not to speak out about their time together, reported the Daily Telegraph. The 19th century neoclassical building they stayed in featured chandeliers, stained glass windows and impressive art across the walls. Mormon faith: Mitt Romney, pictured on Monday at the Madison Lumber Mill in New Hampshire, spent two and half years in France as a missionary . Christian Euvrard, 72, the director of the Institute of Religion in Paris, which is run by Mormons, told the Daily Telegraph it was ‘very comfortable’. 'A number of the apartments I lived in when I was there didn’t have toilets. We had instead the little pads on the ground. OK, you know how that works. There was a chain behind you. It was kind of a bucket affair' Mitt Romney . Mr Romney’s mission to France took him . through Le Havre, Paris and Bordeaux, promoting a church which now has . 14 million members globally. The . Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints now has 36,000 members in . France and many of them found the faith thanks to missionaries. Missionary . work is a central tenet of Mormonism that is required of members and . 52,000 missionaries currently serve in 350 missions globally.", "Clad in feathers, pearls, gems, flowers and bows, a pint-sized pack of chihuauas has been captured on camera dressed in finest couture. French photographer Sophie Gamand dresses the dogs in pieces designed by pet couturier Anthony Rubio, before taking their pictures for her new photographic series, Dog Vogue. Each photograph carefully captures the pooches pulling high-fashion poses and unique facial expressions as well as giving them the chance to show off their stylish new look. Glamour dog: All of Sophie's chihuahua models wear outfits created by dog couturier, Anthony Rubio . 'After discovering the incredible Dog . High Fashion scene in New York, I wanted to create a series that would . resemble what you see in human fashion magazines,' Sophie tells MailOnline. 'I organised a casting . of chihuahuas, because I thought they would be the most expressive for . this project, with their larger than life attitude. Also, they are so . tiny and their features are so small, they show the fashion very well (I . guess the petite size runs within dog fashion as well!). 'I invited . Anthony Rubio, a famous pet couturier, to design pieces for me. On each . shoot, he would bring his creations, all very detailed and exquisite, . and I would go through them, pairing them with each other and with . matching backgrounds, styling every photo like a stylist would do on a . Vogue shoot (I assume!).' 'The . experience was thrilling in itself, to create something new from and . with someone else's art, and then the photography part was also very . exciting. I tried and capture the dogs' expressions that would match the . outfits they were wearing, to create a whimsical gallery of characters. 'My . entire photography work is about pets and our relationship to them. I . am fascinated by the human/dog bond in particular, and all the things . that we subject dogs to, especially in a big city like New York. Dogs . have become more than animals, they are true life companion and often . replace spouse and children (it is very true in the world of dog . fashion). I am interested in challenging this bond, and what it says . about us as a society. 'Why are humans turning to animals to replace . relationships they can't form in the human world? Why are dogs accepting . anything from us? What is this bond made of? Love? Co-dependance? All . these questions fuel my work.' Unique: Each photo aims to capture the dogs pulling high fashion poses and unusual facial expressions . Resemblance: Some of the diva dogs look a little like members of the royal family as well as Hollywood starlets . 'As for dog fashion, it is quite a fascinating world as well,' adds Sophie. 'I discovered it a few years ago. These people gather in charity events, dress their dogs with custom made outfits that costs hundreds of dollars. Designers compete for best designs, dogs compete for best model, etc. As in child pageant though, even though the focus seems to be on the dog, the show is really all about the 'pawrents' (the owners of the doggies), and there is a lot of drama and fun behind the scene!' 'Models' appearing in the series include Bogie, Kimba, Amazing Grace, Daisy, Angel Song, Peach, Cosmo, Chester, Bleu, Sparky, Chai Latte, Coffee Bean and Diva. According to Sophie, her pet portraits go beyond capturing the interesting . features of dogs and reveals that she looks for 'soul, personality [and] . charisma' in her models. Writing on her website, she adds: 'Every dog is an individual. In . my mind, each one harbours a rich inner world of stories and dreams. 'As a . photographer, I aspire to create a window into that world and let that . richness emerge.' Over the . last three years, Sophie, who also creates reportage photos that go . behind the scenes at veterinary clinics and rescue homes, has focused . her projects on pets and their place in . society. And she's enjoyed plenty of success. Late last year her series Wet Dogs went viral online, and she . is now working on her first book. Elaborate: Outfits are bejeweled, furred and embellished in a process that takes months to complete . Dog lover: Outfits are created with pooches who have 'proms and awards shows to attend' in mind . Help: Sophie also does reportage work and has created photos behind the scenes at dog rescue homes . Doing well: Last year, a project of Sophie's entitled Wet Dogs went viral online . Inspiration: Anthony's creations are strictly couture and inspired by everything from movies to fairy tales .", "By . Associated Press . An Indian diplomat accused of lying about how much she paid her housekeeper was indicted on Thursday on two criminal charges, though prosecutors told a judge that she had been granted diplomatic immunity and left the country earlier in the day. Devyani Khobragade was charged by a federal grand jury in Manhattan with visa fraud and making false statements in a case that has triggered an outcry in India. She's accused of fraudulently obtaining a work visa for her New York City housekeeper. The indictment said Khobragade had made or multiple false representations to U.S. authorities, or caused them to be made, to obtain a visa for a personal domestic worker. Devyani Khobragade was charged with visa fraud and making false statements. She faces prosecution if she returns to the States and has expressed her fear that she may never live with her husband and two daughters - who remain in New York - as family again. She planned to bring the worker to the . United States in September 2012 when she worked at the Consulate General . of India in New York, according to the indictment. Khobragade, . 39, India's deputy consul general in New York, has maintained her . innocence to accusations that she claimed to pay her Indian maid $4,500 . per month but actually gave her far less than the U.S. minimum wage. Her . arrest last month sparked outrage in India after revelations that she . was strip-searched and thrown in a cell with other criminal defendants . before being released on $250,000 bail. In . a letter to the judge, prosecutors said there was no need for an . arraignment because Khobragade had 'very recently' been given diplomatic . immunity status and left the United States on Thursday. The . letter said the charges will remain pending until she can be brought to . court to face them, either through a waiver of immunity or her return . to the U.S. without immunity status. 'We . will alert the court promptly if we learn that the defendant returns to . the United States in a non-immune capacity, at which time the . government will proceed to prosecute this case and prove the charges in . the indictment,' the letter from the office of U.S. Attorney Preet . Bharara said. However Khobragade's lawyer said today that she is still in the U.S., despite a prosecutor's claim that she left. Attorney Daniel Arshack said in a statement on Thursday that his client was at her New York City apartment. Shortly after he issued the statement, a spokesman for federal prosecutors said the State Department had told prosecutors that it had asked her to leave the country on Thursday afternoon. Devyani Khobragade was arrested last . month after being accused of lying on a visa application for her . housekeeper and paying her only $3 per hour . In an . unusual statement last month, U.S. Attorney Bharara responded to . what he described as misinformation and factual inaccuracy in the case . by saying Khobragade was accused of creating false documents and lying . to the U.S. government about what she was doing, including hiring a . housekeeper who was working far more than the 40 hours per week she was . contracted to work. He also . questioned why there was ‘precious little outrage’ about the treatment . of the Indian housekeeper and her husband while there was so much about . the alleged treatment of Khobragade. He . said his office's sole motivation was to uphold the law, protect . victims and hold lawbreakers accountable, ‘no matter what their societal . status and no matter how powerful, rich or connected they are'. These . developments came as it was revealed that a lawsuit filed months ago on . behalf of the housekeeper alleged poor working conditions. Philip Richard, the husband of housekeeper Sangeeta Richard (pictured), filed a court petition in New Delhi saying that his wife was being worked from 6am to 11pm every day by diplomat Devyani Khobragade in New York . In the dock: An artist's sketch of Devyani Khobragade at her arraignment in Manhattan Federal Court in December . Protesters in the eastern Indian city of Bhubaneswar, burn an effigy of Barack Obama during the international fall-out of Dr Khobragade's domestic dispute . Philip Richard, Ms Richard's husband, filed a petition at the High Court in New Delhi in . July saying that his wife was being worked from 6am to 11pm every day. Mr Richard also said the consular . official's father Uttam Khobragade had threatened Mrs Richard's family . saying that he would have them abducted and framed on false drug . charges. In the petition, first seen by Outlookindia.com, . a concerned Mr Richard wrote: 'The treatment of Sangeeta by Devyani . Khobragade is tantamount to keeping a person in slavery-like conditions . or keeping a person in bondage.' The . petition also stated: 'Uttam Khobragade called Sangeeta's family . several times and threatened them that they would have to face dire . consequences if she complains and that he would ruin their future, get . them abducted and frame false charges of drugs against them.' Mr . Richard also wrote that Khobragade had accused his wife of stealing in . front of a U.S. immigration officer but would not provide details of . what the woman took. Mrs Richard's daughter Jennifer also . wrote a letter to U.S. officials saying that her mother was unhappy and . wanted to return to India but the diplomat refused to let her go. Mr Richard's claim was dismissed in July, according to his lawyer, . because the high court claimed 'no jurisdiction on a crime committed on . foreign soil'. A group supporting domestic workers' rights demonstrate across the street from the Indian Consulate General on December 20 in New York .", "An adult film actress booked for a job at a gated Malibu estate believes showbiz CEO Richard Nanula was a co-star she worked with, who asked to be called 'Mr Rich'. Sarah Shevon said her agent arranged the $300 sex scene, in which the actress was dressed in a schoolgirl-style skirt and white blouse knotted at her midriff, in April last year. She said when a website published pornographic pictures allegedly showing Mr Nanula in June, she recognized the man as 'Mr Rich', according to the Los Angeles Times. Allegations: Sarah Shevon has claimed that she filmed an adult movie with Richard Nanula . Mr Nanula reportedly resigned in the wake of . pornographic photos of him emerging online and a work-related sexual . harassment suit despite a sex-addicition rehab stint ten years previously. The Harvard MBA held top titles at Disney, biotech . juggernaut Amgen, and chairman of the board of . Miramax. Shevon now believes the job she was booked for was what is known in the industry as a 'private' - an encounter between a porn star and a paying customer - and that it was filmed so it would not be seen as a criminal act of . prostitution. She told the Los Angeles Times she never saw the finished video, and did not know . whether it was posted on the website it was allegedly for. 'I don't like how there are these guys who have a lot of money and power . and they feel like they can just take advantage of girls or get . whatever they want out of them by throwing money at them,' she said. The 29-year-old said her co-star was a well dressed man who filmed the scene as well as taking part in it. She added that it was clear he was not a porn pro. Maxed out: Miramax chairman Richard Nanula has taken a leave of absence after a sexual harassment charge and after photos of him in a compromising position with a porn star allegedly hit the internet . She added that fellow actress Trinity St Clair had asked her to perform a private in a Malibu home two years ago, where she would be expected to perform oral sex, for $1,500. Shevon told the Los Angeles Times she declined the offer because 'it was prostitution'. However, last year, her agent Mark Spiegler approached her with another offer in Malibu, allegedly for a film on Ms St Clair's website. Ms St Clair has declined to comment repeatedly, through her publicist, James Bartholet, according to a news agency. Dan Miller, executive managing editor of a porn industry trade magazine, told the Los Angeles Times that taping the encounter might have been seen as a way to avoid breaking the law. 'The thinking would seem to be, \"OK, there is a camera there, it's a shoot\",' he said. Suspicious: Sarah Shevon believes she was booked for a 'private' job . Mr Spiegler claimed that after Shevon's scene, Ms St Clair booked two more of his clients for night shoots in Malibu with an actor allegedly identified as Richard. Because he did not know the actor, and said porn films are not typically shot at night, Mr Spiegler asked to meet 'Richard'. He told the Los Angeles Times he believes the man he met in June 2012 was Mr Nanula, adding: 'He didn't seem like a professional porn person.' After meeting the alleged actor, Mr Spiegler cancelled the shoot, adding that the man's medical tests, which he reviewed, had come from a private doctor rather than the usual clinics porn actors go to. Thomas J. Barrack Jr, the billionaire founder of Colony who is now chairman of Miramax, declined to discuss Mr Nanula's resignation. 'This is a personal matter for Richard and unrelated to Miramax,' he said in July. 'Richard did an excellent job at managing his business duties.' Variety had reported on June 26 that website TheDirty.com had published photos it claimed showed Nanula engaged in sex acts with a porn star. Sources for Variety said the photos were the reason for the leave of absence Nanula recently took from Miramax and Colony Capital, which owns a large stake in the entertainment group. One of Colony Capital’s largest investors, it should be noted, is Qatar Holding, the sovereign wealth fund of a conservative Muslim country. ‘Richard Nanula has taken a leave of absence from Colony and Miramax for personal reasons,’ Lisa Baker, a publicist with Owen Blicksilver PR, which reps Colony, told Variety. Now, the New York Post is reporting that a sexual harassment suit may be an additional reason for Nanula’s leave of absence. Additionally, says the Post, that leave of absence is actually a permanent vacation. However, Colony Capital failed to substantiate the Post’s tip that Nanula has resigned. Cured? Nanula, 2nd from right in 1997, reportedly entered a 6-day sex addiction rehab ten years ago that, he claimed in his divorce, had cured him . ‘Based on our investigation,’ a Colony rep told Page Six, ‘these matters are personal to Mr. Nanula, and it would not be appropriate to comment further at this time.’ The harassment suit centers on a paralegal at Colony named Stephanie Shaw, who claims Nanula groped her buttocks in an ‘unwelcome, extreme, and offensive’ way back in early 2012 and filed suit in a Los Angeles court. Shaw, who was fired after less than a year with the company, is also alleging wrongful termination, among other wrongdoings. The court documents can be read in their entirety, here. Accused: A paralegal at Colony Capital, which has a major stake in Miramax, has filed a sexual harassment suit against Nanula claiming he groped her buttocks and that she was subsequently fired . Meanwhile, this isn’t the first bit of funny business the executive has been accused of. Back in 2005, Nanula’s then-wife Tracey filed for divorce. According to court papers, Tracey claimed she had found that Nanula had spent as much as $10,000 on prostitutes and traced his infidelities back to 2001. Tracey also indicated in her filing that Nanula had, at one time, completed a six-day rehab stint for sex addiction that he subsequently claimed had cured him. Tracey Nanula would not comment on the case. The sexual harassment issue is now in binding arbitration, in which Shaw is seeking unspecified damages. MailOnline had reached out to Miramax and Colony Capital, though neither had responded at the time of publication. Stepped down? Page Six claims Nanula has resigned, not just taken a leave of absence, from his positions at Miramax and Colony Capital .", "(CNN) -- Just when it seems all rivers have been charted, seas explored and canals crossed, secret backwaters move into the limelight. While cruise companies have traditionally focused on more popular circuits, increasing attention is being paid to off-the-radar bodies of water. Cruise providers are noticing an uptick in enthusiasm for offbeat boating. Orient-Express Trains & Cruises is adding its second ship to river itineraries in burgeoning Myanmar (also known as Burma ). \"Our decision to introduce our newest river cruiser, Orcaella, in July 2013 is evidence of our commitment to Myanmar, one of the few places yet to be fully discovered,\" says managing director Gary Franklin. \"So we wish to use our experience to delve farther off the beaten track.\" Travel photos you wish you'd taken . Micato Safaris, which offers bespoke tours to India, has seen a recent spike in inquiries about river cruising in the country's southern state of Kerala. \"Cruising Kerala's backwaters provides a wonderful contrast to the hustle and bustle of India's cities,\" says managing director Dennis Pinto. \"A sail through reveals a serene and peaceful world, where one can observe the quieter lifestyles of the villagers who make their living in these resource-rich backwaters.\" There is something to be said for drifting along uncharted waterways and quietly observing the shores. The silent distance adds a special touch to a voyage, whether it separates you from the African bush or picturesque Swedish landscape. It also comes as no surprise that many of these waterways are quickly morphing from secretive to spotlighted—such as Myanmar's Irrawaddy River—while others remain rarely plied. Bon voyage. Departures: Cruising the Mediterranean . Amazon River, Peru . While the Amazon River is not a secret, many of its tributaries are. Aqua Expeditions does three-, four- and seven-night cruises on M/V Aqua and M/V Aria, two boutique river vessels that travel deep into the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve at the headwaters of the Amazon. Tour the jungle town of Iquitos before plying the untouched waters of the Maranon, Ucayali and Yanallpa rivers. Experience piranha fishing and walks through the rainforest to spot playful monkeys or relax on the rooftop deck and view neon-brilliant birds and rare pink dolphins. Panoramic windows wrap around the large design suites; Peruvian-European fusion fare is served onboard. Prices start at $2,685; 866-603-3687. Chobe River, Namibia and Botswana . Few experiences match the thrill of a river safari along the Chobe River between Botswana and Namibia on the five-star Zambezi Queen. The cruiser provides an ideal vantage point from which to view the African grasslands and the river itself, which teems with hippos and crocodiles. Private balconies connect each of the 14 cabins to the outdoors and a contemporary dining room showcases three-sided views. After an exhilarating game drive, travel in a traditional mokoro canoe to visit local villages for a boma dinner, with a barbecue and dance performance under the stars. Sip a sundowner cocktail by the onboard pool while observing elephants, leopards, lions and buffalo along the riverbank. Prices start at $905 (two nights). Departures: Sailing the Aeolian Islands . Danube River . Experience the \"Romance of the Blue Danube\" aboard the MS River Splendor as it makes its way through the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria and Germany. Inaugurated this month, the 176-passenger vessel offers intimate cruising with plush suites and private French balconies. Guests take in Budapest's imperial cityscape before embarking on an 11-day sail during which they witness a knight tournament and savor Tokaj wines before arriving in Vienna for a private concert at the Kursalon concert hall. Wend through vineyard-dotted Wachau Valley and meet a Habsburg descendant at Artstetten Castle. Stop in Mozart's hometown of Salzburg and, in Passau, hear the tunes of the world's largest church organ before traveling through forested gorges to reach the city of Regensburg. Prices start at $4,249. Gota Canal, Sweden . Simply Sweden hosts three- to five-night cruises between Gothenburg and Stockholm on one of three period ships from the 1800s. These sailings go between the Baltic and North seas along three canals, across eight lakes and through 66 locks. (A hotel stay on either end allows guests to explore Sweden's two largest cities.) Glide through the Swedish countryside on a charming old cruiser with humble cabins and meals that star Nordic herring specialties. Excursions travel to never-invaded Karlsborg Fortress for a war re-enactment and to the canal museum in Sjotorp village for an introduction to the fascinating science of lock systems. In between the culture-packed outings, mingle with curious locals as the ship descends and ascends the lock staircases. Prices start at $2,158. Departures: Top Alaska cruises . Irrawaddy River, Myanmar . Winding down the Irrawaddy, the scenic waterway that cuts right through Myanmar, is the most serene way to explore the Golden Land. Relive the journey in Rudyard Kipling's poem \"On the Road to Mandalay\" aboard Orient-Express' luxury Road to Mandalay cruiser, with three- to 11-night trips. Get a bird's-eye view of this forgotten land on a hot-air-balloon ride over the ancient kingdom of Bagan or see lacquerware being made. Unwind with a soothing east meets west massage and savor mohinga, the region's staple fish soup. Orient-Express is adding a second ship on the Irrawaddy River in July—the 50-guest Orcaella will take to the more remote sections of western Myanmar along the Chindwin River toward the Indian border. Prices start at $2,520. Kerala Backwaters, India . For a unique ramble through the backwaters of Kerala, a southern Indian state that edges the Arabian Sea, pick a two- or three-night itinerary on The Oberoi Motor Vessel Vrinda. In Malayalam, the official language of Kerala, vrinda means beautiful and serene (or a bunch of flowers) and aptly describes the sojourn on this luxe backwater cruiser. Onboard find eight deluxe cabins with panoramic picture windows and a rich repertoire of events, such as a performance of Kathakali, a local dance interpretation of ancient Hindu epics. Culinary highlights include sadya, a traditional feast of a dozen small dishes served on a banana leaf, and available daily outings on a small traditional rice boat float past brightly colored houses, rice paddies and tea shops. Prices start at $1,641. Departures: Most luxurious new cruises . Mekong River, Vietnam and Cambodia . Discover former Indochina aboard an array of boutique liners that travel the Mekong River between Vietnam and Cambodia. Luxury Cruise Mekong brings you the most luxe selection of colonial cruisers and traditional sampan skiffs. The showstopper is The Jayavarman, a French-colonial-style vessel with silky Indochine design accents. Choose between two- or seven-night cruises, which both kick off with an awakening tai chi lesson. Voyages down this living waterway wind through floating villages and rustic catfish farms and meet villagers as they prepare coconut candies and rice cookies. Alternatively, opt for a private cruise on a Song Xanh sampan (two nights, from $880), which goes deep into the Mekong Delta with visits to 19th-century French estates, temples and dinh, Vietnamese community halls. Prices start at $732. © 2010 American Express Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.", "The new King Richard III Visitor Centre in Leicester has been chosen as one of the world's hottest new attractions for 2015 by travel guide company Lonely Planet. The £4million centre has opened following the unearthing of the remains of Richard, who died in the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. It features in a list of 26 of the 'World's Hottest New Experiences for 2015' featuring the most exciting experiences around the world from the observation desk at One World Trade Center in New York to a yellow submarine tour to explore the sealife in Argentina. Scroll down for video . Topping Lonely Planet's list is a visit to One World Observatory at the top of One World Trade Center in New York City . A visit to the visitor centre at King Richard's final resting place is high on the list of the hottest new travel experiences for 2015 . Following the recent excavation of King Richard III, a new £4 million Visitor's Centre has been constructed at the site . Lonely Planet's destination editor for Great Britain, James Smart, said: 'The discovery of the remains of Richard III captured the world's attention in 2013 and the recently opened state-of-the-art visitor centre is a must-visit for history fans. 'This attraction, dedicated to one of our most legendary monarchs, truly puts Leicester on the map for anyone interested in England's dramatic past.' The childhood home of Johnny Cash in Arkansas is also opening to the public, showcasing the Dyess Colony created as part of Franklin D Roosevelt's New Deal to aid in the nation’s economic recovery from the Great Depression. The agricultural resettlement community shows how the singer grew up as part of the community and his house is furnished as it would have been when he lived there. Spotting southern right whales along the Peninsula Valdes in Argentina just got easier thanks to a new underwater submarine tour . El Caminito del Rey, or King's little pathway, in El Chorro, Spain, is now open once again following a multi-million euro restoration . Both of the other British Isles entries are associated with alcohol. Pictured: the Bombay Sapphire Distillery in Hampshire, England . There are two other British Isles entries in the 26-strong list and both are associated with alcohol. The Smithwick's Experience visitor attraction in Kilkenny in Ireland celebrates the country's oldest beer. The other entry highlights Britain's gin and whisky industry. Mentioned in the e-book is the Bombay Sapphire Gin Distillery at Laverstoke near Whitchurch in Hampshire, as well as the East London Liquor Company bar and distillery, which makes gin, rum and whisky at Bow Wharf. 1. One World Observatory, New York, USA . 2. Cape Canopy Tour, Elgin, South Africa . 3. The Yellow Submarine, Península Valdés, Argentina . 4. The Smithwick's Experience, Kilkenny, Ireland . 5. Caminito del Rey Footpath, Garganta del Chorro, El Chorro, Spain . 6. BioMuseo, Panama City, Panama . 7. Rimutaka Cycle Trail, Wellington/Wairarapa, New Zealand . 8. Hong Kong Observation Wheel, Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong . 9. King Richard III Visitor Centre, Leicester, England . 10. Ice Cave, Langjökull ice cap, West Iceland . 11. Three Capes Track, Tasman Peninsula, Tasmania, Australia . 12. The Guayusa Trail, Napo Province, Ecuador . 13. National Gallery Singapore, Singapore . 14. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Universal Orlando, USA . 15. Diquís Spheres, Sitio Arqueológico Finca 6, Palmar Sur, Costa Rica . 16. Outback Astronomy, Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia . 17. Museo Novecento, Florence, Italy . 18. Bombay Sapphire Distillery, England (+ other breweries around Britain) 19. Highlights of Haiti, Haiti . 20. Dyess Colony, Arkansas, USA . 21. National ANZAC Centre, Albany, Western Australia . 22. Flyway Taiwan, New Taipei City, Taiwan . 23. Musée Picasso, Paris, France . 24. Tufi Tribal Homestays, Oro Province, Papua New Guinea . 25. Chocolate Village, Brussels, Belgium . 26. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA . In Panama City, the new BioMuseo (Museum of Biodiversity) is the first of its kind for the small Central American nation . The boyhood home of Johnny Cash, which made up part of Roosevelt's Dyess Colony in Arkansas also opens to the public this year . The best way to experience South Africa is high among the trees on a canopy tour in the Western Cape Province . Near Elgin, the 70,000-hectare Hottentots Holland Nature Reserve offers rugged wilderness to be experienced during a four-hour zip-line tour . Two Scottish whisky sites are also mentioned - the Ardnamurchan Distillery on the shores of Loch Sunart in the Western Highlands and the Isle of Harris Distillers in the Western Isles. Other entries include a visit to One World Observatory, opening in spring this year at the 1,776ft high One World Trade Centre building erected on the site of the towers destroyed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York, as well as a sky-high canopy tour along the Cape of South Africa and a whale-watching submarine tour in Argentina. More recommended stops in the free e-book include Panama City's cutting-edge biodiversity museum, BioMuseo, and a trek along Spain's most dangerous mountain path, the Caminito del Rey footpath in El Chorro.", "(CNN) -- Sure, serious-minded folks from the White House on down have taken to Tumblr, the popular blogging platform that Yahoo announced it had purchased this week. When you host 105 million blogs, you're bound to have all types. But since hitting the Web in 2007, the blogs that have emerged as hits on Tumblr have tended to be silly, snarky or both. Photos: Big acquisitions in the tech world . With its quick and easy tools for posting and image-friendly layouts, Tumblr has become a natural landing spot for folks in the entertain-me-now world of the Web. CNNMoney: Tumblr's David Karp on Marissa Mayer and dropping out of school . With lots of folks giving the site a look for the first time since news of the $1.1 billion deal was announced, here are 10 fun Tumblr blogs you might want to check out: . Reasons My Son Is Crying . This one will probably resonate the most with parents who will likely recognize those moments where frustration meets hilarity. Greg Pembroke of Rochester, New York, started the blog to find the humor in those out-of-left field toddler meltdowns, as practiced by his sons William and Charlie. Among the captions on his photos of weeping wee ones: . \"He can't climb into the sea lion tank.\" \"I touched his foot with my foot.\" \"We helped him put on the boots he loves to wear.\" He's since opened the blog up to reader submissions -- meaning there are now daughters crying, too. Kim Jong Il Looking at Things . This blog, like the Dear Leader himself, is no longer active. But scrolling back through its hundreds of photos is still pretty hilarious. Say what you will about his anti-West rhetoric and dictatorial tendencies. Kim Jong Il knew how to rock a pair of giant sunglasses. And he loved looking at things. Among the North Korean propaganda shots are images of Kim stoically examining such items as fish, snack food, pizza dough, soy sauce and a juice box. \"Why is it so funny?\" wrote Joao Rocha, who ran the blog from Lisbon, Portugal. \"I have no idea either.\" Once you've inspected Kim's inspections, don't give up hope. As a self-described \"shameless knock-off\" shows, his successor, Kim Jong Un, likes to look at things too. How Do I Put This Gently? Even if you don't follow the blog, you've probably seen some of its posts crop up on Facebook, Twitter and other sites. Tumblr probably played the biggest role on the Internet in reviving the animated GIF -- those looping snippets of video that, when done right, are strangely entrancing. This one takes scenes from movies and TV and uses them to describe everyday situations. Humans of New York . If most of these are silly, HONY is captivating and, at times, poignant. In 2010, having just lost his job in finance, Brandon Stanton set out to create a sort of photographic census of New York City. Three years later, he's approached more than 10,000 people, taken 5,000 photos and, in the process, showcased the diversity of a city and a world. He interviews each subject and usually captions the photos with a choice quote or detail from that interview. Actresses Without Teeth . It's actresses. Photoshopped. Without teeth. (Warning: Once these images are seen, they cannot be unseen.) Literally Unbelievable . OK, folks. \"Literally,\" according to Merriam-Webster, means \"in a literal sense or manner; actually.\" So when you say something is literally unbelievable, it means no one should believe it. If only some folks on Facebook could take their own advice. This blog rounds up public Facebook posts in which people share articles from The Onion, a satire site, thinking they're real. Its name comes from one reaction to \"news\" of Planned Parenthood's \"$8 billion Abortionplex,\" complete with coffee shops, bars and a 10-screen movie theater. \"My favorite posts are the ones that express complete shock but not an ounce of doubt,\" Hongo told CNN in 2011. \" 'I can't believe this!' is a pretty funny response to something you should not believe.\" Rich Kids of Instagram . \"They have more money than you, and this is what they do.\" This round-up of shots from the Facebook-owned photo app is enough to get even the biggest supply-side economist a little steamed. Posing in front of their yachts. Partying in The Hamptons. Showing off their birthday-present Porsches or sipping Dom Perignon through a straw. Each of those, and so much more, is on display for all the propaganda your class-warfare inclinations will ever need. Awesome People Hanging Out Together . If you want to see famous people on the Internet, there are millions of places to find them. But there's something cool about the often-surprising meetings chronicled here that makes you wish you could be listening in. Like President Gerald Ford kicking a soccer ball with Pele. Or Jack Nicholson listening to The Monkees warm up. Or CNN's own Anthony Bourdain cooking something with a lot of tentacles while a horrified Christopher Walken watches. From vintage images to glossy publicity shots, these are guaranteed to draw you in. White Men Wearing Google Glass . A new entry to the Tumblr-scape, this one highlights, without words, an issue Google will face while pushing its innovative new piece of wearable tech. If you looked a little dorky before, you'll look a lot dorky with these things strapped around your head. Bun B's Jumbo Coloring and Rap Activity Tumblr . Who among us has never wanted to color a picture of Vanilla Ice? Or do a connect-the-dots to put a crown on The Notorious B.I.G.'s head? Or pencil their way through a maze to help Humpty Hump find the Burger King bathroom (to get busy, obviously). Almost all of us, I'm betting. But that's what you get on this Tumblr, from the wonderfully twisted mind of rapper Bun B. The mashup of childhood memories and hip-hop stars doesn't make any sense. Which, in its way, makes perfect sense. In other words, it's perfect for Tumblr.", "(Travel + Leisure) -- Warm beige tones, rich graphic accents, and futuristic chairs give Le Jules Verne a contemporary elegance, while dishes from superstar chef Alain Ducasse create a joie de vivre in diners' mouths. But the real showstopper at this restaurant -- set more than 400 feet above Paris in the Eiffel Tower -- is its panoramic view. From the tower's south pillar, diners look out on barges navigating the Seine and clusters of steely gray rooftops stretching for miles. Sierra Mar, in Big Sur, California, is perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific. Restaurants have long been setting tables in locales with dramatic views, but often the food has paled in comparison. With the dramatic evolution of the global culinary scene, however, it's more than safe to look past the cocktail menu at many of the world's most beautifully situated restaurants. \"They actually have a view and good food at the same time,\" says Tim Zagat, co-founder of the Zagat Survey restaurant guides. \"It's a combination that was rare 10 or 20 years ago.\" So where are the top places that harmonize amazing vistas with delectable victuals? At Asiate, in New York's Mandarin Oriental Hotel, eyefuls of Midtown Manhattan's cloud-grazing buildings and the lush refuge of Central Park draw locals, tourists and special occasion diners, and executive chef Toni Robertson is up to the task of keeping the Asian-influenced cuisine at the same high level as the 35th-floor restaurant. \"The challenge I have is I have to compete with the view, but as a chef, I always win,\" she says. The Big Apple is hardly alone in providing winning skyscraper meals. At Felix, on the 28th floor of Hong Kong's Peninsula Hotel, guests soak in the city's striking setting from a slick dining room designed by Philippe Starck while feasting on dishes like Tasmanian salmon with parsnip gratin and seared duck breast with blood oranges and duck confit. Travel + Leisure: World's best hotels 2008 . Of course, some of the world's most spectacular restaurant views are born, not made. At Ambrosia, on the Greek island of Santorini, the island's sea-filled volcanic crater provides a rocky perch for the terraced restaurant, from which diners gaze out on an inky blue sea. Santorini fava puree with grilled octopus and caramelized onions brings Grecian flavors to the Aegean seascape. Travel + Leisure: Amazing waterside restaurants . And up in British Columbia, diners at Eagle's Eye Restaurant -- part of Kicking Horse Resort -- survey snow-capped peaks as they tuck into Rocky Mountain cuisine infused with hints of chef Alain Soret's native France. Riding a gondola up to the restaurant 7,700 feet above sea level gives some guests the impression they're going to an alpine snack shack. \"Lots of people expect to find burgers and doughnuts up there,\" says Soret. They're surprised to be greeted with romantic fireside dining and entrees like roasted venison with almonds, pancetta and juniper jus served with fig-saffron risotto. Whether you crave rough-edged mountains or deep ocean views, a glitzy skyscraper scene or a secluded retreat, these restaurants offer mesmerizing views with menus worthy of the scenery. Planning a beach getaway? Don't miss Travel + Leisure's guide to Affordable Beach Resorts. Copyright 2009 American Express Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.", "By . Associated Press . In The Silence of the Lambs FBI agent Clarice Starling tempts serial killer Hannibal Lecter with the chance to relocate to the Plum Island Animal Disease Center. 'That's only a part of the island,' FBI agent Starling says. 'There's a very, very nice beach. Terns nest there.' Plum Island's future has recently been caught in a heated debate. One federal agency is preparing a final report on the research center's proposed sale. At the same time, Long Island officials are considering new zoning laws that will prevent any major development of the 843-acre property if it's sold. Still others want the government to scrap its plans to sell the mysterious island entirely. Plum Island Animal Disease Center, pictured, is at the center of a heated development row. The Long Island, New York, facility may soon be sold, concerning environmentalists . Animal diseases have been studied and researched on the island, 100 miles east of New York City. It opened in 1954 on property that once housed a U.S. Army base from the Spanish-American War. In 2009, Congress voted to close the aging laboratory.  Proceeds from the sale are expected to defray the costs of moving operations to a new laboratory at Kansas State University. Some lawmakers claim the sale of Plum Island will barely dent the estimated $1.1 billion cost for the new laboratory. 'My concern is the unknown and uncertainty,' said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who has introduced legislation to stop the sale. Long Island U.S. Rep. Timothy Bishop has introduced similar legislation in the House. 'Our key goal is to preserve it as open space,' Blumenthal told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. 'Once we lose it, it will be lost forever.' The proposed sale of Plum Island, pictured here, may soon involve the relocation of Long Island's Plum Island Animal Disease Center all the way to Kansas State University . The General Services Administration, which is charged with overseeing the sale, has held several public hearings in both New York and Connecticut and issued a final environmental impact statement in June. The GSA will soon issue a 'record of decision,' one of the final steps before the agency proceeds with a sale, a spokesman said. The GSA's 500-page environmental report issued in June has been taken with some skepticism by environmentalists. Environmental groups on both sides of Long Island Sound have called for the property to simply be a nature preserve. They're concerned selling the island would jeopardize endangered wildlife, including terns and seals. The EPA has also joined the dispute, saying the GSA's report 'does not provide a sufficiently detailed evaluation of the potential impacts of the sale of Plum Island,' according to regional administrator Judith Enck. 'EPA strongly believes that conservation options have the best potential to respect the rich ecological resources of Plum Island,' Enck said. 'The island provides important habitat for a number of species and we hope that it will be protected and preserved.' This file photo shows people scouting for seals, resting on the rocky shore of Plum Island. The island, home to the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, may soon be sold, leaving the seals' future uncertain . In 2007, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation issued a report saying hundreds of tons of contaminated soil had been removed from landfills and other areas on the island. At the time, there appeared to be no existing environmental threats there. However, it's the local residents of Southfold, located in eastern Long Island, that could play the most significant role in determining the island's future. Town Supervisor Scott Russell said a proposal may soon pass that would bar most of the island from any significant development. The town plans to pass a law creating a 600-acre conservation zone. The site where the existing government lab is located - a structure that resembles a modern-day college facility - would remain available should a research entity or university want to take it over. Hannibal Lecter, played by Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs (pictured), is offered a chance to live on Plum Island in the 1991 thriller .", "(CNN) -- In the heart of London, one of the style capitals of the world, African fashion has found its new home. Based in the UK capital's bustling center, Arise calls itself Africa's first and foremost global style and culture magazine. The bimonthly publication, which has so far been printed 16 issues, first hit the newsstands in 2009 and is now sold in 26 countries across the world. Its illustrious pages are striking a chord with what the magazine calls Afropolitans -- a new generation of young and urban \"Africans of the world\" who breathe fashion and are fascinated by arts and culture. Read related: Congo's designer dandies . Penny McDonald, international managing director at Arise, says there was a gap in the market for a quality offering that would showcase the wide-ranging talents of African designers while breaking stereotypes about the continent's culture. \"There were lovely designers out there who never got a look into the traditional markets and the traditional outlets,\" she says. \"We want to show the other side of the vast continent and that's what this does.\" Read related: Why African designers are finally in the fashion spotlight . The large-format magazine, which was initially published every four months, was determined to be competitive amongst other fashion heavy-hitters right from the start. For its first cover back in 2009 it landed some of the fashion world's most glistering stars, including supermodels Alek Wek and Liya Kebede. Since then, a wide array of African and international icons, including Charlize Theron, Alicia Keys and Denzel Washington, have all been featured in Arise. Read related: The Namibian women who dress like Victorians . According to McDonald, convincing readers and advertisers about the magazine's quality was the biggest challenge at the beginning. \"A lot of people in the past thought 'oh, another black publication, oh God, I've seen it all before, it's full of hair and make-up.' And then they suddenly sat back and realized 'my God, actually the content is pretty solid.' \"We have phenomenal journalists, phenomenal models and now they do want to participate. The brands are following us and that journey has been very slow, but the brands are there. The hardest battle of keeping a publication like this alive is to get the commercial viability working and that's what we do and we push everyday to find sponsors, advertisers, just everyone to support us.\" Bur apart from highlighting African style and culture through its pages, Arise is also bringing the continent's fashion to catwalks across the world -- over the last few years the magazine has held a series of international fashion events, helping established designers and inspiring young talents to showcase their creations. Read related: Fashion week in Lagos . More recently, Arise hosted its fifth show at Mercedes-Benz New York Fashion Week. Dubbed African Icons, this year's show featured the glamorous and chic collections of five African designers: Ozwald Boateng, Tsemaye Binite, Folake Folarin-Coker of Tiffany Amber, Amaka Osakwe of Maki Oh and Gavin Rajah. \"Our aim is to create an international audience and platform for the best African fashion talent,\" says Helen Jennings, editor of Arise. \"We always choose different designers who have different aesthetics, so together you get a really nice broad spectrum -- five different voices, five different perspectives of African fashion,\" she adds. \"That's the joy of it,\" she adds. \"We promote Africa, but we break those barriers and those assumptions that people have that it's all going to be wacky, overly colorful wraparound dresses or whatever\". Read more: Web boutiques bring African fashion to world market . Nigerian designer Binite, who is based in Britain and has also worked for Burberry and Stella McCartney, made his second appearance at the September 6 event. His show was dominated by \"marl grey jersey tracksuits with silver embossed branding, leather bomber jackets worn with denim shorts, flesh-toned panelled illusion dresses and a floor-sweeping, blood-red evening gown,\" according to Jennings. Binite says international events such as the New York show are crucial in helping the world understand what it really means to be an African fashion designer. \"I hope it will broaden people's expectations of what African fashion is supposed to mean,\" he says. \"We're all very global in the way that we think, the experiences we've had, the things that we do,\" he says. \"I called myself a juxtaposed reality of a New Nigerian -- so I'm very Nigerian to the core, but global in my reach and my exposure.\"", "Movie big wig dubbed 'The Punisher' and 'God' by Madonna and Meryl Streep will produce ambitious Ten Commandments TV series . His Oscar hopefuls this year include Mandela: Long Road to Freedom Lee Daniels' The Butler, Fruitvale Station and Philomena . Source says: 'Harvey is looking more and more at TV as a significant part of the future of the company' By . Daily Mail Reporter . PUBLISHED: . 15:50 EST, 27 November 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 16:11 EST, 27 November 2013 . Mogul: Harvey Weinstein's company will produce a new Ten Commandments television series . Watch out Emmys...the master of movie awards Harvey Weinstein is heading to TV. Harvey, 61, and his brother Bob are launching a series of shows - and aim to make their TV arm just as powerful as their theatrical division. The Weinstein Company, the firm the brothers set up eight years ago, is planning a 10-episode detective drama set in ancient Egypt called Book of the . Dead, alongside 10 Commandments. The Weinsteins are already planning to hire A'list directors as far ranging as Lee Daniels, who recently helmed The Butler for The Weinstein Copany, Madonna, Wes Craven and Ryan Cooglar, to direct episodes. A source told MailOnline: 'TV is a big part of the future for The Weinstein Company. 'Harvey is looking more and more at TV as a significant part of the future of the company and is hoping to replicate his film success in the TV world.' Last week, Harvey spoke out about his plans, and told the New York Times: 'The way to add stability to the company is to be in the television business,' adding his goal was to create a television operation “as powerful as the theatrical division.” Asked whether some of his past and . present Oscar contenders might lead to future television shows, Harvey said he saw potential, for instance, in “Silver Linings . Playbook,” a comedy-drama which received eight Oscar nominations - and a best actress Oscar for Jennifer Lawrence. Other planned shows from The Weinstein Company are “Marco Polo,” a martial . arts-filled adventure series from the executive producer John Fusco for . Netflix; “War and Peace,” a 14-episode retelling of Tolstoy’s Napoleonic . war novel in association with the BBC; “Stan and Ollie,” about the . later days of the Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy comedy team, also for the . BBC, and possible for sale in the States and an “Entourage”-like comic series, . based loosely on the adventures of the celebrity chef Michael Chiarello. The company has also acquired rights to “Peaky Blinders,” a . British crime series, and “Gomorrah,” an Italian mob drama, both of . which are being offered for sale in the United States, the New York Times reported. Still a hit: Charlton Heston as Moses in the 1956 film The Ten Commandments which is still in the top ten grossing films of all time when adjusted for inflation . Those . scripted shows join reality shows including . “Concrete Kings,” about the construction business, and “Rodeo Girls,” about female rodeo competitors, both for A&E; and “Under the Gunn” a . spinoff of the company’s continuing “Project Runway” series on . Lifetime . With Harvey's flare for showmanship and promotion, TV chiefs think the Weinstein Company's projects could be a success. Richard Plepler, chief . executive of HBO, told the New York Times: 'Would . I be surprised in the coming years if Harvey brought something to us . that makes sense for HBO? Not in the least.' The TV push is backed by money from a freshly . negotiated $370 million in available lending from an arrangement with . Union Bank. About $150 million of that is earmarked for television, The Weinstein Company's President David Glasser said. Meanwhile, Bob Weinstein said he was developing projects in tune with Dimension brand, alongside shows based on movies he has overseen. He's now developing a pilot based on the 'Scream' series for MTV and proposed a series based on Stephen King's The Mist. Mr. Weinstein said he was also hoping to quickly follow the August release . of the film “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For,” directed by Frank Miller and . Robert Rodriguez, with a “Sin City” television series from the same directors. Alternative Moses: Christian Bale filming Ridley Scott movie Exodus as the religious leader Moses . Meanwhile, 10 Commandments, a co-production between The Weinstein Company and WGN is slated to start shooting in March. It's the most high profile production about Moses since the famous 1956 Cecil B.DeMille movie The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston. That . film remains one of the most popular ever made. Adjusted for inflation, . it is the seventh highest grossing film of all time - the 1939 epic . Gone With The Wind still tops the charts. The series follows a recent trend in faith based television shows and films. The . History Channel's mini series The Bible was a blockbuster hit earlier . this year, with the first episode attracting 13.1 million viewers in . March - the highest television cable audience in 2013 so far. A sequel is reportedly in production at NBC, according to Deadline. Other . faith-based projects currently in production include Exodus, the Ridley . Scott movie which will see Christian Bale play Moses alongside Aaron . Paul and Sigourney Weaver. Darren Aronofsky's epic film Noah, starring Russell Crowe in the title role, will also hit theaters next year." ]

[ "Many web sites collect personal data about their users, and a terms of use and/or privacy policy protects the website's ability to monetize that data." ]

[ "Usually that you have no absolute right to privacy and that you allow the website to use your information for commercial purposes. You typically grant the site the rights to use any content you upload in any way they want, including selling it to others. You also typically agree that you can't sue the site for failure to perform, for the loss of your data, or for whatever another user says to you. Personal copyrights are really the biggest thing. Don't go uploading your new novel to a website and then expect to be able to stop it from being transmitted to the four corners of the earth. In America at least, contract precedent states that no egregious and unexpected terms can be enforced. So you cannot inadvertently promise your first born child or give a website a lien on your home.", "It's a recent requirement due to the implementation of the [General Data Protection Regulation \\(GDPR\\)](_URL_0_) in the European Union (EU) in May 2018. One of the requirements of the GDPR is that websites when cookies can be used to track a user (which is what most cookies are used for), [the website must disclose that to the user](_URL_1_) so they know they are being tracked. You also may remember that earlier this year for about a month you received a stream of emails from every website you had an account on informing you that they had updated their privacy policy. Same reason: GDPR. Even though the GDPR is really only enforceable in Europe, many online sites have users and do business in Europe and those can be prosecuted under that law. The alternative would be for such sites to block any users who originate in the EU.", "In the privacy policy, it says that information will be used to provide tatgeted advertising. This means that, at some point, they will likely start using adverts to fund themselves", "When you access a website, you send the request via your internet service provider; all these website requests are logged by the ISP, which the government can then request. For websites that uses HTTP, everything can be logged. Sites that use HTTPS will encrypt the content of the site so that you can't be snooped on, although the websites address can be logged. A VPN would be required if you wanted privacy, as this would encrypt everything and make the request you send via your ISP unreadable, but your VPN provider could also snoop on you.", "There's a piece of legislation called COPPA - [Children's Online Privacy Protection Act](_URL_0_). To lift a summary straight out of that article: > The act, effective April 21, 2000, applies to the online collection of personal information by persons or entities under U.S. jurisdiction from children under 13 years of age. It details what a website operator must include in a privacy policy, when and how to seek verifiable consent from a parent or guardian, and what responsibilities an operator has to protect children's privacy and safety online including restrictions on the marketing to those under 13. While children under 13 can legally give out personal information with their parents' permission, many websites disallow underage children from using their services altogether due to the cost and work involved in the law compliance", "Cookies are used to keep track of who you are. Websites like Reddit use them to keep you logged in, but they can also be used to track you across the Internet (this is mostly Facebook and Google, since they see you every time you visit a page with a Facebook Like button or a Google ad). There isn't much danger to them, but the European Union occasionally has overreactions to anything that could remotely be a privacy issue, so they demanded that all websites operating in the EU notify users when they use cookies. Which every website that has a log-in does.", "Privacy basically means the government needs to good reason to look at your personal information...and \"just because\" isn't good enough. If the government can assess your information, they can misuse it. Without privacy, a cop can stalk his ex-wife, a councilman can spy on the business competition, and congressman can dig up dirt on the guy he is running against. With privacy protection, these actions are crimes, and can get anyone caught doing them in big trouble.", "So whenever you belong to something (I'm being deliberately ambiguous), have you noticed that they have a \"privacy policy.\" And whenever it's changed, you get notified of the changes to the privacy policy? I know, they're just like those licenses and terms of services that we just hit \"accept\" on and never read because it's giant and confusing and boring. This is where they say \"here's how we sell your data to other companies\" or \"here's what we DONT sell to other companies.\" If you're getting something for free on the internet (gmail, facebook), you're not the customer, you're the product. And you can bet what you do on that platform is getting sold.", "Because under current European Union laws websites have to warn you they're storing data about you before they do it. If they didn't tell you and tracked you, you could then sue them for monitoring you without your permission.", "Stuff you put on their website they can use/sell for advertisements. Now they need to ask for permission so they are updating the ToS.", "It stands for General Data Protection Regulation, and its a new European Union law about data protection and privacy. So it's purpose is to protect the information of residents of the EU, and applies to sites that serve/market to them. Because many sites are international, they have to update their privacy policies, data handling, etc. to be in compliance. Some are making changes to their practices on a global basis, some are updating specifically for European customers, and others are explicitly declaring they don't market/sell to residents of the EU.", "Do you want marketing firms to know what kind of weird ass porn you're into? Or what kind of stuff you talk about with others in your home around your Google home device? Or that you have a particularly troublesome medical condition? Google knows all of these things, and absent privacy policies has no obligation not to sell or publish that information. Anything you've ever googled, done in a Chrome browser, Gmail, etc. is all available to Google. No big deal, right? It's only motivated by profit, so what harm can come of it?", "Kind of. In a pretend world with zero privacy, the authorities are able to peer inside your mind and discover if you're planning to do something bad. Zero privacy, total security. In a pretend world with total privacy, an attack can never ever be prevented. Zero security, total privacy. The issue stems from the ways in which privacy and security interact. There's an argument to be made that having a security state actually *decreases* security because the population lives in such constant terror of the government that it defeats the point of being physically safe in the first place. In short: privacy and security are most likely terms that are too broad to be useful in discussing policy. There are too many sub-categories that behave differently from each other for us to lump together everything that has to do with \"privacy\" and \"security\".", "There are many reasons why people would want to hide their activity or be anonymous. A lot are legitimate, a lot are not, and a whole lot are in between. Say you live in a country with a repressive regime that blocks access to, say, pro-democracy websites. You can get around that with Tor. Say you're a privacy advocate and don't want your data logged on general principle. Tor is one of the tools you can use to mitigate that. Tor is one of the simplest/easiest ways to achieve privacy/anonymity on the web. It's not perfect, but it helps. Anyone who wants that, Tor is probably their first stop.", "So that they cannot be sued for using copyrighted, unlicensed, offensive, or explicit images.", "It gives them more control, more feedback. It allows them to change stuff if they notice something goes wrong. It allows them to harvest your data, get you to sign up for emails, and more.", "A proper IT department keeps logs on everything electronic. That includes who logs onto what machine, what activities they've generally performed, and most specifically, what websites they frequent and for what duration. You, as a worker, have no expectation of privacy when using electronic devices that are provided by your employer. They have full legal rights to scrutinize your activity and act accordingly, should they find you are breaking policy or performing questionable activities.", "Let's say you fancy a girl in your class, but you're too embarrassed to talk to her. You could ask a friend to pass the message that someone fancies her, and find out if she's got a boyfriend. Your friend will ask her your question, and will pass her answer back to you. She doesn't have to know who it was that really wanted to know if she's got a boyfriend. And you don't have to be embarrassed. Well, your friend is a proxy server. And the girl you fancy is that dodgy website that you'd rather that people don't know you're looking at.", "Google has already been tracking web history, yes. The new privacy policy takes [about 60](_URL_1_) different policies they've had for different services and combines them into one. The basic privacy policy is the same, but some obviously had to change to fit the new unified policy. They won't be collecting any new data (as in, they won't be getting anything from each individual service they didn't already get) but it will allow cross-service talk. The prefs you set up in Google+ or youtube or any other Google service will inform the way all other services work. Gripes are that it doesn't give user [sufficient control](_URL_0_) over the data that is collected. People have been clearing their history because - due to the change - there are a lot of things [like this](_URL_2_) going on. People who hadn't thought about their privacy or security on Google's platforms before were reading these articles over and over and probably started doing something about it.", "Because it wants to sell your information to marketing companies.", "To let people know what they are doing and to put a deterrence in the mind of people who might be using some sites for illegal activities, since the FBI might be tracking their activities.", "Instead of having a separate privacy policy for each product, Google wants to have one privacy policy that covers all their products. They weren't identical, so some had more changes than others. One change, if you can call it that, is that there's a reference to storing your cell phone number. This has a lot of people up in arms, but cell phone numbers have been part of [Google's two-part authentication](_URL_0_) for some time now.", "They don't need to. I usually only do it to get a little bit more privacy.", "Part of it may include the sharing (ie. selling) of your personal information and browsing habits. There's some quote out there along the lines of \"If you're not paying for the product, you ARE the product\".", "> Age 30: $250,000 coverage for $16.31 / month. That's going to be for what's called \"term life\". It means that there's a certain number of years that the insurance is valid before it expires. Their website mentions a 30-year, fixed-premium term life policy, so that's $5,871.60 in premiums over 30 years, at which point *the insurance policy expires, and you cannot collect from it if you die.* They're betting their $250,000 against your $5,871.60 that you're not going to die before you turn 60. At that point, if you still want life insurance, you have to buy a new policy, which will be at a much higher premium, since you're more likely to die now.", "To sell that information to advertisers to make money off of a free app. If you aren't paying anything you aren't the customer, you're the product.", "It allows google to collect a shit ton of data about you & charge more for advertising directed at you online. If you are not the customer you are the product", "It's a page that interrupts the normal user flow at the start of someone's involvement in a network. For example, if I join Wifi at the airport I might be asked to accept a terms and conditions and view and advertisement. It's purpose varies - everything from registering users, paying, accepting T & Cs, ads, etc.", "A good example might be a news website. The user subscribes to the websites RSS feed using RSS reader software, then whenever the news website publishes a story, it is sent directly to the user without them needing to check the website. If you've ever subscribed to a podcast it's pretty much the same idea. The podcast is sent to you rather than needing to check its website and listening there.", "Yes they can see everything that goes through. If you're using SSL they'll only have the websites visited, not logins or anything like that. I personally don't trust any public hotspot or access point. If I need to do anything remotely sensitive (that requires a login) I route through my home VPN or use 4G/LTE. Legally it depends on your contract, company policy and place of residence. I can't speculate on that.", "If you ever want to run a political campaign in the US you can simply buy the browser history of your voters and know pretty well what they think. Thus you can make better political campaigns targeted at individuals. If you tell a lie in public you will be called out on it, but if you tell a lie directly to a single person that fits their ideas then it is much harder to get called out on it. In addition there will likely be easier to blackmail people. Following the announcement of the Ashley Madison leaks there were a lot of companies targeting the users of the site who claimed they were able to delete their name from the database for a fee. Just imagine what these guys would do if they were able to buy the browser history of their targets. Do you want your loved ones or your employer to know your porn habits? What if your boss were able to find out who visited their glasspaper page right before the negative review were posted?", "Well for starters - it depends where you are. US Policy is you need to wait 12 months, UK/France policy is \"no if you had one since 1980\". ___ That being said - because there was a reason you got a blood transfusion. They just put a bunch of blood INTO you for some reason, why on earth would they want to take it back out of you?" ]

[ "Three children playing." ]

[ "Men looking nervous in a Lamaze class.", "Three men are playing instruments.", "Women and children are playing instruments.", "three asians are playing instruments.", "Six asian children are playing instruments", "The children are pretending to drive.", "Three people play stringed instruments.", "A group of three women are playing instruments.", "A group of children are singing and playing instruments", "Bening pretended to be the children's book author in the play.", "Three nude men are playing instruments.", "Three children are playing in water.", "Three people play instruments on stage.", "Three girls play musical instruments.", "The three children are playing Candyland.", "Three people singing and playing instruments.", "Three children are playing at a park.", "Three children are playing outside.", "Three children are playing with bubbles.", "Dogs play on a rug.", "Three children play in a swing.", "Three men play musical instruments on a stage.", "Three children are playing with the barrel.", "Three children are playing in the sand.", "Three children are at the beach playing in the sands.", "Three children are sitting on the grass playing.", "The girl is playing pretend drums.", "Three children play on hay bales.", "Three children play tea party.", "Three children play video games.", "Three children are playing tennis.", "TWO PEOPLE PLAYING ON A RUG." ]

[ "The bourgeoisie could be termed revolutionary in the sense that this class overturned the feudal society and took dominance over the previously dominant classes (nobility and clergy). This is stated in chapter 1 of the manifesto.\\n\\nThe proletariat is revolutionary in the sense that it will overturn the social order once more and create a communist order.\\n\\nRevolution is not so much the battle of one group against the other. Marx and Engels recognise it as a SOCIAL FORCE that drives history and social development." ]

[ "Marx is observing that we as humans seem to make the same mistakes over and over again. The first time we repeat itself, it is a tragedy, since we are stupidly repeating our mistakes. The next time the mistake is repeated, it's almost a comedy of bad errors from a neutral perspective. How could we do the same stupid thing again?\\n\\nHow it fits into dialectical materialism is this: Marx observed that time and time again the Proletariat would work against it's own interests by supporting revolutions of the Bourgeois to replace the Aristocracy, only to find the Bourgeois becoming the new Aristocracy rather than actually fulfilling the needs of the Proletariat. So the Proletariat kept making the same mistake over and over (helping the Bourgeois rather than seizing the mantle of power for itself).", "Communism: From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. \\n\\nMarx (and Engels) based this on a class system divided into the beugiose (boo-sua-zee) and the proletariat. It was called a \"dictatorship of the elite\". The former being less than 10% of the poplulation with more than 90% of the wealth, the latter 90% of the population a poor, uneducated, working class which they called a \"system of wives in common\". The Soviet Union was the first great experiment here and you see what happened. Mao was closer to this model in theory the Soviets more Socialist. Both based thier systems on the model from the Communist Manifesto. BTW, Marx and Engles lived in england and Engles came from a very wealth industrial family. \\n\\nFacism: Not even close. Read about Moussilini (El Deuc'e) and Hitler.", "i think the answer will be either \"proletariat\" or \"Proletarian\".", "Hi, books to read include manifesto of the communist party; Das Capital and for extra bonus points try condition of the english working class by Engels. They worked together on topics of mutual interest.\\n\\nTry either of the sources below.", "Industrial revolution led to capitalism and bourgeois society. New class of Working people were getting developed. This contradiction led to many revolutionary activities and in the course idea of socialism and communism were born like a natural event.", "The theory of class struggle was proposed by Karl Marx in \"The Communist Manifesto.\" It basically says that the worker class is exploited by the capitalist/employer class, and that at some point the workers of the world will unite and control their own work, killing or eliminating the capitalists.\\nFor more, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_struggle", "Which revolutionaries are you asking about? But the simple answers are:\\n\\na.) It's their job.\\n\\nb.) They're pretty good at it because of experience.\\n\\nc.) \"One man's revolutionary is another man's terrorist.\"", "its justifying an action by claiming it is the \"right\" thing to do.", "Social stratification is a sociological term for the hierarchical arrangement of social classes, castes, and strata within a society. While these hierarchies are not universal to all societies, they are the norm among state-level cultures (as distinguished from hunter-gatherers or other social arrangements).\\n\\nSocial stratification is regarded quite differently by the principal perspectives of sociology. Proponents of structural-functional analysis suggest that since social stratification exists in all societies, a hierarchy must therefore be beneficial in helping to stabilize their existence. Conflict theorists consider the inaccessibility of resources and lack of social mobility in many stratified societies. They conclude, often working from the theories of Karl Marx, that stratification means that working class people are not likely to advance socioeconomically, while the wealthy may continue to exploit the proletariat generation after generation. \"The advancement in technology have change the structure of mobility completely\" (Francois Adley). However, some conflict theorists, mainly Weber and his followers also critique Marx's view and point out at that social stratification is not purely based on economic inequalities but is equally shaped by status and power differentials. They proceed to examine the basis and structure of stratification in society along all the three axes.", "For Karl Marx, the basic determining factor of human history is economics. According to him, humans — even from their earliest beginnings — are not motivated by grand ideas but instead by material concerns, like the need to eat and survive. This is the basic premise of a materialist view of history. At the beginning, people worked together in unity and it wasn’t so bad. \\n\\nBut eventually, humans developed agriculture and the concept of private property. These two facts created a division of labor and a separation of classes based upon power and wealth. This, in turn, created the social conflict which drives society. \\n\\nAll of this is made worse by capitalism which only increases the disparity between the wealthy classes and the labor classes. Confrontation between them is unavoidable because those classes are driven by historical forces beyond anyone’s control.", "Capitalism is commonly understood to mean an economic or socioeconomic system in which the means of production are predominantly privately owned and operated for profit, often through the employment of labour. Other systems would include monarchism (the monarch owns everything), socialism (communities own everything) and communism (the state owns everything).\\n\\nIs it good? The capitalist mode of production is capable of tremendous growth because the capitalist can, and has an incentive to, reinvest profits in new technologies. Marx considered the capitalist class to be the most revolutionary in history, because it constantly revolutionized the means of production. But Marx argued that capitalism was prone to periodic crises. He suggested that over time, capitalists would invest more and more in new technologies, and less and less in labor. Since Marx believed that surplus value appropriated from labor is the source of profits, he concluded that the rate of profit would fall even as the economy grew. When the rate of profit falls below a certain point, the result would be a recession or depression in which certain sectors of the economy would collapse. And when it collapses (eg as in the Great Reccession of the 1920's and 30's then things are very bad).", "Belief is just a kind of knowledge. I'm an atheist and I believe in lots of things: my children's love and the scientific method, for example. I just don't believe in god(s).\\n\\nAs for Communism, that was a unfortunate combination of an academic theorist (Marx) and a totalitarian revolutionary (Lenin) -- which is why it's sometimes referred to as Marxist-Leninism. Lenin and Stalin's terrible effects on the USSR shouldn't necessarily detract from our understanding of Marx's class analysis of society. Any doubt about whether class exists as a powerful force in the US should have been thoroughly washed away by Hurricane Katrina.", "They don't! They just want the braaaaaainnnnsssss.", "In modern Russian language, \"lumpen\", the shortened form of \"lumpenproletariat\", is sometimes used to refer to lower classes of society. The meaning of the term is roughly analogous to chav,scanger, white trash, or yobbo.\\nThe lumpenproletariat (German Lumpenproletariat, \"rabble-proletariat\"; \"raggedy proletariat\") is a term originally defined by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in The German Ideology (1845), their famous second joint work, and later expounded upon in future works by Marx. In Marx's The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), the term refers to the 'refuse of all classes,' including 'swindlers, confidence tricksters, brothel-keepers, rag-and-bone merchants, organ-grinders, beggars, and other flotsam of society.'\\n\\nIn the Eighteenth Brumaire, the lumpenproletariat were a 'class fraction' that constituted the political power base for Louis Bonaparte of France in 1848. In this sense, Marx argued that in the particular historical events leading up to Louis Bonaparte's coup in late 1851, the proletariat and bourgeoisie were productive and progressive, advancing the historical process by developing society's labor-power and its capabilities, whereas the 'lumpenproletariat' was unproductive and regressive.\\n\\nAccording to Marx, the lumpenproletariat had no real motive for participating in revolution, and might have in fact an interest in preserving the current class structure, because members of the lumpenproletariat often depended on the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy for their day-to-day existence. In that sense, Marx saw the lumpenproletariat as a counter-revolutionary force.\\n\\nMarx's definition has influenced contemporary sociologists, who are concerned with many of the marginalized elements of society characterized by Marx under this label. Marxian and even some non-Marxist sociologists now use the term to refer to those they see as the victims of modern society, such as prostitutes, beggars, and homeless people, who exist outside the wage-labor system, but depend on the formal economy for their day-to-day existence.", "They both had the cult of leadership, giant pictures of themselves everywhere. They both had centriised socialist economies. They both ruthlessly purged there dissidents and repressed ethinic minorities.", "Is this a statement or a question?\\n\\nMarx, Karl \\n \\n \\n1818—83, German social philosopher, the chief theorist of modern socialism and communism.\\n\\nEarly Life\\n\\nMarx's father, a lawyer, converted from Judaism to Lutheranism in 1824. Marx studied law at Bonn and Berlin, but became interested in philosophy and took a Ph.D. degree at Jena (1841). He early rejected the idealism of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and turned toward materialism, partly through the influence of Ludwig Feuerbach and Moses Hess.\\n\\nEarly Work\\n\\nIn 1842 he became editor of the Rheinische Zeitung, but his demands for radical reforms led to its suppression in 1843. He then went to Paris, where he began his lifelong association with Friedrich Engels. At this time Marx became a socialist. He devoured the works of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, the comte de Saint-Simon, and many others. Antagonized by the individualistic radicalism of Pierre Joseph Proudhon, Marx attacked him in The Poverty of Philosophy (1847, tr. 1910), an early attempt to systematize his own thought. In this period also he wrote, with Engels, The German Ideology (tr. 1933), which provided an exposition of his dialectical materialism. Breaking with the tradition of justifying social reform by appeal to natural rights, he invoked \"inevitable\" laws of history to predict the eventual triumph of the working class.\\n\\nLater Work and Life\\n\\nIn 1847 Marx joined the Communist League and with Engels wrote for it the famous Communist Manifesto (1848), which strikingly expressed his general view of the class struggle. The failure of the revolutions of 1848 convinced Marx of the need to stimulate the consciousness and solidarity of the working class through the founding of open revolutionary parties. Exiled from most continental centers, he settled permanently in London in 1849. He lived in poverty, made more bitter by his own chronic illness and the death of several of his children. At times he was able to earn funds as a correspondent for the New York Tribune, but he was continually dependent on Engels for financial aid. Nonetheless, he pursued research in the British Museum and continued to write steadily.\\n\\nIn 1864 Marx helped to found the International Workingmen's Association. Through this First International and through the work of Ferdinand Lassalle and others, Marx's ideas began to gain primacy in European socialist and radical thought. This primacy was greatly furthered with the publication of the first volume of Das Kapital (Vol. I, 1867, tr. 1886; Vol. II—III, ed. by Engels, 1885—94; tr. 1907—9). The manuscript for the fourth volume was edited by Karl Kautsky and published as Theorien über den Mehrwert (3 parts, 1905—10; tr. of 1st part, A History of Economic Theories, 1952). A monumental work, Das Kapital provided a thorough exposition of Marxism and became the foundation of international socialism.\\n\\nAs Marx's reputation spread, so too did public fear of him. He insisted on authoritarian sway within the International, and finally, after controversy with Mikhail Bakunin, virtually destroyed the International for fear of losing control over its direction. He remained the prophet of socialism and was often consulted by the various socialist party leaders. His role was frequently that of urging more hard-minded policies, further removed from bourgeois embellishments; The Gotha Program (1891, tr. 1922), a critique, illustrates this position. The complexity and vituperation of this polemic characterize much of Marx's prose. In his last years Marx's great intellectual vigor continued unabated. The importance of his dialectical method and of his theories goes far beyond their immense political influence; many scholars consider him a great economic theoretician and the founder of economic history and sociology.", "Hmm, does someone have a politcal theory midterm coming up?\\n\\nKant was largely a predecessor to Marx/Engels and was critisizing the same social structures they work and their inevitable ends of ruin. \\n\\nMachiavelli on the other hand was an advocate of the totalitarian ideal. Force makes right, but the quite \"The ends justifies the means.\", in itself is not correct. Even Niccolo would not entirely agree with that. \\n\\nTheir deep philophies are much to deep to get into because they were largely addressing different periods in political history. Machiavelli was witnessing Roman decline and revolution, while Kant was witnessing the rise of the industrial revolution and its impacts upon the masses. \\n\\nIs there a specific topic you were intrested in like free will? social revolution or something?", "I asked this question, too. Here are the responses I received.", "to exploit the abundant cheap labour, earn a lot of money, pay less taxes, in short, to abuse poor people and be richs.", "richard pryor because he was revolutionary.\\nroseanne barr because she brought middle class america into light", "Engel (Steven Engel was one of the parents).", "The word capital has roots in the trade and ownership of animals. The Latin root of the word is capitalis, from the proto-Indo-European kaput, which means \"head\", this being how wealth was measured. The more heads of cattle, the better. The terms chattel (meaning goods, animals, or slaves) and even cattle itself also derive from this same origin.\\n\\nThe lexical connections between animal trade and economics can also be seen in the names of many currencies and words about money: fee (faihu), rupee (rupya), buck (a deerskin), pecuniary (pecu), stock (livestock), and peso (pecu or pashu) all derive from animal-trade origins.\\nThe first use of the word Kapitalist was in 1848 in the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels; however, \"kapitalismus,\" the german word for \"capitalism\" was not used. The first use of the word capitalism is by novelist Thackeray in 1854, by which he meant ownership of a large amount of capital.\\n\\nIn 1867 Proudhon used the term capitalist to refer to owners of capital, and Marx and Engels refer to the \"capitalist form of production\" (\"kapitalistische Produktionsform\") and in Das Kapital to \"Kapitalist\", \"capitalist\" (meaning a private owner of capital). By the early 20th century the term had become widespread, as evidenced by Max Weber's use of the term in his The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in 1904, and Werner Sombart's 1906 Modern Capitalism.\\n\\nThe Oxford English Dictionary cites the use of the term \"private capitalism\" by Karl Daniel Adolf Douai, German-American socialist and abolitionist in the late 19th century, in an 1877 work entitled \"Better Times\", and a citation by an unknown author in 1884 in the pages of Pall Mall magazine.\\n\\nThe definition of capitalism given in dictionaries has changed over time. For example, the 1909 Century Dictionary defined capitalism as:\\n\\n 1. The state of having capital or property; possession of capital.\\n 2. The concentration or massing of capital in the hands of a few; also, the power or influence of large or combined capital.\\n\\nThe contemporary definition, however, refers to an economic system. For example, the Merriam-Webster Third International Unabridged Dictionary refers to capitalism as: \" an economic system characterized by private or corporation ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision rather than by state control, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly in a free market.\" Hence, \"capitalism\" today commonly refers to what was called laissez-faire and economic liberalism in the 18th and 19th centuries.\\n\\nAccording to some left wing theories regarding ideology, a dominant economic class disseminates an ideology serving its class interests. Therefore the ideology of the capitalist class (previously known as the bourgeoisie) also came to be known as \"capitalism\", giving the word a meaning which is distinct, albeit closely related to, the economic system. This usage has been adopted outside of leftist circles, and many economic liberals describe themselves as \"capitalists\", even if they are not personally involved in business investment and/or the ownership of the means of production.", "acutally its \"ends justify the means\". It means that whatever your goal is \"end\" it is so important that what you do to achieve it, no matter if it's wrong, is justified by your ritious goal. The \"means\" is how you get there, what you do. I want to be president to help the world, but I have to lie like a polititian to get there.", "Since I'm not a Marxist, this doesn't particularly appeal to me (the quote is a famous one attributed to Karl Marx)", "It doesn't... that would be an overly liberal interpretation.", "The Bible is a product of the church, written to retain social control over the masses that believe in it. 'God's Will' seems to favour the bourgeoisie ideology not the humble proletariat who had nothing. Religion is so mixed up now and along with money is the only other reason why so many wars are breaking out. I think that your sexuality is biologically determined - In your genetics before you are born. Believe in what you choose too, but always remember to stay true to who you are.", "Obviously the smart one with no money isn't starving and survives. The rich one with no smarts must not have had to work for his money and probably can buy anything (anyone) he wants. So if you want to be happy and are strong enough, choose the poor smart one. If you don't care if you find love and are weak, choose the rich one.\\nMy choice would be to be strong.", "Gave them both jobs that before the War they could never get at. This gave them a way to prove that were as good as anyone else and let them feel like they were useful. It helped both alot.", "Good argument, they are just plain stupid. I don't understand it either, and it is no use arguing with them because they never have anything to support their comments.", "Burgeosie suppressed proletariat then as now.", "Millions killed in Siberia and purges during Stalin's reign. Millions killed by Mao in China. Hundreds of thousands killed by Pol Pot.\\n\\nA system that will NEVER work because it denies human nature's need for incentives. \\n\\nKarl ignored all of history when he believed that man is perfectable. He ignored once a person has power they will NEVER give it up, thus government doesn't fade away. Karl said that for revolution bloodshed was a necessity. Any system that demands blood to work can't be a good system.\\n\\nIf government did fade away into nothing you create a vaccume. Natue abhores a vaccume as can be seen in what happened after WWI when Germany was took the brunt of the blame for the war. Inflation was so bad it took a wheelbarrow of Deuchemarchs to buy a loaf of bread. This left an opening for the National Socialists to take over, leaving in their wake six million Jews dead.\\n\\nAny form of socialism never has worked and never will without an influx of capital. Even Marx wouldn't have survived if it wasn't for Inglas dad funding him.", "While the theory of Communism offered workers a chance for equality, the reality is that the class system still existed and there was little or no chance to bridge that gap. The industrial revolution, a capitalistic event, also created the opportunity for that \"large, impoverished and powerless working class\" to rise above their means and create a better life for themselves based upon their effort and ability. This opportunity does not exist in a communist state. If you are born into a lower class family, you will die in that same class. In a capitalist society, you have the ability and opportunity to be as successful or impoverished as you like. Work hard and reap your just rewards or lie back and live off the gov't teet. You decide." ]

[ "This paper shows that monetary policy and prudential policies interact. U.S. banks issue more commercial and industrial loans to emerging market borrowers when U.S. monetary policy eases. The effect is less pronounced for banks that are more constrained through the U.S. bank stress tests, reflected in a lower minimum capital ratio in the severely adverse scenario. This suggests that monetary policy spillovers depend on banks? capital constraints. In particular, during a period of quantitative easing when liquidity is abundant, banks are more flexible, and the scope for adjusting lending is larger when they have a bigger capital buffer. We conjecture that bank lending to emerging markets during the zero-lower bound period would have been even higher had the United States not introduced stress tests for their banks." ]

[ "This paper examines the mean return and volatility spillover effects from the three influential stock markets of the US, Japan, and China to the two emerging stock markets of Indonesia and Malaysia over the sample period from 2005 to 2007. By analyzing GARCH models, we verify that there are significant mean spillover effects from the three major markets to the two emerging markets. The magnitude of the mean spillover from the US market is the most significant compared to the Japanese and Chinese markets. This would be consistent with the conventional wisdom in which the US market is believed to be the most influential market in the world. In terms of the volatility spillover, the empirical results reveal that the US market is more influential to Indonesia, but less to Malaysia, and recently growing Chinese market has a significant influence to both of the two emerging markets.", "In this study, we examine financial stress co-movements and spillovers among the G7 economies by employing a Financial Stress Index as a proxy variable and accounting for financial instability. To examine the interdependence of financial stress, we parse the dynamic conditional correlations of financial stress among these countries for the 1981–2009 period. In addition, we present spillover indices and plots of financial stress that indicate financial stress innovations and spillover dynamics, respectively. Our empirical results suggest a positive association of financial stress co-movements and spillovers with both financial crises and uncertainty. In general, our findings provide a clear view of the transmission of financial stress during important stressful episodes, suggesting the existence of an increased interplay among the financial markets.", "This paper analyzes the transmission effect of monetary policy on the stock market using a structure vector auto-regression model and thus computes the lagging period of the effect. We employ four variables including lending rate, deposit-reserve ratio, money supply and the deposit rate. After the ADF test and co-integration test, the paper conducts the impulse response analysis and draws each variable's impulse response figures. Then we use the variance decomposition to detect the lagging period and each variable's contribution level in affecting the stock market. The findings suggest that there exist transmission lagging effects; in particular, the variable M2's effect on the stock market is more stable and the variable deposit rate has the fastest effect on the stock market.", "Some emerging economies have a relatively ineffective monetary policy transmission owing to weaknesses in the domestic financial system and the presence of a large and segmented informal sector. At the same time, small open economies can have a substantial monetary policy transmission through the exchange rate channel. In order to understand this setting, we explore a unified treatment of monetary policy transmission and exchangerate pass-through. The results for an emerging market, India, suggest that the most effective mechanism through which monetary policy impacts inflation runs through the exchange rate.", "This study employs option price data to back out the implied portfolio volatilities of the dollar and carry trade risk factors of the G-10 currencies. To investigate expected volatility spillover effects between risk factors in FX markets, we extend Grobys (2015) and Diebold and Yilmaz (2009) by constructing expected volatility spillover indices based upon the forecast-error variance decomposition of Vector-Autoregression models employing option-implied portfolio volatilities. Surprisingly, the dollar and carry trade risk factors that are orthogonal in the first moment exhibit strong stochastic interrelations in the second expected moment. Our findings indicate that expected high spillover regimes are associated with periods of economic stress.", "Abstract Bitcoin was launched to solve the distrust and uncertainty in the existing financial system. Here we investigate risk spillover effect from economic policy uncertainty (EPU) to Bitcoin using a multivariate quantile model and the Granger causality risk test. We use the US EPU index, equity market uncertainty index, and VIX as proxies for EPU. We find that risk spillover effect from EPU to Bitcoin is negligible in most conditions. Our work provides useful information on building asset portfolios for investors who have investment strategies in Bitcoin, because Bitcoin can be acted as a safe-haven or a diversifier under EPU shocks.", "Using Granger causality test and cointegration test, by analyzing the change rates, in sever- ::: al countries, of the interest rate in money market, money supply, net government debts, and government ::: expenditures, this paper finds the notable relationships among international fiscal and monetary policies. ::: By including GDP, economic welfare effects can also be seen.", "In this article, we provide empirical evidence of the recent financial crisis over 2007–2009 using discrete time multivariate GARCH (MGARCH) models and continuous time modelling approaches. Using daily data for 14 countries, we investigate the return and volatility spillovers among the US and other international markets. The MGARCH results reveal positive return spillovers from the US to a number of markets, and volatility transmission is verified. The US market is prone to return and volatility transmission from a limited number of markets. The continuous time analysis finds evidence of feedback effects in some cases. Evidence shows that spillover effects intensified during the financial crisis.", "We use a threshold vector autoregression to study the effects of monetary policy shocks on the US. Depending on the level of inflation we note important regime dependence in the inflation response to monetary policy shocks.", "For the first time in almost a decade, the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates at the end of 2015 - an initial step toward normalizing monetary policy which has been very expansive since the onset of the financial crisis. Ahead of the move, it was feared that the interest rate reversal might have a considerable impact on emerging markets because the hike would lead to more capital flows being diverted to the US. The present study concludes that this was not in fact the case: greater turbulence on the financial markets failed to materialize immediately after the first rate hike and the financing conditions for emerging markets did not initially deteriorate significantly. However, the interest rate will be raised further. In order to come through the contractionary cycle of US monetary policy unscathed, emerging economies with large current account deficits or those dependent on commodity exports in particular should brace themselves for possible fallout.", "This paper examines the relationship between the US monetary policy and stock valuation using a structural VAR framework that allows for the simultaneous interaction between the federal funds rate and stock market developments based on the assumption of long-run monetary neutrality. The results confirm a strong, negative and significant monetary policy tightening effect on real stock prices. Furthermore, we provide evidence consistent with a delayed response of small stocks to monetary policy shocks relative to large stocks.", "Using a panel of 257 banks across 26 countries, this paper documents the influence of US monetary policy on risk-taking attitudes of banks around the world. It finds that an easing of US monetary policy increases banks’ default risk. It further finds that the impact of US monetary policy is channelled through capital flows, rendering a financial system with capital controls less susceptible to US monetary policy’s influence than a system that welcomes capital mobility. The results echo the endorsement by IMF of capital controls as a valid tool for domestic macroeconomic management. They also support the preemptive application of contractionary monetary policy on US’s part to curb global credit bubbles in advance.", "This paper introduces a framework that directly quantifies information spillovers between financial markets. Information spillovers occur when market specific information, defined as information that directly affects the return or volatility in one market only, indirectly affects returns or volatility in other markets through some channel(s) of transmission. By using market specific order flow as a measure of market specific information, we estimate the spillover effects from the stock market to the bond market and vice versa. We examine spillovers under different market conditions by employing a regime-switching framework. We find evidence of spillovers in returns and volatility across the two markets especially when the volatility in the stock market is high. Our findings are consistent with flight-to-quality and rebalancing as channels of transmission.", "This paper analyzes the transmission channels of the US exchange rate strategy on China's inflation in the post-Crisis era,and then constructs an econometric model to test the obvious international spillover effects. Based on the empirical results,this paper argues that the US strategic devaluation of the dollar had significant and negative impact on China's inflation,while RMB exchange rate as well as China's growth had significant but positive impact on China's inflation. Finally,this paper recommends a broader daily fluctuation band of RMB exchange rate and a reduction of the various growth-stimulus policies for China.", "ABSTRACTThis article offers a fundamental critique of monetary policy implemented in the United States following the 2007–8 global financial crisis. It aims to show that the misunderstanding of the mainstream theoretical thinking underlying monetary policy actions led to the ineffectiveness of the policy response to the 2007–8 global financial crisis. The conventional view that monetary policy is the stabilization tool has serious flaws and is ineffective for bringing about economic recovery. The Federal Reserve’s experiment with the so-called unconventional monetary policy exposed the weakness of the conventional belief in understanding how banks operate, how the monetary authority can influence the yield curve, and how the monetary transmission mechanism works, resulting in prescribing an ineffective treatment to boost economic activity. In this regard, it is argued that the Federal Reserve’s decision to let long-term interest rates be market determined represents a significant self-imposed constraint, ...", "This paper investigates sources of fluctuations in real and nominal US dollar exchange rates of selected emerging market economies by decomposing the exchange rate series into stochastic components induced by real and nominal factors. The dynamic effects and relative importance of real and nominal shocks in explaining the behaviour of these exchange rates are analysed. The results indicate that real shocks dominate nominal shocks for the exchange rate series examined. In turn, these findings have important economic implications.", "This article use the game theory,modeling between the investors,analyse the failure of monetary policy in stock market,and proposed the recommendation to enhance the impact of monetary policy on the stock market.To enhance the role of monetary policy effects in the stock market,we should to pay attention to the accuracy of the published information,information costs,investors' capital amount in the stock market,the three factors would make a deep influence on the monetary policy's transmission in stock market.With strengthening the information disclosure management,reducing information costs,and keeping a steady increase in personal investment,we can solve the problem gradually.", "In this paper, we construct a macro-econometric model that describes the economic activity in the Asia-Pacific area and provide quantitative insights into the recent policy debates on monetary and currency coordination among the East Asian economies. The model includes a wide variety of monetary and currency policy rules that the East Asian economies adopt and allows for one country's policymaking to have substantial effects on foreign countries. We apply the model to three current policy issues: (1) the desirability of currency basket pegs in East Asia, (2) the anticipated effects of China's currency policy reform, and (3) the non-negativity constraint on Japanese nominal interest rates. The simulation analyses show the external economy effects of policy rules quantitatively and suggest the difficulty of monetary and currency policy coordination among the East Asian economies.", "New research of monetary policy transition mechanism suggests th at monetary policy function mainly via investment, consumption and international trade. A practical analysis on the specific pathway and quantitative relationsh ip through and of which China’s monetary policy is transited by investment, exp loiting Granger causality test and covariant integral test, suggests that moneta ry policy can be transited to macro-economy via investment transition, and the transitional pathway includes loan availability transition means, pathway of int erest rate, asymmetry-information pathway and balance sheet, but there is not T romping Q-effect.", "We propose a theory of monetary policy and macroprudential interventions in financial markets. We focus on economies with nominal rigidities in goods and labor markets and subject to constraints on monetary policy, such as the zero lower bound or fixed exchange rates. We identify an aggregate demand externality that can be corrected by macroprudential interventions in financial markets. Ex post, the distribution of wealth across agents affects aggregate demand and output. Ex ante, however, these effects are not internalized in private financial decisions. We provide a simple formula for the required financial interventions that depends on a small number of measurable sufficient statistics. We also characterize optimal monetary policy. We extend our framework to incorporate pecuniary externalities, providing a unified approach to both externalities. Finally, we provide a number of applications which illustrate the relevance of our theory.", "This paper sets up a bivariate EGARCH-X in mean with MA (1) model to investigate the dynamic interactions of A- and B-shares markets in the Shanghai and in the Shenzhen exchanges, respectively and to explore the effects of stock market liberalization on cross correlations, the impacts of non-trading days on volatility, volatility persistence, influence of price deviation on volatility, and volatility spillovers (or asymmetric behavior). It is noted that information matrix test developed by Bera and Kim (2002) is in particular adopted to test for constancy of correlation. The intervention analysis has exhibited some important shifts of several parameters after stock market liberalization.", "Since the early 1980’s, a major focus in researching for the economic variables such as interest rate, income, exchange rates and inflation rates gained importance in the literature of demand for money. The present book estimates a stable long-run equilibrium relationship between money demand and its explanatory variables in South Africa over the period of 1990 to 2007 using cointegration and error correction methods. The results indicate that monetary policy is effective but for its efficiency it does not have a quick effect; it needs at least three quarters (nine months) from the day it is made in order to make a difference. In other words, there are difficulties of implementing monetary policy in emergence situation. Therefore, monetary authorities in South Africa should take in consideration that their policy decisions need three quarters to achieve their aim. Hence, monetary policies have to be ahead. Thus, interest rates have to be set based on what inflation might be over the coming three quarters.", "We combine a rarely accessed BIS database on bilateral cross-border lending flows with cross-country data on macroprudential regulations. We study the interaction between the monetary policy of major international currency issuers (USD, EUR and JPY) and macroprudential policies enacted in source (home) lending banking systems. We find significant interactions. Tighter macroprudential policy in a home country mitigates the impact on lending of monetary policy of a currency issuer. For instance, macroprudential tightening in the UK mitigates the negative impact of US monetary tightening on USD-denominated cross-border bank lending outflows from UK banks. Vice-versa, easier macroprudential policy amplifies impacts. The results are economically significant.", "This paper analyzes the impacts of the United States (US) monetary shocks on East Asian countries using structural vector-autoregression (VAR) model. We find that the impacts of the US monetary shocks on East Asian domestic interest rates and exchange rates contradict conventional wisdom. The conventional exchange rate channel is unlikely to play much role in the transmission of the US monetary policy shocks to floaters in East Asian countries, excluding Japan. In these countries, the domestic interest rates respond strongly to the US interest rate changes, by giving up monetary autonomy, probably because of fear of floating. However, the domestic interest rate does not respond much in countries with fixed exchange rate regimes and capital account restrictions, such as China and Malaysia. This may suggest that the countries with fixed exchange rate regimes enjoy a higher degree of monetary autonomy, most likely with the help of capital account restrictions.", "Semi-strong efficiency in the stock market, the foreign exchange market and the interbank money market in Turkey is investigated by using the direct Granger causality tests. Significant deviations are reported from the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) with respect to changes in market liquidity in all these markets for the period of January 1989 to July 1995. It is also found that these markets are pairwise interdependent. However, market liquidity cannot be predicted by using developments in the financial market. Possible implications for domestic and foreign investors and for monetary policy makers are discussed.", "We study the effects of monetary policy shocks on—and their historical contribution to—consumption and income inequality in the United States since 1980 as measured by the Consumer Expenditure Survey. Contractionary monetary policy systematically increases inequality in labor earnings, total income, consumption and total expenditures. Furthermore, monetary policy shocks account for a non-trivial component of the historical cyclical variation in income and consumption inequality. Using detailed micro-level data on income and consumption, we document some of the different channels via which monetary policy shocks affect inequality, as well as how these channels depend on the nature of the change in monetary policy.", "This paper investigates why the slope of the yield curve predicts future economic activity in Germany and the United States. A structural VAR is used to identify aggregate supply, aggregate demand, monetary policy and inflation scare shocks and to analyse their effects on the real, nominal and term premium components of the term spread and on output. In both countries demand and monetary policy shocks contribute to the covariance between output growth and the lagged term spread, while inflation scares do not. As the latter are more important in the United States, they reduce the predictive content of the term spread in that country. However, the main reason for the stronger leading indicator property in Germany is the positive contribution of supply shocks, which owing to a different monetary policy response explains about half of the positive covariance at lag four in Germany and almost nothing in the United States.", "We examine the spillovers of the US subprime crisis to Asian and European economies and in particular to what extent currency and stock markets have been affected by the crisis. Linear and nonlinear dependencies are detected after pairwise and system-wise causality analysis. A new stepwise multivariate filtering approach is implemented after controlling for conditional heteroskedasticity in the raw data and in VAR/VECM residuals using multivariate GARCH models. Significant nonlinear causal linkages persisted even after the application of GARCH-BEKK, CCC-GARCH and DCC-GARCH modelling. This indicates that volatility effects might partly induce nonlinear causality. Perhaps new short-term asset-pricing models could be developed to explain this stylized fact. These results might also have important implications for hedging, trading strategies and financial market regulation.", "This paper studies empirically the role of different economy-wide factors in explaining cross-sectional variation in stock returns in emerging markets. Using a sample of common stocks, traded on the Bulgarian stock exchange (BSE), we examine the relationship between macroeconomics and capital markets in order to determine whether the variations in stock returns can be explained by macroeconomic variables that might proxy for relevant systematic factors. We use a two-pass regression procedure following the Chen et al. approach. Relevant macroeconomic variables such as trade deficit, unexpected inflation, and country risk premium are found to play a significant role in explaining the fluctuations of stock returns in emerging markets. Eastern Economic Journal (2008) 34, 223–237. doi:10.1057/palgrave.eej.9050031", "This paper studies the asymmetries that are claimed to arise in the real economy as a response to monetary policy shocks. It follows Lo and Piger�s (2005) regime-switching specification in order to investigate time variation in the response of the transitory component of output to monetary shocks in Argentina. The results suggest time variation in the coefficients that describe the response of output, which can be well explained by a dummy variable indicating the phase of the cycle at the time the policy is applied. We also find support to Friedman�s �plucking� view of economic fluctuations, while other two features of the shocks (direction and size of the monetary policy) explain strongly the business cycle of Argentina.", "This paper examines the role of financial instability in setting monetary policy. The paper begins with a model that examines the interaction of monetary and regulatory policy. It then empirically tests whether financial instability has affected monetary policy. One important innovation is to construct a measure of financial instability directly related to the FOMC financial instability concerns expressed in FOMC meeting transcripts. We find that, even after controlling for forecasts of inflation and unemployment, the word counts of terms related to financial instability do correlate with monetary policy decisions. Thus, the FOMC not only “talks the talk” about financial stability, but it “walks the walk.”", "This paper studies the interaction between monetary policy and macroeconomic stability in a model with two distinguishing features. First, financing - cash flows - underpins all economic activity, with banks generating deposits by granting loans. Money is non-neutral as the policy interest rate anchors the real economy. Second, bank lending is subject to an endogenous boom-bust cycle due to externalities in the loan market. Together, these features imply that monetary policy may have long-lasting impact on the real economy through its in fluence on the financial cycle. In this `finance-based' economy, there is no well-defined natural rate of interest to which the economy gravitates. The possibility of a `low interest rate trap' emerges: monetary policy that leans insufficiently against the build-up of financial imbalances increases the vulnerability to financial busts over successive cycles. As a result, low rates can beget lower rates." ]

[ "Spain meets the Netherlands in the final match Sunday in South Africa. Whichever team wins will take home the cup for the first time in their nation's history. Alan Black and David Henry Sterry, authors of <em>The Glorious World Cup: A Fanatics Guide</em>, join host Liane Hansen to reflect on past match-ups and speculate about the final." ]

[ "Have you ever heard the sound of a swarm of bees, a trumpet blaring, or the alpenhorn used in those Ricola commercials? How about all of them at the same time? No? Behold -- the vuvuzela. If you don't believe me, give this virtual one a toot. Or you can refer to the video above. In a matter of days, this roughly three-foot long South African instrument made of plastic will be heard (and blown) by fans across the globe as 32 teams compete in the World Cup. It's the first time the tournament will take place in an African nation, and I for one am jealous of my two friends lucky enough to be there for a few weeks. Although I will be patiently waiting to hear their stories of cheering with the locals, it's the vuvuzelas I really want to hear about. For an event that brings together millions of people in a sea of colors and fanfare, vuvuzelas are causing a rift in the football community. Coaches and players find it even harder to communicate at field level, TV broadcasters are overwhelmed, and others claim that the horn providing that monotonous B-flat sound might even be a health hazard. But FIFA president Sepp Blatter opposes a ban on vuvuzelas, saying that  \"we should not try to Europeanise an African World Cup.\" Goal.com also says that he told reporters: “It is African culture, we are in Africa and we have to allow them to practice their culture as much as they want to. ... Vuvuzelas, drums and singing are part of African football culture. It is part of their celebration, it is part of their culture. ... In South Africa, the vuvuzela is the main instrument of self expression, it is just that overseas countries do not use it.” While yelling into megaphones and clapping thundersticks may be more of an American tradition, the debate over the amount of noise that fans can create before it becomes a distraction is most definitely a worldwide topic. For anyone who's played a sport recreationally or at a professional level, the slightest yelp can easily throw an athlete off their A-game. And some spectators are in favor of doing away with the horns. Mondli Makhanya, former editor-in-chief of the Johannesburg Sunday Times,  misses the good ol' days, where the art of song and chat could be heard in the streets and stadiums: What the vuvuzela has done to our football is to take away the spontaneity of song. Soccer fans do not compose new songs any more. The tribal chants that you hear at great soccer cathedrals such as White Hart Lane and the Santiago Bernabeu are rarely heard in our soccer grounds these days. Except for the Bloemfontein Celtic support base, the music in South African stadiums has been drowned by the dreadful instrument. What do you think? Should instruments like the vuvuzela be banned during the World Cup? Are they an integral part of the South African football culture?", "Clinging to a tournament-long formula of precise passing, ball control, tight defense and a timely second-half goal, Spain picked apart Germany 1-0 Wednesday to reach Sunday's World Cup final against the Netherlands. Defender Carles Puyol soared above a line of players braced for a corner kick and scored with a header in the 73rd minute of play to send the Spaniards to their first-ever World Cup final. The match between the Spanish and the Dutch also ensures a first-time champion. The Dutch, who beat Uruguay on Tuesday night, have lost in their only two trips to the final. The two teams have never met in the World Cup. It was a bleak rerun for the Germans, who lost the 2008 European championship to Spain by the same score. And that match broke a 44-year major title drought for Spain. Germany will face Uruguay in a consolation match for third place. When the final whistle sounded, the Spanish players on the field thrust their arms in the air while the substitutes raced onto the field. Their smiles were so bright they could be seen all the way to the top of the stadium in Durban, their roars of elation almost loud enough to drown out the blare of those vuvuzelas. For Germany, it's yet another disappointment. The three-time champs were making their third straight trip to the World Cup semifinals. Yet just like in 2006, they are headed for the third-place game. The Germans retooled their team after the Euros loss in Vienna, bringing in youngsters such as Mesut Oezil, Sami Khedira and goal-scoring machine Thomas Mueller, who was suspended after picking up a second yellow card in the quarters. But the Germans looked as if they were back in Vienna for much of the night, allowing big, bad Spain to dominate again. Captain Philipp Lahm was in tears as he watched Spain celebrate. Bastian Schweinsteiger was on his knees for several minutes, and not even a consoling pat on the back from Puyol helped. The Germans lost to a great team. Spain has been the best in Europe -- all the world, really -- for much of the past four years. It's lost all of two games since November 2006, one a shocker to Switzerland in the group-stage opener, and that longevity makes for seamless and fluid play that is usually breathtaking. Injuries had taken a toll on the Spanish in South Africa, and they didn't have anywhere near their usual polish. Fernando Torres, who can be devastating offensively, is still struggling to recover from knee surgery in April, and was dropped from the starting lineup Wednesday night. Cesc Fabregas played all of two games before the World Cup after breaking a bone in his leg in March. But with the World Cup title so close -- not to mention Queen Sofia watching -- the Spanish came through with their best game yet. \"We worked hard to get here, and now we have made the final,\" Villa said. \"It's a great thing.\" Spain dominated possession the entire game, and it peppered German goalkeeper Manuel Neuer so many times it seemed inevitable the Spanish would eventually score. Finally, they did, setting off celebrations from Durban to Madrid. Xavi swung a corner kick right into the scrum in front of Neuer in the 73rd minute. With fellow defender -- and Barcelona teammate -- Gerard Pique next to him and screening Neuer's view, Puyol leaped up and got the ball. He gave one mighty swing of his head, his long curls flying. Neuer dove to his left, but had no chance to stop the ball as it thundered into the net. The Spanish players gathered for a group hug at the edge of the box, bouncing up and down and rubbing each other's heads as Lukas Podolski barked at his teammates in frustration.", "For those of us following World Cup coverage, it's tough to get through a day’s news without someone talking about those vuvuzela horns blown by thousands of fans at each match. Everyone’s got their favorite metaphor for describing their sound – mine is a swarm of giant, referee-eating wasps – and most seem to embrace the notion that the sound of the vuvuzela is, well, as annoying as an orchestra of dentist drills. Officials have debated whether to ban them and players blame them for mistakes on the field – and all the while, the fans keep blowing them. With that in mind, here’s my list of ways to drown out the vuvuzelas from your World Cup experience. Axl Rose and Alligators: Keys To Vuvuzela Peace? Read More. Blast Some Guns N’ Roses. While watching the World Cup a few days ago I couldn’t help but having flashblacks to late 80s metal shows filled with clove-smoking, fake ID-toting teens wearing overpriced black concert t-shirts. It then occurred to me that the note emanated by the vuvuzelas – a B flat, it turns out – is the opening note to GN’R’s “Welcome To the Jungle.” Apparently I’m not the only one to notice this, including blogs like The Awl and One Great Season, which noted “I imagine Slash, or 50,000 Slashes, producing this note throughout a game without ever moving on to his terrifically descending guitar riff that kicks off the song before Axl Rose rejoins with his unmistakable banshee cry.” If you don’t believe us, play the song while watching a World Cup match, and the vuvuzelas will be brought to their shu-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh knees by Slash’s opening guitar riff. It certainly adds a whole new dimension to the matches, but it also means that you have to play GN’R incessantly until the cup ends next month. Decide for yourself whether or not it’s gonna bring you down. (Huh!) Use The Magic Of Audio Engineering To Wipe Them Out. Because vuvuzelas are tuned to bleat out a B flat fairly consistently, it didn’t take long for some audio geeks to figure out ways of reducing their impact using equalizers and audio filters. One of these methods is demonstrated by the folks at Lifehacker, who were kind enough to put together this video demo: They also have a useful post about a downloadable audio filter that does the same trick. Imagine Alligators And Black Holes Consuming Your Least Favorite Team. While searching for songs in the key of B flat, I stumbled upon an 2007 NPR story by Robert Krulwich on some of the curious properties of that particular note. For example, it turns out that if you play a B flat in front of an alligator, it’ll start to bellow back at you. According to Krulwich, this peculiar phenomenon was discovered in the 1940s, when the New York Philharmonic visited the American Museum of Natural History: During rehearsal, somebody played a note that upset a resident live alligator named Oscar. Oscar, who'd been in the museum on 81st Street, suddenly began to bellow. Naturally, with so many scientists in residence, an experiment was quickly devised to see how to get Oscar to bellow again. Various musicians — string, percussive and brass — were brought to Oscar to play various notes. It turned out the culprit was B flat, one octave below middle C. While there aren’t any alligators in South Africa, there are crocodiles in the neighborhood, and one has to wonder if anyone’s bothered to blow a vuveleza in their direction. Perhaps we should leave that experiment for Krulwich, or perhaps the guys from MythBusters. Meanwhile, astronomers discovered sound waves emanating from a black hole in 2003 – and the sound waves turned out to be B flat, 57 octaves below middle C. Unfortunately, that’s a million billion times lower than you or I could hear. (As for the alligators, you’d have to ask them.) So if you’re unable to adjust your equalizer or tolerate Guns N’ Roses, using your imagination might tie you over for a little while, especially if you try to picture alligators and black holes consuming whatever team you happen to hate the most. Suck It Up And Simply Watch More World Cup Matches Until They Begin To Vanish On Their Own Accord. Okay, this one is perhaps the most counterintuitive way of dealing with vuvuzelas, but think about it. Given the fact that they’re essentially a constant drone, vuvuzela blasts are almost like white noise. If you simply get over how annoying they are and start concentrating on the game again, you’ll probably notice them a lot less. And apparently, we’re probably wired to do just that. According to research published in the European Journal of Neuroscience in 2005, rat brains contain “novelty detector neurons” that focus on new or novel sounds, which in turn help them ignore ongoing sounds. \"It is probably a good thing to have this ability because it allows us to tune out background noises like the humming of a car's motor ", "Will the young Black Stars of Ghana succeed in eclipsing America's Stars and Stripes tomorrow in Rustenburg?  Both squads have impressed so far in the World Cup, with the Americans -- minnows coming into the tournament -- getting thumbs up all round. Rewind four years to the 2006 World Cup in Germany.  Picture a sea of red, gold and green -- with a black star in the middle -- the colors of Ghana's national flag. That was the scene all over the capital, Accra, and nationwide as Ghana prepared to face-off with the U.S. Millions of Ghanaians tuned into the match and they were not disappointed. To the oohs, aahs, yelps and cries of joy of their fans, the Black Stars subdued the Stars and Stripes in a 2-1 victory and, for the first time in their history, reached the round of 16, the only African team left in the competition. Accra erupted in a frenzy of horn blowing (not the vuvuzela in those days, but car horns), flags fluttering and the whole city danced all night. The party continued until Brazil, then the defending champions, pricked Ghana's bubble, humbling the Black Stars in their next World Cup 2006 encounter. Ofeibea Quist-Arcton is NPR's correspondent in West Africa. She is from Ghana and is based in Dakar, Senegal. To read and hear her report about the 2006 Ghana-USA match, click here.", "I fell asleep last night to the sound of the vuvuzela. I awoke this morning to the sound of the vuvuzela. And this afternoon I sustained one direct vuvuzela blow to my left. It hurt. But after watching the South Africa-Mexico opening game of the World Cup with a few thousands very happy locals in Johannesburg's Mary Fitzgerald Square — she was the country's first woman union organizer, and she had an excellent nickname: \"Pickhandle Mary\" — I'm already willing to lay off. As anyone who's turned on ESPN or read a newspaper or listened to a certain radio operation knows, whither-the-vuvuzela is a World Cup story that's already been bleated to death. Yes, being surrounded by the ubiquitous plastic horn is like being trapped inside a tuba being played by an elephant. Yes, you have to shout to be heard by someone standing next to you. Yes, people are selling miniature vuvuzelas that emit a high-pierced shriek. But I say enough. The vuvuzelas are the happy soundtrack of South African soccer. They're about joy, and the main emotion I felt today is that South Africans seem downright thrilled to be hosting the event — far more outwardly joyful than residents of any other country in which I've attended a big sports event. Read More In the square today, the third biggest cheer came when South African President Jacob Zuma appeared on the giant screen during the opening ceremonies at the Soccer City stadium and said, \"This is the African World Cup.\" The second biggest came a few moments earlier when Sepp Blatter, the head of FIFA, said that while Nelson Mandela couldn't attend the game (his 13-year-old great-granddaughter was killed by a suspected drunk driver), \"the spirit of Mandela is in Soccer City.\" The loudest cheer, of course, came in the 55th minute of the game, when South Africa's Siphiwe Tshabalala struck a left-footed rocket past diving Mexican goalkeeper Oscar Perez. At that moment, the vuvuzelas went silent — because fans were too busy screaming to blow their own horns. They thrust them instead into the air like torches, they waved them forward and back in a rhythmic dance. Mexico tied the game with about 10 minutes left to play and, thanks to a South African shot that struck the post and bounced away harmlessly a few minutes later, the game ended a 1-1 draw. But no seemed unhappy. And the music of the World Cup kept playing in the streets as the crowd dispersed. \"They lost,\" one South African fan turned to us and said as we walked back to our car. \"Imagine what it would sound like if they had won.\"", "Former South Africa President Thabo Mbeki recently spoke to NPR's Michel Martin about one of the Africa's greatest concerns, Sudan. Mbeki also talks about the significance of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. During his presidency (from 1999-2008), he lobbied for the games to come to his country during as presidency. On progress creating peace and stability in Sudan \"Well, you know, that really there's been two major challenges facing Sudan. One of them has been the war in Darfur and the other one is the ... Comprehensive Peace Agreement which ended the war between the North and the South. Fortunately, everybody has respected the Comprehensive Peace Agreement since it was signed in 2005, in terms of forming a government of national unity and in all the various steps out there to be taken. And as you were saying, are then preparing for the referendum which is scheduled for January 10, 2011.\" On Southern Sudan being commonly referred to as a \"pre-failed state\" \"... Since Sudan gained its independence in 1956, well, the bulk of the years since then, Southern Sudan has been involved in war. And therefore the assessment that the infrastructure is very weak is correct. That there are many challenges of underdevelopment is correct. ... But when the matter is raised, which is leadership in Southern Sudan of the possibility of them being a failed state, we actually take great exception to this because they say that indeed when many countries on the African continent gained their independence, the people who led them had no experience of government.\" On whether there is still violence in Darfur \"Well, it is true that during the month of May, you had this spike in terms of the violence that's taken place in Darfur. It's the highest in the last two years, two-and-a-half years. Basically there are really two reasons for it. One of them is that there's a very serious conflict between two different Arab tribes in Darfur. ... But also, one of the rebel groups in Darfur, the Justice and Equality Movement, which had relocated from Chad into Darfur. They started trying to spread around Darfur to establish a presence around Darfur. And so the Sudan armed forces responded to that to say, no, you can't the rebel movement that was positioning itself in order to resume the war, so they responded and that's what resulted in the killing. The danger is that if this matter of Darfur is not resolved now before the referendum, then Darfur will be forgotten.\" On Mbeki's decision to indict Sudan President Omar al-Bashir on war crimes \"When we engaged the population in Darfur, everybody said crimes had been committed in Darfur, and not everybody agrees, including President Bashir. Secondly, that these crimes need to be investigated and prosecuted, and everybody agrees. And, thirdly, that and nobody's above the law, not even President Bashir. So this is agreed by everybody. So, when we then engaged the Darfurians to say, well, then how is this justice to be done since we all agree that justice must be done? \"They said essentially that they do not trust that the Sudanese judiciary is sufficiently independent to be able to adjudicate these cases.\" On Zimbabwe's political and economic troubles \"The solutions to the prob of Zimbabwe must come from Zimbabweans. We can't impose solutions from outside without creating new problems. I am quite confident that that government will survive, that they will work together.\" On his legacy as President of South Africa \"Once South Africa became a democracy in 1994, that stopped the threat of the possibility of the racial war in South Africa. And, fortunately, that's been sustained every since. ... Also, the progress towards the creation of a non-racial society -- much more integration in the schools, in the sports teams. If you look now in the crowds that sit around around in the South African stadium watching all these [World Cup] matches, it's something that you probably would not have seen 10 years ago of blacks and whites sitting next to each other.\" On why he lobbied to bring the World Cup to Africa \"We took a decision that it would be important to have the World Cup hosted not only by South Africa, but by Africa ... to make a statement about Africa -- [about] Africans on the continent and Africans in the diaspora ... Africans everywhere. We're very much part of this common humanity. How many Europeans have hosted the World Cup? Latin America, Asia has hosted the World Cup. Why not the African continent?\" On the South African team's recent World Cup loss to Uruguay \"We still have one more match rto play in this round, and I'm hoping that we win that match. With fingers crossed, I think the South African team is capable of winning this next match.\" Complaints about the sound of the Vuvuzela \"People have to accept that this is a standard feature of South Africa. Personally, I would never take a vuvuzela to a match.\"", "The U.S. women's national team could be forgiven for soaking in the glory of their gut-wrenching win over Brazil in the Women's World Cup quarterfinals. The tight game electrified fans, driving many to parse the game's twists and turns, and it's dramatic final moments, on Twitter. But Abby Wambach — whose head forcefully redirected a crossing pass from Megan Rapinoe into the goal in the 122nd minute to send the game to penalty kicks — says the U.S. team isn't satisfied. \"This isn't good enough,\" Wambach said in an interview with U.S. Soccer late Sunday. \"We haven't won anything. We won a game, and that's it. We want to win the World Cup, and that takes two more games. It's gonna take a really good performance against France, they're a great team, they have many threats.\" Next Game Wednesday; TV Ratings Strong; Read More: The semifinals matchup against France is scheduled for Wednesday at noon, ET. The winner will face the survivor of the Japan-Sweden game in the championship match on Sunday, July 17. The losers will play in the third-place game Saturday. \"Obviously, we have two more big games coming up,\" Wambach said, \"but this gives you the kind of confidence that just makes you feel like you can fly. I'm proud to be a part of this.\" \"We play under pressure,\" coach Pia Sundhage told U.S. Soccer. \"But we embrace that; we like that.\" If you missed Sunday's game, ESPN has put highlights on YouTube (but they won't let us embed the video, sorry): U.S. Win Over Brazil Nets Big Ratings Bill Hofheimer of ESPN says that TV ratings for the quarterfinals match between the U.S. and Brazil drew an overnight rating of 2.6 — a result he calls \"Awesome!\" in his Twitter feed. To put that number in perspective, this year's French Open final between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer also drew a 2.6, which NBC welcomed as a 63 percent rise over last year's match. And to put it in basketball terms, the match beat the coverage of this year's NBA Draft by 0.1 percent. The high viewership may be the result of a fairly slow weekend in U.S. sporting news. But a conversation I had with a fellow viewer suggests there may be more to it. My fellow fan, who is proudly French and fanatically into soccer, said he was surprised at how much he's enjoyed all the Women's World Cup matches he's seen. Asked why, he said that teamwork, strategy and crisp passing have been common. And one thing has been rare, he said, especially compared to the men's game: flopping. Sure, the Brazilian women often pretended that they weren't used to the strong gravity here on Earth. But the fans hissed and whistled at them furiously for it. And Erika's late fainting spell supplied the stoppage time that allowed Wambach to score a late goal and send it to overtime. A rival theory holds that viewers were simply relieved to see elite soccer being played without the headache-inducing accompaniment of vuvuzelas, the horns whose drone came to define the men's 2010 World Cup. A World Cup For Robots I'm still on the lookout for any prescient cephalopods — like Paul the octopus — making bold and correct predictions of Cup matches. No luck yet, but I did turn up the RoboCup, a soccer competition among robots, which runs concurrently with the Women's World Cup. This international competition is based in Turkey. But like the World Cup for both male and female players, it's a source of English frustration. As the BBC notes, \"The UK's best robot footballers have followed the example of their human counterparts and bombed out of the football World Cup.\" The robots play according to rules similar to those that govern FIFA matches, with some adjustments. If you're thinking that means light-amplified weapons, join the club. But no. \"The robots are still a little bit fragile in comparison to humans,\" Thomas Rofer told the BBC. \"So we penalize pushing. A lot.\" On the RoboCup site, computer engineering professor H. Levent Akin says that RoboCup began \"with a focus on robotic soccer and a goal of having a team of robots having a match with a human team in 2050 and winning.\" And RoboCup's goal isn't merely to mark the start of the Machine Overlord era. Since the criteria for playing soccer include a robust physique and a facility for complex analysis, the competition is meant to nurture the development of robotkind. Who knows, maybe someday there'll be room for a robot in the World Cup — FIFA seems to be on the lookout for the perfect, unimpeachable referee.", "South Africa is celebrating the first soccer World Cup to be held on African soil. The opening match between South Africa and Mexico gets under way on Friday at the refurbished Soccer City stadium in Soweto. The number of foreign visitors has not met expectations, but that has not diminished South African enthusiasm for soccer's biggest international event. The newly refurbished Oliver Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg is ready. The airport has spent millions improving facilities in anticipation of some 300,000 visitors. Airport security chief Jason Tshabala says much of the money has been spent to protect visitors and their bags. The new system is intended to thwart criminal syndicates that make the Johannesburg airport a high-risk airport for losing baggage. A new transport system also is in place, including buses to and from the two area soccer stadiums. A high-speed train from the airport into the city starts on Tuesday. Some projects won't be finished, despite lots of overtime. Nonetheless, South Africa is ready to party. Cars are bedecked with flags of the 32 countries competing in the tournament. Offices have brought in televisions -- a possibly futile attempt to reduce absenteeism over the next month. And people all over the country are practicing new dance steps. Someone seems to have decided that South Africa needs an official World Cup dance. At an office park northwest of Johannesburg, hundreds of employees turned out for a dance class. The Diski is apparently based on an old dance simulating people standing in line at a bus stop. The steps have now been changed to simulate soccer. In the office park, the dance students were all ages and races. A couple of the dancers showed up with a vuvuzela. The long, skinny trumpet is the audio signature of South African soccer. The office park had warned employees to leave the horns at home so as not to scare area wildlife. There was no such prohibition at Saturday's preliminary soccer game near Johannesburg, between the United States and Australia. As fans waited for the gates to open, young men and boys blowing the vuvuzela danced on the grass. Once the game was under way, thousands of horns blasted across the stadium. Medical experts warn that this sound could turn the \"Rainbow Nation\" into the \"Deaf Nation\" -- especially if South Africa makes it into the second round. GUY RAZ, host: This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Guy Raz. (Soundbite of soccer match) Unidentified Group: (Singing) Ole, ole, ole, ole. Ole, ole... RAZ: The biggest sporting event in the world starts this week. At least a billion people are expected to watch as 32 countries compete for the Soccer World Cup in South Africa. In a moment, a roundup of the matches to watch, how the U.S. team may fair, plus a new report that says the United States will soon become one of the most important soccer markets in the world. But we begin in South Africa. The 2010 World Cup is the first to be held on African soil. The opening match between South Africa and Mexico is on Friday. The number of foreign visitors to the country is fewer than expected, but reporter Vicky O'Hara says that hasn't dampened enthusiasm in South Africa. VICKY O'HARA: The newly refurbished Oliver Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg is ready. The airport has spent millions improving facilities in anticipation of some 300,000 visitors. Jason Tshabala, airport security chief, says much of the money has been spent to protect visitors and their bags. Mr. JASON TSHABALA (Security Chief, Oliver Tambo International Airport): The system is automated, and we're able to check your bag from point A to point B. O'HARA: The new system is intended to thwart criminal syndicates that make Johannesburg a very high-risk airport for losing baggage. A new transport system also is in place, including buses to and from the two area soccer stadiums. A high-speed train from the airport into the city starts on Tuesday. Some projects won't be finished despite lots of overtime. Nonetheless, South Africa is ready to party. Cars are bedecked with flags of the 32 countries competing in the tournament. Offices have brought in televisions, a possibly futile attempt to reduce absenteeism over the next month. And people all over the country are practicing new dance steps. (Soundbite of music) Unidentified Man: (Speaking foreign language) O'HARA: Someone decided South Africa needs an official World Cup dance. At this office park northwest of Johannesburg, hundreds of employees have turned out for an informal dance class. Unidentified Man: The Diski dance starts as follows. It starts with a drum, okay, a slow drum. O'HARA: The Diski apparently is based on an old dance that simulated people standing in line at a bus stop. The steps were changed to simulate soccer. Today's dance students are all ages and all races. (Soundbite of music) Unidentified Man: One, two, three. O'HARA: A couple of the dancers showed up with ", "It went down in Cape Town in a windy stadium on a wet pitch, with vuvuzela’s blarring: Spain vs. Portugal. The Iberian neighbors haven’t played one another in six years and six years ago, Portugal won.  But Spain was the overall World Cup favorite this time around, well, until their embarrassing loss to Switzerland in their first game. So it was anyone’s match. After The Jump: How Spain Overcame Portugal's Strong Defense The two teams went at it, Spain with patience and passing, Portugal ready to counterattack with speed and swagger. Very early into the first half it was Spain shooting at the goal for target practice: Fernando Torres with a strong shot at 1 minute into the game, saved by Portugal’s ‘keep’ Eduardo; then Spain’s Villa with a long shot, saved again by Eduardo; Villa with another attempt to score at 6 minutes, challenging Eduardo’s goal keeping skills very early on. Portugal’s strength is in their defensive wall and their ability to quickly counter attack. Portugal defender Fabio Coentrao took a few breakaways pretty far down the pitch. Cristiano Ronaldo kicked an awesome cross at 9 minutes in, but there was no Portuguese player to make the goal. The entire game was like that, a few Portuguese rushes down the pitch after a counter attack but no goal and Spain was quick to take the ball back. The two teams were 0-0 at the half, but the game was intense, it was obvious both sides wanted a win, badly. At 51 minutes, Portugal's Almeida had a surge down the pitch at full speed and his cross deflected off a Spanish defender and nearly made it in the goal. And then Spain took the ball right back with an even stronger counter attack: Ramos crossing to, just subbed-in, Llorente who nearly got a head on it, but no goal. This was hold your breath, intense! Two minutes later, Spanish forward,Villa gets the ball and shoots, the ball bounces off Portugal's 'keep' Eduardo, but Villa's foot is ready with another kick to the ball...and... GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLL! Spain breaks down the awesome Portuguese defense, 62 minutes into the match. After David Villa's goal, Spain was looking strong and Portugal, a bit deflated.  At 76 minutes in, Spain's Xabi Alonso recieved the team's first yellow card of this World Cup, but that couldn't stop the Spanish momentum and quick, precise passing. At 80 minutes, the vuvuzelas were at a deafening pitch and things seemed to start breaking down on the Portuguese side. Portuguese forward, Danny with a shot at minute 88, shortly thereafter, his teammate Ricardo Costa is red carded for an elbow to Spain's Capdevila and thrown off the pitch. Portugal's down a man and, you know in your heart, it's over.  Even with a bit of injury time remaining.  It's over. And it was. Spain with the win: 1-0.  But history is not on Spain's side.  No team has ever won the World Cup and lost their first game. ¡Buena Suerte!", "Germany, the World Cup host country, lost 2-0 to Italy in a semi-final match Tuesday. The Italians scored twice in the match's waning moments after 118 minutes of scoreless play. The defeat left some German fans in a philosophical mood, looking forward to the next World Cup.", "This was my first World Cup during which my children were old enough to engage in the event. My boys are five and seven.  To them the World Cup is a month-long spectacle filled with heroes and villains; crazy fans from far off lands covered in facepaint; vuvuzelas and grown men with funny nicknames. Each day epic battles played out between giants: Messi versus Chicharito; Cristiano Ronaldo versus Sergio Ramos. My sons were born in South Africa and we now live in Mexico. So for the opening game their loyalties were torn between the country of their birth and their current home. Schools across Mexico showed the Mexico/South Africa game live.  Finn, the seven-year-old, decided to back South Africa despite having his entire class against him.  He convinced his best friend Carlos to join him and they were a two-man rooting section in a sea of green Mexico jerseys. Fortunately the match ended in a tie. After Jump: More Soccer Influences Even before the first game both Finn and his younger brother Emile had sticker books in which you can paste pictures of every player from every country in the tournament.  Collecting the players became an obsession.  Finn screamed with joy when he finally completed Italy, his first full team. One of their favorite characters from the Cup has been El Pulpo Paul!  You can only mention Paul the Octopus' name with an exclamation point at the end.  And as it should be.  A mollusk who can accurately predict the winner in game after game deserves respect. Finn was astonished after the Round of 16 that there were no longer games every day.  It was hard to swallow. He now retrieves the sports section of the newspaper each morning from the front door. He pours over it at breakfast announcing who's won, who's scored and what the next match ups will be. Each game brought some new act of bravery, daring or intrigue. Little Serbia defeating the powerful Germans. Switzerland upsetting Spain. Landon Donavon scoring at the last minute against Algeria to propel the U.S. out of the Group Stage.  Luis Suarez using his hand to block a certain goal by Ghana and in the process saving his nation Uruguay the humiliation of defeat.  Frank Lampard's goal against Germany that the refs just didn't count.  And the victory dances. The 5 year old, Emile, can shake his hips as well as any South African striker. He demonstrates it at dinner. Finn does a great imitation of Spaniard David Villa's palms to the heavens, look-at-me-I-just-scored pose. The boys have taken to playing a lot more soccer themselves in the garage.   They yell, \"Gol!\" for even the feeblest of shots and issue yellow cards with abandon. Finn has also declared that he's not going to cut his hair.  Clearly this is in deference to Diego Forlan, Sebastian Abreu, Lionel Messi and some of the other long-haired South American stars. It's hard to believe that we'll have to wait four more years for the next round of World Cup drama in our house.", "Man, that octopus is good. The octopus, of course, is the marine creature named Paul who lives in a German aquarium and picked Spain to beat Germany in Wednesday's 2010 World Cup semifinal match. Paul was right. Spain defeated Germany 1-0 which puts Spain in the all-European final against the Netherlands scheduled for Sunday. The Associated Press described the match as follows: DURBAN, South Africa (AP) - Carles Puyol powered in a header inthe 73rd minute Wednesday to send Spain to its first World Cupfinal with a 1-0 win over Germany. In a rematch of the 2008 European Championship final that Spainwon by the same score, Puyol leaped up high in the center of the area to redirect a corner kick from Xavi, finally putting Spain infront after it dominated from the opening whistle. Spain's best previous World Cup finish was fourth in 1950, whenthe final round consisted of a four-team round-robin format. In Sunday's final in Soccer City, Spain will meet the Netherlands, which also has never won soccer's biggest prize.", "Sunday's thrilling and frustrating World Cup match between the U.S. and Portugal drew an average of 24.7 million viewers, according to the Nielsen ratings company, a result that puts the game above the recent NBA finals. The game's total U.S. viewership of 24.7 million includes ratings from both ESPN (18.2 million viewers) and the Spanish-language Univision (6.5 million); it doesn't include the 1.37 million people ESPN says streamed the game online. The ratings also don't take into account the thousands who watched the U.S-Portugal game, which ended in a dramatic 2-2 draw, at large outdoor viewing parties. The New York Times puts the TV numbers in perspective, in an article with the not-unprovocative headline Bigger Than Baseball: \"While not near the totals scored by the N.F.L. playoffs or, certainly, the Super Bowl, the American audience for the World Cup game on Sunday easily eclipsed the N.B.A. finals this year, which averaged 15.5 million viewers, as well as the 2013 World Series, which averaged 14.9 million viewers. The N.H.L. playoffs are not even remotely as popular as the World Cup, having averaged only five million viewers this season.\" The strong ratings were greeted as affirmation by soccer fans in the U.S., with some folks seeing proof that the game's future is golden here. The TV numbers back up recent reports that outside of host Brazil, far more World Cup tickets were bought by Americans than any other nationality. So, where are the soccer fans in the U.S.? While the Washington, D.C., market has led the way in English-language broadcasts, the Cup also highlights the power of Univision, which holds the Spanish-language rights in the U.S. Consider that in Miami, the U.S.-Portugal game drew a 9.4 rating on ESPN — and a 10.7 rating on Univision. That combines for a combined rating of 20.1 — surpassing Washington's combined mark of 17.2 (13.3 on ESPN and 3.9 on Univision). Univision says that its ratings for this World Cup have already beaten the totals from 2010. Others are taking the ratings with a grain of salt, noting that the homegrown Major League Soccer's games have struggled to command viewers' attention. We'll also note that while the World Cup draws fans who love the sport, some viewers' interests are driven by nationalist passions. There's also the high level of play. And then there's the timing: Of the major U.S. sports, only baseball is now in season. That leaves plenty of room for the Cup in many sports fans' lives. As CBS notes, Sunday's match set a new mark on ESPN: \"Through 32 matches, World Cup games averaged 4.3 million viewers on ESPN. That's up 50 percent from the nearly 2.9 million for matches in the 2010 World Cup. Sunday's match was the most-watched event ever on ESPN that did not involve American football.\" The strong ratings benefited from a favorable viewing time: 6 p.m. ET on a Sunday. In more ways than one, the next U.S. game should pose more of a challenge: It starts at noon on Thursday, and it's against Germany. It will also decide whether the U.S. team advances to the tournament's round of 16. As Eyder explained in a Two-Way post yesterday, there are several scenarios that could play out to determine who advances from group play, depending on the outcomes of the U.S.-Germany match and the simultaneous one between Portugal and Ghana.", "The U.S. Men's National Soccer Team was back in a familiar position Wednesday night — playing to win the Gold Cup. It was a record 10th time the U.S. has reached the finals of the biennial CONCACAF tournament, which crowns the continental champion of North and Central America and the Caribbean. An 88th-minute goal by forward Jordan Morris, off a deflection up the middle after a Gyasi Zardes cross, gave the Americans a 2-1 win over Jamaica. It's the team's fifth title in the past nine Gold Cups. Team USA dominated for much of the match; Je-Vaughn Watson's goal in the 49th minute, a run-in from the back side on a corner kick, was the first shot Jamaica had had all night. But backup Jamaican goalie Dwayne Miller was able to smother chance after chance from the Americans, allowing only Morris' goal and another on Jozy Altidore's 45th-minute free kick. Morris said after the match that he was nervous when the ball bounced to him, the Associated Press reports. \"It was my guy that scored on the goal, so I was trying to make up for it any way that I could, obviously. I take responsibility for that. But luckily I could put one in the back of the net.\" Jamaican coach Theodore Whitmore said the strike \"was like a dagger in the heart,\" according to the AP. American midfielder Michael Bradley was named the tournament's best player, while Jamaica's Andre Blake, whose hand was injured early in the match, was named the tournament's best goalie. The United States had defeated Jamaica earlier this year 1-0 in an exhibition match in Chattanooga, Tenn. That game in February was also Coach Bruce Arena's first win after he returned to lead the U.S. men's national team after a decade hiatus. Since he took over last November, Arena has not lost a game (nine wins and five ties). That's the longest undefeated streak to start a U.S. Men's National Team coaching tenure. \"Four months ago we were rebuilding our program. A program that was in desperate shape of being in a position to qualify for a World Cup,\" he said. \"So I think we've made great strides in the past four months and [playing in the Gold Cup Final] is a great opportunity for us to make progress.\" The success comes at a good time for the United States. Arena replaced Jürgen Klinsmann who had been the squad's leader since 2011. Klinsmann was fired after a disappointing start in qualifying for the 2018 World Cup. In 2002, Arena guided the U.S. to the quarterfinals (the best finish since the very first World Cup in 1930) but he also was at the helm when the U.S. was eliminated in the group stage of the 2006 tourney. The U.S. men have played in every World Cup since 1990 and that streak was in jeopardy until Arena returned as coach. Since then, he guided the team to two wins and two draws in the final qualifying round. The U.S. is now in a much better position to make next year's tournament in Russia once qualifying resumes on Sept. 1 with a match against Costa Rica (a squad the U.S. beat in the Gold Cup semifinals on Saturday). How the U.S. fared Wednesday had no direct bearing on its World Cup chances. But star forward Clint Dempsey (who tied the U.S. scoring record with his 57th goal against Costa Rica) said it's still important. \"We know we're in a position to accomplish two big things this year,\" he said, speaking of both winning the Gold Cup a sixth time and qualifying for the World Cup in Russia.", "Believe it or not, there is something more annoying than a vuvuzela that World Cup soccer fans could be carrying home with them from South Africa this weekend. Try measles or rubella, also known as German measles. The Pan American Health Organization is warning soccer fans on this side of the Atlantic to be particularly wary about the symptoms of the oh-so-contagious viruses, particularly because they have finally been declared eradicated from the Americas: Measles in 2002, and rubella just last year. South Africa, however, is not so lucky -- it reported more than 16,000 cases of measles since January, 2009. Thus, PAHO advises, anyone, whether athlete or fan, who experiences fever, rash, cough, runny nose, or conjunctivitis, to seek medical care and stay away from others for at least seven days. PAHO is also placing posters in the arrival areas of major international airports in the Caribbean and Latin America, warning footballers and friends about the risks and urging travelers to get vaccinated.", "After celebrating the U.S. women's national soccer team's 2015 FIFA World Cup victory at the White House today, veteran Abby Wambach, 35, announced plans to retire. Wambach, who is the leading international scorer for both men and women, said she will step away from the game after the team's the final four games of thier victory tour. The match against China in New Orleans on Dec. 16 will be her last match. \"After much deliberation and talking with my friends, family, teammates and our coaching staff, I've decided to finally bring my soccer career to an end,\" she said in a statement according to ESPN. Wambach has appeared in 252 international matches and has scored 184 goals. While honoring the team at the White House earlier today, Obama alluded to Wambach's \"dominance,\" her long career, and her impact on the world beyond soccer. \"Abby said that she wanted her final World Cup to be like a fairytale. And I'm not sure she could have written a better ending: a world champion at last, draped in the Stars and Stripes, showing us all how far we've come — on and off the field — by sharing a celebratory kiss with her wife,\" Obama said. Wambach has also been an advocate for women's soccer and women's sports in general. \"While we still have more work to do for women's soccer, after bringing the World Cup back to the United States this summer, I'm feeling extremely optimistic about the future of our sport. It's been an amazing, wonderful ride, and I can't wait to see what the next chapter of my life brings,\" she said in the statement.", "The German soccer team meets Argentina Saturday in a much-anticipated World Cup quarterfinal match. Across Germany, fans are fired up. They're singing \"Deutschland,\" beating drums and waving flags from cars and buildings and just about anything else. But fervent flag-waving patriotism and displays of nationalism -- even for sports -- are not sitting well with all Germans. The flags are everywhere, so Lebanese-born Ibrahim Bassal is annoyed and a little perplexed why masked young men keep coming in the middle of the night to try to tear and burn his absurdly large German flag -- nearly 70 feet long and 20 feet wide. Bassal proudly hangs the black, red and gold symbol of his adopted country down the side of the building above his small mobile phone resale and parts shop in a gritty section of East Berlin. He says the flag is in honor of the World Cup and is meant to show solidarity. \"We want to show that we are integrating ourselves, that we've already integrated,\" he says. \"We belong here. When the team plays well, we are happy and all party together. We are German citizens. We participate.\" Flag Thieves From The Left? But Bassal is already on his third flag this World Cup -- at a cost, he says, of nearly $2,000. It's not anti-immigrant far-rightists who've attacked his property. He suspects it's local leftist protesters who have told him the big flag is simply too nationalistic and \"reminds us of the past.\" The latest attack came at 4 a.m., he says, when 10 masked kids climbed onto the roof and ripped and tried to burn the banner. The Beirut-born shopkeeper says he's fed up and is now posting family sentries to protect the flag. \"This time we're not going to let them attack it. We're going to guard our flag. We are sleeping here in the shop and waiting for Saturday. We're not going to let the left-wingers destroy us -- or the right-wingers. We live here. Our kids are born here. We want them to keep living here,\" Bassal says. Flag-Free World Cup Viewing Such is the flag angst in Germany this World Cup. Some bars in Berlin and elsewhere are offering \"flag-free public viewing\" of all soccer matches. One garden bar is offering \"all the games, all the goals, none of the national anthems.\" They offer a big willkommen for all \"who love the game but don't want to be forced to watch it surrounded by patriotism, nationalism, chauvinism and colonialism, and who don't want to feel forced to support Germany.\" Achim Trautvetter helped create an alternative outdoor World Cup watching zone near an old industrial site in Potsdam just outside Berlin. He and the other organizers -- including a local soccer club -- are gearing up for a big crowd Saturday. There are a humongous viewing screen, a canopy against the sun, lots of seating and plenty of beer and bratwurst for sale in a friendly, flag-free surrounding. \"Here is our flag parking space,\" says Trautvetter. \"We say to the people, 'OK, we don't want flags, maybe you take your flag and put it there.' \" Co-organizer Max Dalichow says, \"We all know about the German trauma and extreme nationalism.\" He helped put together this different kind of viewing space, he says, because soccer fandom in Germany and across Europe can too often devolve into racism and idiocy. \"We want to direct the whole thing in the other direction. Actually we think that racism is easily sparked by nationalism and nationalism is easily sparked by many people being patriotic in one place,\" Dalichow says. Sparking Debate About Nationalism He says a few fans stormed away angry, feeling like the group is confusing patriotism with blind nationalism and accusing everyone who waves the German flag of being a neo-Nazi. But Dalichow and Trautvetter hope their flag-free experiment helps spark some debate about nationalism, patriotism and citizenship in today's Germany. They've also made one nonpolitical move that most Germans would agree with: They've banned vuvuzelas because, well, the horns are annoying. MELISSA BLOCK, host: As we just heard from Stefan, Germany has done well in the World Cup so far and will play Argentina tomorrow in a much-anticipated, quarter-final match. Across Germany, fans are fired up. They're singing \"Deutschland\" and waving flags from cars and buildings - and just about anything else. (Soundbite of music) BLOCK: But these fervent displays of patriotism, even for sports, are not sitting well with all Germans, as NPR's Eric Westervelt reports. ERIC WESTERVELT: The flags are everywhere, so Lebanese-born Ibrahim Bassal is a little annoyed and perplexed why masked young men keep coming in the middle of the night to try to tear and burn his absurdly large German flag - nearly 70 feet long and 20 wide. Bassal proudly hangs the black, red and gold symbol of his adopted country down the side of the building above his small, used mobile phone and parts shop in a gritty section of East Berlin. He says the flag is in honor of the World Cup, and is meant to show solidarity. Mr. IBRA", "Imagine if the Pittsburgh Steelers' Franco Harris had admitted the ball really did touch the ground on his \"immaculate reception.\" Too dated a reference? What if baseball's Yankees' Mariano Rivera had said \"yeah, that was a spitball\"? (Just to be clear, he did not say that.) There's an even bigger story in sports today, at least for fans of the world's most popular game. French soccer ... er, football ... player Thierry Henry \"has admitted handling a ball before a crucial goal that sent his team to the World Cup at the expense of Ireland.\" Henry's touch, by the way, is known now as \"the Hand of Gaul\" -- a nice homage to the \"Hand of God\" score by Argentina's Diego Maradona during the 1986 World Cup quarter final against England. Henry didn't score the French goal in Wednesday's match 1-1, but one of his teammates did soon after. The Irish argue that play should have stopped when Henry's hand touched the ball. Now the Irish want a rematch: \"The Football Association of Ireland has called on FIFA (soccer's ruling body) to replay last night's World Cup play-off after Thierry Henry's handball denied the Republic of Ireland a place in the finals,\" The Irish Times reports. What should happen? Update at 6:55 a.m. ET, Nov. 20. There will be no rematch, FIFA has ruled. The AP reports that: \"In the reply, FIFA states that the result of the match cannot be changed and the match cannot be replayed,\" FIFA said in a statement. \"As is clearly mentioned in the Laws of the Game, during matches, decisions are taken by the referee and these decisions are final.\"", "Former South Africa President Thabo Mbeki continues his conversation with Michel Martin to discuss the 2010 FIFA World Cup Games in South Africa and his legacy.Former South Africa President Thabo Mbeki recently spoke to NPR's Michel Martin about one of the Africa's greatest concerns, Sudan. Mbeki also talks about the significance of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. During his presidency (from 1999-2008), he lobbied for the games to come to his country during as presidency. On progress creating peace and stability in Sudan \"Well, you know, that really there's been two major challenges facing Sudan. One of them has been the war in Darfur and the other one is the ... Comprehensive Peace Agreement which ended the war between the North and the South. Fortunately, everybody has respected the Comprehensive Peace Agreement since it was signed in 2005, in terms of forming a government of national unity and in all the various steps out there to be taken. And as you were saying, are then preparing for the referendum which is scheduled for January 10, 2011.\" On Southern Sudan being commonly referred to as a \"pre-failed state\" \"... Since Sudan gained its independence in 1956, well, the bulk of the years since then, Southern Sudan has been involved in war. And therefore the assessment that the infrastructure is very weak is correct. That there are many challenges of underdevelopment is correct. ... But when the matter is raised, which is leadership in Southern Sudan of the possibility of them being a failed state, we actually take great exception to this because they say that indeed when many countries on the African continent gained their independence, the people who led them had no experience of government.\" On whether there is still violence in Darfur \"Well, it is true that during the month of May, you had this spike in terms of the violence that's taken place in Darfur. It's the highest in the last two years, two-and-a-half years. Basically there are really two reasons for it. One of them is that there's a very serious conflict between two different Arab tribes in Darfur. ... But also, one of the rebel groups in Darfur, the Justice and Equality Movement, which had relocated from Chad into Darfur. They started trying to spread around Darfur to establish a presence around Darfur. And so the Sudan armed forces responded to that to say, no, you can't the rebel movement that was positioning itself in order to resume the war, so they responded and that's what resulted in the killing. The danger is that if this matter of Darfur is not resolved now before the referendum, then Darfur will be forgotten.\" On Mbeki's decision to indict Sudan President Omar al-Bashir on war crimes \"When we engaged the population in Darfur, everybody said crimes had been committed in Darfur, and not everybody agrees, including President Bashir. Secondly, that these crimes need to be investigated and prosecuted, and everybody agrees. And, thirdly, that and nobody's above the law, not even President Bashir. So this is agreed by everybody. So, when we then engaged the Darfurians to say, well, then how is this justice to be done since we all agree that justice must be done? \"They said essentially that they do not trust that the Sudanese judiciary is sufficiently independent to be able to adjudicate these cases.\" On Zimbabwe's political and economic troubles \"The solutions to the prob of Zimbabwe must come from Zimbabweans. We can't impose solutions from outside without creating new problems. I am quite confident that that government will survive, that they will work together.\" On his legacy as President of South Africa \"Once South Africa became a democracy in 1994, that stopped the threat of the possibility of the racial war in South Africa. And, fortunately, that's been sustained every since. ... Also, the progress towards the creation of a non-racial society -- much more integration in the schools, in the sports teams. If you look now in the crowds that sit around around in the South African stadium watching all these [World Cup] matches, it's something that you probably would not have seen 10 years ago of blacks and whites sitting next to each other.\" On why he lobbied to bring the World Cup to Africa \"We took a decision that it would be important to have the World Cup hosted not only by South Africa, but by Africa ... to make a statement about Africa -- [about] Africans on the continent and Africans in the diaspora ... Africans everywhere. We're very much part of this common humanity. How many Europeans have hosted the World Cup? Latin America, Asia has hosted the World Cup. Why not the African continent?\" On the South African team's recent World Cup loss to Uruguay \"We still have one more match rto play in this round, and I'm hoping that we win that match. With fingers crossed, I think the South African team is capable of winning this next match.\" Complaints about the sound of the Vuvuzela \"People have to accept that this is a standard feature of Sou", "The Women's World Cup game that had been hoped for and hyped for months is finally here: U.S. vs. France. One vs. four. Defending World Cup champion vs. hometown favorite. Friday's game is expected to be the best game of this tournament so far. It's almost a shame it's just a quarterfinal match instead of the final. These two teams have shined this tournament. The winner advances, and the loser heads home. Kickoff in Paris is at 3 p.m. ET and will be televised on Fox and Telemundo. The winner advances to a semifinal match against England on Tuesday. The United States comes in as the favorite. It's won all its games in the Women's World Cup so far and has set records along the way (including number of goals scored in the group play, and biggest goal differential, just to name a few). There will be another record set during this quarterfinal match: It marks the 125th game that U.S. head coach Jill Ellis has led this team (she is currently tied with April Heinrichs). The U.S. made it to the quarterfinals in a hard-fought 2-1 win over Spain. It was not the Americans' best performance. But it was enough to advance, and that's what matters in this tournament. The Americans have been dinged up by fouls and hard tackles and were tested most of the game by a scrappy Spaniard squad. Like the U.S., France hasn't lost a game in this World Cup either and is playing every bit as good as fans of Les Bleues expect from them. France also fought to a tough win in its last game: defeating Brazil 2-1 in extra time. The French have rallied around their team, too, and cheered them on in ways normally reserved for the more popular men's national squad.", "The \"Hand of Gaul\" will not force a replay of the Ireland-France soccer match that has rocked the football world. As The Irish Times writes, soccer's ruling body, FIFA: Moved quickly to dash hopes of a replay of the Republic of Ireland's controversial World Cup play-off exit to France in Paris. ... (Irish Football) chief executive John Delaney had formally requested a replay after Thierry Henry's clear handball in the build-up to William Gallas's decisive goal. The world governing body ruled that the result cannot be changed and the match cannot be replayed. Here is FIFA's statement: FIFA has today, 20 November 2009, replied to the request made by the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) to replay the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa play-off match held on 18 November 2009 between France and the Republic of Ireland in Paris. In the reply, FIFA states that the result of the match cannot be changed and the match cannot be replayed. As is clearly mentioned in the Laws of the Game, during matches, decisions are taken by the referee and these decisions are final. We asked yesterday whether Two-Way readers thought the match should be replayed. AS of 7:15 a.m. ET this morning, 59% of those who responded had said yes. There's still time to express your opinion: Update at 8:55 a.m. ET: The BBC reports that Henry said today that a replay would \"be the fairest solution.\"", "Sanch Belmot, 85, missed the 1950 World Cup final to be with his dying mom. Brazil lost that match. His old ticket will go into a museum in exchange for 3 tickets to this year's final.", "HAMBURG, Germany (AP) - With defenders like this, Italy didn't really need spectacular offense to get past Ukraine and into the World Cup semifinal. Luca Toni went ahead and showcased Italy's talent up front anyway. With an early strike, a goal-saving scramble and an assist from defender Gianluca Zambrotta, Italy held off the World Cup newcomer 3-0 on Friday, setting up a Tuesday match against host Germany. One minute after Zambrotta kicked a ball off his own goalline to quash Ukraine's last hope of an upset, Toni scored his first World Cup goal just ahead of the hour mark with a header and added a second when he slid in Zambrotta's goalmouth pass in the 69th minute. Zambrotta flew home early in the week to visit former Juventus teammate Gianluca Pessotto, who is fighting for his life after falling from a window at the Italian club team's headquarters in Turin. The defender poured his emotions into a 6th minute run on th e right, setting up a one-two with playmaker Francesco Totti and finishing it off with a searing 20-yard left foot drive that was too hot for goalkeeper Oleksandr Shovkosvskyi to stop. Right after the match, Italy's players unfurled an Italian tricolor with the inscription \"Pessotto we are with you.\" Only Zambrotta's second goal in 56 games for Italy, it put the Azzurri in the situation they have perfected over decades of World Cup success: defending a slender lead. After a few narrow escapes, Toni made sure Italy did not have to worry until the final whistle. And if they have a reputation for unattractive play to achieve that goal, it was never on show Friday. Led by Totti, the Azzurri sparkled with little backheels and clean, crisp passing combinations that Ukraine could never match. After seven seasons in Italy's Serie A, Ukraine's lone star Andriy Shevchenko no longer held any secrets for Italy's expert defense and could not give his president Victor Yushchenko any reason to cheer in the stands. Afterward, the Chelsea-bound player went up to the Italian fans, applauded them and bowed in respect. In the end, Ukraine - the surprise team to make the quarterfinals in its maiden World Cup run - was finally exposed as a team which had too little to offer beyond a robust defense. \"I am disappointed that we are out but this World Cup has been a great achievement for us,\" said Ukraine coach Oleh Blokhin. And even when the Italian defense made a rare fumble, there was goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon slapping a header from Andriy Gusin onto the post in the 49th minute. World Cups are not only won on talent and Italy was lucky when a header from Andriy Gusin crashed onto the bar in the 62nd. Qualification for the semifinal offered a welcome reprieve for Italy, which has been embroiled in a sensational match-fixing scandal at home. Pessotto - appointed Juventus team manager after much of its front office resigned - was in a drug-induced coma Friday when Zambrotta scored. In the stands was a banner which read \"Italy Again 1982.\" That year was also marked by a match-fixing scandal but Italy nevertheless went on to win its third World Cup. Totti regained his place on Italy's starting lineup for the quarterfinal against Ukraine, which fielded Artem Milevskiy in place of injured striker Andriy Voronin. Italy went with a likely 4-4-1-1 lineup, with Totti behind lone striker Luca Toni and Alberto Gilardino on the bench. Andrea Barzagli started his first World Cup game in defense, filling in for injured Alessandro Nesta and suspended Marco Materazzi. Totti came on as a substitute late in the second-round game against Australia and scored the only goal in the final minute of the match. Coach Marcello Lippi had sidelined him because he looked fatigued in the last first-round match against the Czech Republic. On Friday, he provided two assists. (Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)", "On Friday, FIFA announced the World Cup final draw for next year's event in Russia. So now that the match-ups have been set, who has an easy path to the final, who's in the Group of Death, and who should Americans root for since the U.S. will not be in it?", "England and Argentina may be two soccer-obsessed nations with world-class talent and tradition, but for fans of the two men's national teams, the past decades have been defined most by heartbreak. Neither has won a major tournament in decades, a fact that could change this weekend when both the Argentinian and English squads compete in international title games — the Copa America and Euro 2020, respectively. SATURDAY Copa America final: Argentina vs. Brazil The South American championship, which kicks off at 8 p.m. ET in Rio de Janeiro, features two bitter rivals with decades of history and two of the most talented players of their generation: Argentina's Lionel Messi and Brazil's Neymar. In an interview with NPR's All Things Considered, Brazilian sports commentator Mauricio Noriega noted the two are friends — they played together on FC Barcelona — but the Brazil-Argentina rivalry is \"a little spicy.\" \"The Brazilians and the Argentinians, they are neighbors, and they do OK all the time,\" Noriega said. \"But when you talk about soccer, it's something like the third war.\" A win for Argentina would not only provide Messi his first international title, but it would also end a 28-year championship drought for La Albiceleste, as the team is known. During that period, Argentina has played — and lost — in four Copa America title matches and the 2014 FIFA World Cup final. Brazil, meanwhile, returns to defend its title after winning the last South American championship, in 2019, over Peru. Don't go breaking my heart: Three of Argentina's four Copa America title match losses came in penalty kicks, and their 2014 World Cup loss to Germany went to extra time. Fans of La Albiceleste may be praying for a victory in 90 minutes. SUNDAY Euro 2020 final: England vs. Italy Fans of the English men's national team have waited 55 years to return to an international title match, and Sunday's final — which kicks off at 3 p.m. ET — grants a chance to make good on the phrase English fans have been singing since 1996: \"Football's Coming Home.\" For Italy, a win would deliver redemption after failing to qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. As for the English, five-plus decades of international agony could come to a close in front of a home crowd at London's Wembley Stadium. Don't go breaking my heart: Soccer analyst Grant Wahl told NPR's Morning Edition that the English have \"a history of failure\" in the biggest moments, the latest heartbreak coming in a 2018 World Cup semifinal loss to Croatia. But there's reason for optimism: \"They have a lot of talent,\" Wahl said. \"In recent years, England has won the Under-17 World Cup, the Under-20 World Cup on the boys' side. This talent has really shown well in the last few years at the senior level.\" Will the English finally make mince of the refrain — a la Ted Lasso cribbing from John Cleese — \"It's the hope that kills you\"?", "BERLIN (AP) -- More red cards have been shown at this World Cup than at any other, with 12 games remaining. Sunday's match between Portugal and the Netherlands, in which 16 yellow cards and four reds were shown, brought the total of red cards in Germany 2006 to 23 in 52 matches. The four red cards were the most in any single World Cup match. The previous record was 22 red cards in all 64 matches in the 1998 World Cup in France. A total of 291 yellow cards have been shown in Germany, more than the previous record of 272 for the entire competition in Japan and South Korea four years ago. Portugal and the Netherlands are the worst sinners when it comes to yellow cards after Sunday's game in Nuremberg, in which the Netherlands was knocked out. Portugal has 18 yellow cards and two red cards in four matches, while the Dutch have collected 16 yellows and two reds. The Portuguese will be without Deco and Costinha, both starters, for their quarterfinal Saturday against England. In the opening round, the United States fell victim to ejections, with Eddie Pope and Pablo Mastroeni missing the final game with Ghana after being red-carded against Italy. Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.", "It’s early Monday in Joburg on a bitterly wintry morning-after and it is back to reality in South Africa: Kids head back to school and workers to work, after a month off for some, as the visitors fly home to different corners of the globe.  The competing soccer teams, and even the naysayers, are long gone. It's all over. South Africa is still backslapping itself for having put on a tremendous performance hosting the 2010 World Cup, despite rough play during the final between the victorious Spanish and the Dutch spoilers (my opinion). But back to my point: In the past few days there’s been much negative psychological talk here about post-tournament blues, depression and a long World Cup hangover in South Africa. Analysts and specialists have been consulted and confirm this is inevitable and that the World Cup high remains for only so long, before the low sets in. Take heart South Africa! After The Jump: A New Flower Is Found And all you Cleaters out there (or Studs as the translation would be in British English!) please send some positive soccer vibes winging over this way to cheer up the welcoming hosts of Africa’s first World Cup and to keep South Africa on Soccer Cloud 9 for a while. With talk of the spirit of ubuntu, togetherness and cooperation -- that has reigned through the month-long duration of the global championship -- making way for uglier intentions by the disgruntled, it’s essential for South Africa to focus on that World Cup buzz word “legacy”. Focus on the gains Mzansi! There surely are and will be many for South Africa. Visitors are leaving your country with a good, good feeling and will spread the word. Sure, attention will be back on pressing national priorities in an instant, and it’s up to the government and the politicians to deliver on its pledges. Meanwhile we salute you, South Africa, for giving us a good time and a good show for 31-plus days and we thank you. Re a leboga, Siyabonga, Enkosi, Baie Dankie. And good luck for that 2020  Olympics' bid; it's bound to come.  And you will have many global supporters! P.S.  A new flower has been discovered and named here in South Africa.  It's called -- yes you've guessed -- the (Moraea) vuvuzela!  It's a species of the \"iris\" family and was discovered near Cape Town.  The South African National Biodiversity Institute's website declares that its flared yellow flowers and their \"massed, synchronous appearance\" have appropriate associations with that ubiquitous and colourful SA soccer horn.", "Now available for those who can’t get enough of the U.S. vs England game, the ultimate highlight reel—an animated recreation of the game using Lego. The video posted by the British newspaper The Guardian is hilarious.  Robert Green’s goalkeeping goof is as excruciating in Lego as in life. The Guardian provides a link to a German website, which is a veritable treasure trove of animated Lego soccer matches. There is a re-creation of the 1966 World Cup final between England and West Germany, shot appropriately in black and white; while Lego highlights of the opening World Cup 2010 match between South Africa and Mexico, beautifully capture South Africa’s distinctive post-goal celebration in all its glory. True insomniacs may also enjoy the large collection of German Bundesliga matches, mostly featuring the team Hannover 96.", "On Tuesday, the U.S. Men's Soccer Team failed to qualify for the World Cup for the first time since 1986. The stunning result brings to an end two disappointing years of qualifying matches for the United States, and reactions to those results could significantly change soccer in America. World Cup qualifying is split into regions; the U.S. plays in CONCACAF, the soccer body covering North and Central America. Its qualifying tournament often is described as \"forgiving,\" as it stacks the odds heavily in favor of stronger teams, including the U.S. and Mexico. Even after one of the worst qualifying cycles in recent history, ESPN measured the U.S. odds to qualify for next year's World Cup in Russia at 97 percent before Tuesday night. But a 2-1 loss to Trinidad and Tobago, combined with upset wins by Honduras and Panama, meant the only scenario that could outright eliminate the U.S. became a reality. Now, the country's soccer program must figure out how to rebuild and qualify for the World Cup in Qatar — five long years away. The impact of failing to qualify Financially, U.S. Soccer will miss out on at least $10 million in prize money awarded to each country at the World Cup. They're also likely to lose tens of millions of dollars in potential sponsorship deals, merchandise sales and television licenses. U.S. Soccer brought in about $100 million total in 2014, the year of the most recent World Cup. That would put a significant dent in the organization's revenue, and potentially set back the country's next generation of soccer talent. The United States team wandered aimlessly for 40 years between the World Cups of 1950 and 1990, and have been trying to catch up to the top European and South American countries ever since. A key part of that effort is the fledgling U.S. development academy system. About a quarter of U.S. National Team expenses are spent on the country's youth national teams and player development — around $22 million in 2016. A budget crunch could limit the growth of that program. The failure to qualify for the World Cup also could influence perception of U.S. Soccer around the globe. The United States team may find it more difficult to schedule exhibition matches, and larger international clubs — where U.S. players already are few and far between — may be less willing to sign Americans. Meanwhile, dual-citizen players, who must choose one country to represent, may be less likely to follow the lead of phenom Christian Pulisic — who also has Croatian citizenship — and pick the United States. And younger American athletes may not be inspired to take up soccer in the first place if their country isn't represented at the world's biggest tournament. U.S. Soccer will also miss its best opportunity to showcase the sport for potential new fans, which could hinder its growth moving forward. In 2014, about 20 million more Americans watched World Cup games featuring the United States than similar games without them. Next year, none of the games will feature the U.S. — and unlike the games from the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, the 2018 matches won't be broadcast in prime time. In addition, the 2014 World Cup Final between Germany and Argentina reached a record number of Americans. Without the boost of the U.S. in the tournament, the 2018 Final may be unable to replicate those ratings. That's all bad news for Fox Sports, which outbid ESPN for the broadcasting rights and will pay $425 million to air next two World Cups. The network already had scheduled more than 350 hours of World Cup-related programming. However, missing the men's World Cup isn't the end of soccer in the United States. The women's national team is still ranked first in the world, and their World Cup win in 2015 set ratings records in the U.S. The next Women's World Cup will be played in France in 2019, and qualification matches for that tournament begin next year. Tim Webber is an intern on NPR's National Desk.", "Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos is giving government workers the afternoon off on Friday, so they can watch their national team in the quarter finals of the World Cup. The BBC reports: \"The progress of Colombia to the quarter-finals has sent the country into a state of national euphoria. \"But after a spike in domestic violence after Colombia's first win, the sale of alcohol will be banned on match day. \"The president decreed that Friday afternoon would be a \"civic day\" so that government workers could finish work at 13:00 and watch the match, due to kick off at 15:00 local time.\" Noticias Caracol, from Colombia, reports the president also announced he would fly to Brazil to support the national selection. Colombia is undefeated in the tournament. The next match will be one many will be watching because it will face the host country, Brazil, at 4 p.m. ET. And, by the way, maybe Santos figured he might as well give federal workers a day off, because no one was going to be working anyway. The Huffington Post, for example, featured a study that found the 2010 World Cup affected the world's productivity. \"The U.K. lost $7.3 billion in decreased economic output and U.S. companies lost 10 minutes of productivity per day,\" the Huffington Post reported.", "In the span of more than half a dozen World Cups, I've taken great pleasure in hearing soccer fans intone chants, which become battle hymns and which the fans relish as much as their national anthem. But in South Africa, above the din of the vuvuzelas, I have heard little of the songs, which were a soundtrack of World Cups before. As an anthropological exercise, I have recorded a few of the chants I've been hearing for years and which have fascinated me as fans pour as much emotion into the songs. After the jump: Netherlands' and Uruguay's stadium chants I believe that as the United States matures as a soccer nation, it will move away from the insipid \"USA, USA\" chant into more intricate musical territory.  It may take a Madison Avenue-style campaign to develop something worth repeating. But impromptu stadium ditties are sometimes the inspiration of a single person, and then popularized into wider use. Many fan bases -- such as the Dutch -- have adopted versions with the melody of Verdi's Triumphal March of Aida as a soundtrack for their soccer travels. But often, there are particular versions particular to a country. These chants document ancient rivalries or help to whip a stadium crowd into a frothing fever pitch. The English and Germans, rivals in several wars, curiously share a similar stadium refrain: \"England, England\" or \"Deutschland, Deutschland.\" However, although on the soccer field the Germans have been more successful of the two, the English also churn out a ditty which tallies their victories head-to-head against the Teutons: \"two world wars and one world cup.\" The birth of Algeria's soccer hymn, a trilingual chant of \"one-two-three....viva l'Algiré\" commemorates a 3-2 victory of Algeria over their colonial masters France in the soccer final of the Mediterranean Games of 1975. As the goals added up, the fans in Alger taunted the French. At the time, Algerian president Houari Boumedienne stated that he would cut the TV signal and \"La Marsellaise\" if France had won the Gold Medal match. If Brazilians had won against Holland, they'd be chanting in Portuguese, \"Sou brasileiro, com muito orgulho, com muito amor....\" (I'm Brazilian, with a lot of pride and a lot of love.) The five-time champions also have another tune which they update as they add World Cup trophies and requires knowledge of Greek: \"Tricampeão,Tetracampeão, Pentacampeão\" One of the richest in stadium composers are the Argentines, and many of their club songs have been adopted by other Latin American clubs and countries. But their national team always travels accompanied by \"Vamos, vamos, Argentina. Vamos, vamos a ganar. Esta barra quilombera, no te deja, no te deja de alentar.\"  (Let's go Argentina, let's go to win. These rowdy fans, never stop, never stop pushing you on.) But as you hear this tune with shirtless albiceleste fans singing, it also places stadium culture in the popular arena, because in Argentine slang, \"quilombo\" is a brothel. Argentines also produced a sobriquet I heard after Claudio Caniggia scored against Brazil in Italia '90 from a Maradona pass, eliminating Brazil from that World Cup. It's racist and obscene, but the rough translation is \"[Brazilians] are all black, they're all [sexual deviants], everybody knows Brazil is in mourning.\" (\"Son todos negros, son todos p?!X!, todo el mundo sabe que Brasil está de luto\") To the tune of \"Guantanamera\" a traditional Cuban song , one often hears Italians sing \"Un capitano, c'e solo un capitano\" (there's only one captain), with the second mention of the refrain using the captain's name \"Un Cannavaro, c'e solo un Cannavaro\" for example). Another I have heard often in Italian stadia is a \"us-versus-them\" differentiator: \"Chi non salta e argentino/brasiliano\" (he who doesn't jump is Argentine/Brazilian/the enemy) as they hop in the stands. And sometimes, a song invented in the aftermath of a match sticks and spreads. This one, invented by these Australians in South Africa 2010, will be great ammunition for any future England-USA clash. Referring to the dreadful mistake of England keeper Robert Green, may be a taunt from Americans any time sung to the music of \"God Save the Queen.\" And it might have the reverb of \"Pilsung Korea\" from the 2002 World Cup bored into my consciousness with staying power of a pop song. Here are a few songs: SPAIN - For a country whose national anthem has no lyrics but has a rich soccer culture, \"Que viva España.\" PARAGUAY - \"Albirro, albirro\" (\"red-and-white, red-and-white\") is a repeating of the nickname of the red-and-white uniform of the Guaraní squad in Spanish. HOLLAND - \"Hup, Holland, Hup.\" (Go Holland, go.) URUGUAY - Has a symmetrical chant which refers to the dominant sky blue of their flag and uniform:\"Soy celeste, soy celeste. Celeste soy yo\"  (I am sky blue...sky blue I am.) FRANCE - \"Allez les Bleus.\" (Go blues, refers to the uniform color of the French national team.) CHILE: \"Vamos. Vamos Chilenos, esta noche, tenemos que ganar.\" (L", "We're already over a week into the Women's World Cup, and Germany and Berlin have been gripped by that well-known malady: World Cup fever. Well, kind of. A recent representative study carried out by World Cup sponsor Allianz found that the Women's World Cup left a third of Germans cold. Some 34 percent believe the tournament doesn't do anything to raise the atmosphere in the country. However, 51 percent believe that Germany could win the title, which would make it a hat-trick for coach Silvia Neid's side. The German national side is one of the most successful teams in women's football. The two-time reigning World Cup champions (2003, 2007) haven't lost a World Cup match since their 3-2 defeat to the USA in the 1999 quarter final in Maryland. (The USA took the title that year.) Ranked number two behind the USA in the FIFA Women's World Rankings, the squad has clinched seven out of 10 UEFA European Championships. Despite the German team's success, the women's competition enjoys little of the fanfare and fervent support reserved for the men's game. German flags clipped to the sides of cars and hanging from apartment windows are sporadic. No make-shift viewing areas have sprouted up outside stores and cafes. Even on match days, few people in Berlin are seen draped in their country colors, sporting face paints or shouting \"Steh auf wenn du für Deutschland bist\" to the tune of the Petshop Boy's \"Go West.\" And while other host cities have erected the public viewing fan miles so ubiquitous during the 2006 men's World Cup, Berlin opted not to. Yet the popularity of the women's game is growing. Bars in general may not be packed for matches, but Berlin's official public viewing venues, such as Lido in Kreuzberg, have been jammed for most games so far. German public broadcaster ARD announced record viewing figures for this year's tournament. A record 16.39 million (a market share of 51.7 percent) watched the German team notch up three points after narrowly beating Nigeria in a nail biting group stage match. Almost the same figure watched the German side graduate to the quarter final following a game against France. Some 100,000 fans turned up at Frankfurt's fan mile (Germany's longest) for the 30-minute opening ceremony. In comparison, just 9.05 million viewers tuned into watch Germany take the 2007 World Cup title. However, a 20,000 strong crowd did greet the victorious team on their return to Frankfurt. Match tickets are also difficult to come by. More than 700,000 tickets have been sold so far, and the opening game in Berlin's Olympic Stadium was completely sold out. Raw figures aside, there is evidence of a stark change in German's attitudes towards women's football. One of the most illustrative examples of this is the fact that the women's team is now paid in cash rather than fine china for their title wins. Following their 1989 European Cup win, the German Football Association (DFB) awarded each female player with a forty-piece tea set for their efforts. Current coach Neid said of the prize at the time, \"I think its good. Any money would've been long gone.\" For 2007's World Cup win, each player received €50,000. Also, a survey carried out by the sports marketing agency Schmidt and Kaiser in 2008 showed 64 percent of German men and 62 percent of German women were interested in women's football. This interest still tends to be reserved for international games (most league games see crowds of closer to 400, with just eight games so far reaching crowd numbers of more than 4,000). But the profile of the women's international side is on the rise. In 2003 and 2009, the women's side was named sports team of the year. Star-player and top goal-scorer Birgit Prinz has become a household name, featured in TV advertisements with former German men's team captain and Chelsea midfielder Micheal Ballack. Women's football has traditionally been frowned upon in Germany (and many countries) as an unladylike activity. When women's football was banned in clubs in West Germany in 1955, the German Football Association declared that the combative nature of the game was alien to a woman's nature. It would be indecent to see women fight it out on the pitch, claimed the DFB. Matches were played unofficially until the association lifted the ban in 1970. Even then, women were not allowed to don football boots with studs, and matches lasted just 80 minutes. The DFB essentially ignored the women's league until 1982 when Germany was invited to send a team to the unofficial women's football world championship. At the time, West Germany had no national women's team and sent German club victors, Bergisch Gladbach 09, to the competition, which the side won. The DFB formed a national side that same year. In 1991, a united East and West German women's side reached the semi-final of the first World Cup, which was hosted by China. The team didn't conceded a goal until losing to the USA, who went on to win the competition. Just 12 teams played in the fir" ]

[ "24" ]

[ "a dog and pony show" ]

[ "The most common antipyretics in the United States are ibuprofen and aspirin, which are nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) used primarily as analgesics (pain relievers), but which also have antipyretic properties; and paracetamol (acetaminophen), an analgesic with weak anti-inflammatory properties." ]

[ "The birth control pills that reduced acne had ethinyl estradiol in them, combined with one of the following drugs: levonorgestrel, norethindrone, norgestimate, drospirenone, cyproterone acetate, chlormadinone acetate, dienogest or desogestrel.", "One of the main benefits of following a low-carb diet is weight loss. For people with type 2 diabetes, this helps to reduce HbA1c and blood fats such as cholesterol. For people who don't have diabetes, losing weight can reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes, and a low-carb diet is one option to lose weight.", "One doc called Aubagio a “mild chemotherapy” type drug and a “cousin” to the drug Leflunomide which is used for rheumatoid arthritis (another condition in which the body's immune system attacks healthy tissue, like MS).", "Which one of the following types of microscope gives the highest amount of magnification? Light microscope. Electron microscope.", "Fybogel is one of a group of drugs called bulk forming laxatives. It is a source of natural fibre which helps to regulate bowel function. These drugs are designed to attract water into your stools, making them softer and easier to pass, thus reducing constipation.", "quellin is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) that is used to reduce pain and inflammation (soreness) due to osteoarthritis and pain following surgery in dogs. quellin is a prescription drug for dogs. It is available as a soft chewable tablet and is given to dogs by mouth.", "Cuprofen is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAIDS). Cuprofen is a range of ibuprofen based painkillers used for the relief of pain and inflammation of rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis, treatment of menstrual pain, and relief of mild to moderate pain, migraine and to reduce fever.", "Vetprofen is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) that is used to reduce pain and inflammation (soreness) due to osteoarthritis and pain following surgery in dogs. Vetprofen is a prescription drug for dogs. It is available as a caplet and is given to dogs by mouth.", "Which one of the following functions is used to determine object type? Explanation: The is_a() function returns true if object belongs to a class type or if it belongs to a class that is a child of that class.", "The duration of action of a drug is known as its half life. This is the period of time required for the concentration or amount of drug in the body to be reduced by one-half. We usually consider the half life of a drug in relation to the amount of the drug in plasma.", "Which one of the following drugs can result in oral candidiasis? Fluticasone is a corticosteroid that is inhaled by clients with asthma and respiratory problems. Corticosteroids are known to result in oral candidiasis.", "The normal count of platelets is 1.5 lakh to 4.5 lakh per microlitre of blood. In viral fever, it reduces up to 90,000 to one lakh.", "The placebo effect occurs when someone feels they are better when they have been given a dummy form of the drug, not the drug itself. To reduce the placebo effect in drug testing: in blind trials only, the doctor knows which patients have been given the drug and which have been given the placebo.", "Statin use is linked to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes among high-risk individuals, a new study reports. Statins are cholesterol-lowering drugs prescribed to reduce cardiovascular risks, but a variety of studies have shown the drugs have an association with type 2 diabetes development.", "Januvia (sitagliptin) is an oral drug that reduces blood sugar (glucose) levels in patients with type 2 diabetes. Januvia is a DPP-4 inhibitor. Other drugs in this class include saxagliptin (Onglyza) and linagliptin (Tradjenta).", "Guduchi is a Sanskrit word which means, 'that which protects body from diseases'. ... It is a potential ayurvedic drug, used extensively in treatment of fever, diabetes, urinary tract disorders, anaemia, jaundice, asthma, cardiac disorders etc.", "What Types Of IV Drug-Related Illness Or Disease Cause Sepsis? Intravenous drug abuse causes a range of infections, many of which can become deadly. One of the biggest reasons why these infections endanger a person's life is because they cause sepsis.", "Sublocade contains buprenorphine, which is a type of drug called an opioid partial agonist. It prevents cravings and withdrawal symptoms that you get when you stop taking other opioids. Vivitrol contains naltrexone, which is a type of drug called an opioid antagonist.", "What is fever grass? Fever grass is the Jamaican name for the herb that is known in other parts of the world as lemon grass. The herb is called fever grass in Jamaica due to the fact that it is used on the island to reduce fevers.", "The first pass effect is a phenomenon in which a drug gets metabolized at a specific location in the body that results in a reduced concentration of the active drug upon reaching its site of action or the systemic circulation.", "What is Actos (pioglitazone)? Pioglitazone is an oral drug that reduces the amount of glucose (sugar) in the blood. It is in a class of anti-diabetic drugs called thiazolidinediones that are used in the treatment of type 2 diabetes. The other member in this class is rosiglitazone (Avandia).", "Cold symptoms usually begin with a sore throat, which usually goes away after a day or two. Nasal symptoms, runny nose, and congestion follow, along with a cough by the fourth and fifth days. Fever is uncommon in adults, but a slight fever is possible. Children are more likely to have a fever with a cold.", "9. Which one of the following drugs causes vasodilation that can be blocked by atropine? Bethanechol causes vasodilation by activating muscarinic receptors on the endothelium of blood vessels. This effect can be blocked by atropine.", "Stinging nettle has been used for centuries in humans to treat hay fever and allergies, and to reduce inflammation, so it's no surprise that it is one of the herbs that is good for dogs.", "Novox is the Vedco brand name for generic Carprofen and a generic equivalent to Rimadyl. It is a Non-Steroid Anti-Inflammatory Drug (NSAID) used to treat pain and inflammation in your dog; helping to relieve arthritis pain, joint pain, post-operative pain, and reduces fever in dogs. .", "Amitriptyline is a type of drug called a tricyclic antidepressant. These drugs were originally developed to treat anxiety and depression, but when taken at a low dose they can reduce or stop pain. Amitriptyline works by increasing the amount of serotonin your brain makes.", "Use of these drugs often makes the body reduce its output of natural male sex hormones, which can cause shrunken testicles, reduced sex drive, infertility, and breast enlargement in men.", "Bali has the type of mosquito that does spread Zika, but it has for decades. Webb said there was only one type of mosquito capable of spreading Zika virus -- the yellow fever mosquito -- which was prolific in Bali. \"Not only is Zika present in Indonesia and Bali, but also dengue,\" Webb said.", "Some bacterial cells are resistant to a variety of antimicrobials because they actively pump the drugs out of the cell. ... Resistant cells grow more efficiently and quickly than susceptible cells. β-lactamase production is an example of which of the following types of resistance?", "Type II: Drug Substance, Drug Substance Intermediate, and Material Used in Their Preparation, or Drug Product. A Type II DMF should, in general, be limited to a single drug intermediate, drug substance, drug product, or type of material used in their preparation.", "Improved Healing Following Musculoskeletal Injury One side effect of this drug is relaxation of the skeletal muscle, which will lead to sedation and less general motor activity. This can help someone who is recovering from a musculoskeletal injury.", "Calcium-channel blockers reduce the slope of phase 4, thereby decreasing the rate of spontaneous depolarization, which reduces the rate of pacemaker firing. These drugs also decrease the slope of phase 0, which slows conduction velocity within the AV node." ]

[ "Here is the latest in creative financing from Goldman Sachs: the prices it charges its own employees to use the gym at its West Street headquarters. It's asking its highest-ranking employees to pay $81 more a month than its lowest-ranking staff, Reuters' Felix Salmon reports. While the bank can argue that it is just charging based on what the market will bear, others are already launching conspiracies. \"Is it a Pigovian tax aimed at minimizing the number of healthy employees?\" Salmon asks. \"Is it an attempt to stop the unfit from complaining about having to cross-subsidize those who work out?\" Planet Money lobbed in a phone call to Goldman-- which hasn't yet responded to our request for enlightenment on its thinking. UPDATE: A Goldman spokeswoman declined to comment. Read More: Price Discrimination And The Cutting Edge of Finance As any student of Economics 101 could tell you, this is price discrimination at work-- charging different amounts to various groups based on their willingness to pay. Airlines do it every day. But looked at another way, it appears to be just the kind of sock-it-to-the rich tax those in Goldman's managing-director bracket are hoping to avoid as Congress debates repealing Bush-era tax cuts. For the gym's managers, that group is the perfect clientele to court. After all, they pay almost $1000 more a year than the more lowly employees, and presumably are too busy to spend much time sullying towels at the gym. You can see pictures and read an entertaining analysis of the Goldman health club here, thanks to bloggers at Social Workout. Despite the downturn, about 30%-40% of large companies provide some kind of employee health club benefit, estimates Cindy Matalamaki, a spokeswoman at human-resources company Ceridian. And with its salary-based pricing for gym membership, once again Goldman proves it is on the cutting edge of finance. \"I wouldn’t say that it’s commonplace,\" Matalamaki says, \"But I think it has started to become more of a trend.\"" ]

[ "In the last ten years, the UK has experienced its weakest economic growth since the 1940's and worst stock market returns since the 1930's. The Financial Times reports that GDP rose on average just 1.7 percent annually while manufacturing output contracted by 1.2 percent annually. While recovery is expected, officials in the UK are warning of lagging unemployment, a problem we're also facing here in the United States. Initial public offerings are rebounding, bringing in big fees for companies like Goldman Sachs. Thirty-two companies have held offerings since the start of September, after slowing to just two offerings a month during the first part of the year. Bloomberg reports that out of those offerings, Goldman Sachs led the way in fees, making $191.6 million by helping take companies public. IPOS are big business for Wall Street banks, since fees for this service are generally much higher than other types of deals. So far this year, banks have increased their fees for helping with IPOs by 62 percent. Read More >> The latest Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index shows home prices rose in October for the fifth month in a row. The overall index increased 0.4 percent, but 11 metro areas saw declines. Among those areas, Las Vegas is hurting the most. Home prices there have now fallen for 38 consecutive months. Meantime, Bank of America's new CEO says he'll pull back on the credit card business when he takes over next month. Bank of America is the nation's second-largest card issuer, but the Wall Street Journal reports that its cards have lost $4.5 billion during the first nine months of 2009, \"making it the worst performing Bank of America business line.\" The company is already planning changes to the way it issues cards. Starting in January, the bank says it will focus on how many different products they can sell to existing customers rather than how many credit cards. The bank will also ask customers interested in a new card to speak with a \"personal banker\" rather than just a teller.", "The economy is tanking across the country, with layoffs and bankruptcies as far as the eye can see. But the richest sliver of the country continues to do quite well, thank you. The latest evidence came Wednesday morning as Goldman Sachs, the bluest of blue-chip banks, said it's raking in money on Wall Street. While other banks are warning about rising loan losses during the recession, Goldman, which tends to serve a higher-end clientele, is sounding a pretty optimistic note. In fact, Goldman said it did better than expected, bringing in revenue of $13.3 billion, up 41% from a year ago — and its second-highest quarterly revenues ever. It benefited from a record surge in trading of stocks and bonds as well as profits from investment banking fees. \"While the economic outlook remains uncertain, I am confident that we will continue to be the firm of choice for clients around the world who are looking to reshape their businesses and rebuild a more resilient economy,\" CEO David Solomon said in a release. Goldman's profit surge underscores a central fact about the bifurcated U.S. economy right now: While much of the economy faces an uncertain future, Wall Street is enjoying a historic revival as the Federal Reserve and other central banks flooded the global economy with money. \"The Fed has been able to engineer a huge bounce back in the markets by injecting trillions of dollars, benefiting investment banks primarily,\" Octavio Marenzi, CEO of capital markets consultancy Opimas, told CNBC. JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup have also benefited from higher trading profits, though not as much: Both said Monday they would set aside billions of dollars because they expect more consumers and businesses to have trouble paying off their loans. Goldman, which gets more of its revenue from Wall Street than any of the six major banks, was able to profit nicely from the rebound: It brought in $2.94 billion from stock trading during the second quarter of 2020, its best performance in more than a decade. It also made a record $2.66 billion in investment banking fees, helping companies raise money during the pandemic.", "The powerful Wall Street bank may be facing government fraud charges, but Goldman Sachs reaffirmed itself as one of the most profitable banks in the country Tuesday, announcing quarterly profits of more than $3 billion. It's good news for the bank, which suffered a hit to its reputation — and its stock price — when the government last week announced it was charging Goldman Sachs with fraud in relation to its brokering of mortgage-related securities.", "Along with the news that it's the subject of a criminal investigation, investment banking giant Goldman Sachs now has this to look forward to: Legendary investor Warren Buffett is expected to \"fire at will\" this weekend when he talks to shareholder of his Berkshire Hathaway about the way Goldman Sachs has done business in recent years, according to The Wall Street Journal. Buffett helped Goldman Sachs out with a $5 billion investment during the most recent financial crisis. And when he speaks, many people listen. So what he says about Goldman Sachs will get plenty of attention. As for the criminal investigation, NPR's Carrie Johnson reports that: Read More >> \"The U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan is conducting a criminal investigation of Goldman Sachs, stemming from a criminal referral by the Securities and Exchange Commission, a federal source said. \"The source said the criminal inquiry by prosecutors in New York into misconduct allegations against Goldman had been under way for some time, and did not begin when the SEC announced earlier this month it was looking into allegations that the storied Wall Street bank sought to profit from the collapse of the housing market. The SEC accused Goldman of selling mortgage-related securities to investors while at the same time betting the securities would fail. \"A criminal case against Goldman would face a much higher bar. There is also no guarantee that a criminal investigation would result in additional charges being brought against Goldman.\" On All Things Considered yesterday, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein said that the thrashing he and other of the company's executives got this week at a Congressional hearing was a humbling experience. He also conceded that \"some of the things Goldman Sachs (and other Wall Street firms) did contributed to the (financial) crisis\":", "A report by Goldman Sachs says Wall Street's top-tier investment banks will report bigger-than-expected write-downs on their subprime mortgage investments. Three banks will account for losses totaling more than $33 billion. Citigroup alone will acknowledge nearly $19 billion.", "UPDATE at 10:10 a.m. EST: U.S. stocks open up a day after their second-worst showing of the year, apparently shrugging off the concerns over banks. Here's our original post: NPR's Chris Arnold reports this morning on the fallout from Moody's announcement yesterday that it was cutting its rating on 15 big banks in the U.S. and Europe. Speaking with Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep, Arnold called the downgrade \"a repositioning of credit worthiness of almost the entire banking industry.\" The credit rating agency Moody's is essentially saying there are three tiers of banks. The top tier, which includes JPMorgan Chase, HSBC and the Royal Bank of Canada, is in good shape. The second tier, including Barclays, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs has \"ongoing exposure to the troubles in Europe.\" The last group, which includes Bank of America, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, \"would be in for the bumpiest ride if things in Europe or some other big shock came along,\" Arnold says. Not surprisingly, the banks that were downgraded didn't much like the news from Moody's. The Telegraph has some official reaction here. According to The Wall Street Journal: \"Investors have been bracing for the downgrades since February, when the Moody's Corp. unit said it would review the ratings of more than 100 banks around the world. U.S. bank stocks rose in after-hours trading Thursday, after Moody's announced the downgrades. The gains followed a broad-based selloff that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average fall 250.82 points to 12573.57.\" It's worth remembering that Moody's and other credit-rating agencies such as Standard & Poor's, \"got a black eye for placing high ratings on mortgage bonds that later imploded,\" according to The New York Times. The downgrades will lead to higher borrowing for the affected banks, and that's not good news for consumers, the Times notes: \"As bank profits falter, consumers could also be affected. Companies often try to make up for lost revenue by passing costs on to customers. \"In the face of new regulations, banks have raised fees and other sources of income to bolster their business.\"", "Wall Street investment giant Goldman Sachs reported Tuesday that its first-quarter earnings almost doubled to $3.3 billion — as its trading business again surpassed the rest of the financial industry. On Friday, the SEC announced civil fraud charges against Goldman over how it packaged and sold one of its subprime mortgage investments.", "Pay czar Kenneth Feignberg announced limits on compensation for second-tier executives at four companies that received the biggest government bailouts. Meanwhile, Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs announced that its bonuses for 2009 would be paid in stock, not cash.", "In the news this morning, the Economy economy and the economy we live in: -- For the first time since November, the S&P 500 closed above 1,000 Monday, and the TED Spread keeps falling as investors and bankers are breathing a little easier these days. The U.S. Treasury says it will need to borrow $109 billion less than expected in the third quarter because banks have paid back more than $70 billion in TARP money (Wall Street Journal, subs. req'd.). The CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, reportedly told his folks to avoid flashing their bonus cash with big purchases around town. Also, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner apparently cursed out a bunch of financial types -- including FDIC chair Sheila Bair and SEC chair Mary Schapiro on Friday, telling them he'd had enough of their objections to the Obama administration's proposed overhaul of financial regulations (Wall Street Journal, subs. requ'd.). -- Meanwhile, people who've been laid off can spend years trying to regain their old salary levels. The price of gas is going up again, as the commodities market rises. Cash for Clunkers tiptoed forward in the Senate, with key critics saying the $2 billion extension should pass. And the new GI Bill sets aside $78 billion in benefits, including college tuition, for veterans.", "\"The government has accused Goldman Sachs & Co. of defrauding investors by failing to disclose conflicts of interest in mortgage investments it sold as the housing market was faltering,\" the Associated Press writes. It adds that: \"The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Friday civil fraud charges against the Wall Street powerhouse and one of its vice presidents. The agency alleges Goldman failed to disclose that one of its clients helped create -- and then bet against -- subprime mortgage securities that Goldman sold to investors. ... A Goldman Sachs spokesman didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.\" The Wall Street Journal writes that \"the Goldman complaint is part of the SEC's investigation into investment banks and others that securitize complex financial products tied to the U.S. housing market as it was beginning to show signs of distress, according to Kenneth Lench, Chief of the SEC's Structured and New Products Unit.\" Bloomberg News adds that: \"The product was new and complex but the deception and conflicts are old and simple,\" SEC Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami said in a statement. \"Goldman wrongly permitted a client that was betting against the mortgage market to heavily influence which mortgage securities to include in an investment portfolio, while telling other investors that the securities were selected by an independent, objective third party.\" The SEC has posted a statement about its action here. The commission's court complaint is online here. Update at 12:15 p.m. ET: On the last \"feed\" of Morning Edition just a short time ago, NPR's Yuki Noguchi told host Renee Montagne that the SEC is \"very eager to make sure that banks weren't double-dealing and weren't misrepresenting their investments to consumers\":", "Facing growing criticism over its likely massive bonus payouts as the U.S. economy remains in turmoil, Goldman Sachs said this week it would provide $500 million in loans and gifts to support small businesses. What the company didn't say is how good a deal it is getting on the investment. According to an analysis posted yesterday on SmartMoney.com, Goldman's ultimate price tag for the initiative could be roughly $136 million to $150 million--70% or more below the figure that helped generate so much publicity for the firm this week. A big chunk of the money is destined for charitable institutions, creating potentially sizable tax deductions for Goldman, while other portions are being made as loans that Goldman confirms it expects to be repaid with interest. Asked about the estimates, a Goldman spokesman didn't comment on the specific figures but defended the program as a boon to small businesses, while giving Goldman \"a modest economic return.\"", "TV personality Ben Stein knows how to pick a fight. In a weekend column in the New York Times, Stein declared the investment bank Goldman Sachs \"irresponsible\" for selling large quantities of mortgage-backed securities and then \"shorting,\" or betting against them, in the market. Stein — an unabashed conservative, capitalist and Goldman Sachs shareholder — went on to level some charges against Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who used to head the investment bank. He says Paulson shouldn't be presiding over efforts to address the subprime mess because he ran a firm that helped create it. Goldman Sachs calls the charges categorically untrue. MELISSA BLOCK, Host: In his long career in Washington and Hollywood, actor and author Ben Stein has made a lot of provocative comments. Few have generated the kind of reaction he got for a column in Sunday's New York Times. The column took aim at the Wall Street colossus Goldman Sachs. And it raised questions about the objectivity of one of Goldman's economists. NPR's Jim Zarroli reports. JIM ZARROLI: Ben Stein is an unabashed capitalist and a conservative, not to mention a Goldman Sachs shareholder. He's not the kind of guy you'd expect to be taking on the big investment bank. But he says that when he read a recent paper by Goldman economist Jan Hatzius, he simply couldn't hold his tongue. BLOCK: I think it's flawed. It's seriously flawed. ZARROLI: The paper in question warned that banks are losing so much money in subprime that they will have to drastically cut back on lending and how that could badly hurt the economy. In one section, Hatzius predicts that home prices could fall nationwide by 15 percent. Stein isn't sure things will get that bad, but his real beef is with Hatzius' objectivity. He knows that Goldman Sachs has been shorting a type of mortgage-backed securities, essentially betting that the mortgage business will worsen. That means the firm benefits when its economists circulate gloomy reports like this one. BLOCK: Dr. Hatzius is a fine fellow and - but any economist is presented with all kinds of data. He can make a choice about which data he uses and which conclusions he reaches. And I think economists like other people tend to favor the side that pays them. ZARROLI: Stein says the real question is whether any Wall Street economist can be truly objective since their employers always have multiple investments that can be hurt or helped by their public remarks. BLOCK: Wall Street is a selling mechanism. It's not a judging mechanism or a fairness mechanism. It's a selling mechanism. And what they do is sell and make money. They're not scholars, they're moneymakers. And, of course, that's what they want to be and that's what we stockholders of their firms want them to be. ZARROLI: For his part, Hatzius didn't want to comment for this story. But Goldman Sachs calls the charges categorically untrue and said its research is held to the highest standards of objectivity. It also notes that Hatzius has been talking about the housing bubble for years. In this 2005 interview with NPR, Hatzius warned that an economic downturn could lead to a spike in mortgage foreclosures. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED INTERVIEW) BLOCK: Now the risk resides, to some extent, with the homeowner, but it also resides, to some degree, with the people who make the loans or the people who end up purchasing the securitized loans in the public markets. ZARROLI: But Ben Stein says if that's true, it raises other questions. If Goldman's economists thought a housing bubble was building, what was the firm doing selling all those risky mortgage-backed securities? Stein's remarks have generated a lot of commentary on TV and the Internet. Charles Elson, who teaches corporate governance at the University of Delaware, takes issue with the idea that Wall Street economists like Hatzius have a built- in conflict of interest. P: I think the suggestion is, well, the economist, you know, wrote something because the firm asked this economist to write this. But if the economist didn't believe it and things turned out quite differently, then the economist's personal reputation disappears and his value to the firm as an economist disappears. ZARROLI: But Elson says that Wall Street firms do have at least the appearance of a conflict of interest. And he warns that can spell trouble for them as the subprime crisis drags on. Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.", "Goldman Sachs, one of the nation's most profitable banks, announced Tuesday that its second-quarter earnings are down more than 80 percent from last year at this time. CEO Lloyd Blankfein cited a \"difficult market environment.\" Profits also were hit by a $600 million British tax on executive bonuses, and the company had to pay more than a half-billion dollars to U.S. regulators to settle civil fraud charges relating to its marketing of mortgage securities.", "A new Goldman Sachs report says oil prices will soon spike to $150 a barrel. The company has successfully predicted past price increases. <em>Wall Street Journal's</em> Neil King discusses why this report is likely accurate.", "As usual, only a small sliver of Goldman's profits last year came from investment banking and managing clients' assets. The vast majority ($17.3 billion out of total profits of $19.8 billion) came from a category called \"trading and principal investments\" -- basically, Goldman's own investments and trades. In the company's annual report, published this morning, Goldman says this trading makes it easier for the firm's clients to buy and sell financial products. And, Goldman argues -- contrary to what you may have read in the papers -- the firm is not in the business of betting against its clients. Here's what the report says about Goldman's investments during the housing meltdown of 2007: Read More >> Although Goldman Sachs held various positions in residential mortgage-related products in 2007, our short positions were not a \"bet against our clients.\" Rather, they served to offset our long positions. Our goal was, and is, to be in a position to make markets for our clients while managing our risk within prescribed limits. And besides, Goldman says, its clients were savvy investors, not a bunch of chumps that the company could bend to its will: The investors who transacted with Goldman Sachs ... were primarily large, global financial institutions, insurance companies and hedge funds ... These investors had significant resources, relationships with multiple financial intermediaries and access to extensive information and research flow, performed their own analysis of the data, formed their own views about trends, and many actively negotiated at arm's length the structure and terms of transactions.", "A buying spree on Wall Street has come after very bad news from European banks: Two of the biggest announced multibillion-dollar losses from their mortgage investments Tuesday. The logic on Wall Street: There has been so much bad news from financial institutions that maybe the worst is over, so now is the time to buy. Investors were also impressed, apparently, by some banks' plans to raise new cash and shore up their finances. So investors poured into financial stocks, pushing the Dow, the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 up more than 3 percent. Investment bank JPMorgan's stock price jumped more than 9 percent. Citigroup's stock price was up more than 11 percent. STEVE INSKEEP, host: NPR's business news starts with a buying spree on Wall Street. And not just on Wall Street. Asian stocks are up, too, overnight. And yet all this was not sparked by good news. The hefty rise in all the main stock price averages came after very bad news from European banks. Two of the biggest announced multibillion dollar losses from their mortgage investments. Here's the logic on Wall Street. There's been so much bad news from financial institutions that maybe we know all the bad news now. Maybe. Maybe the worst is over. That's the logic, anyway. So now is the time to buy. Investors were also impressed, apparently, by some banks' plans to raise new cash and shore up their finances, so investors poured into stocks, pushing the Dow, the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 up more than 3 percent. Investment bank J.P. Morgan's stock price jumped more than 9 percent. And Citigroup's stock price was up more than 11 percent.", "Goldman Sachs is a bit player in the business of managing middle class workers' retirement savings. The bank is looking to change that, but the timing is a bit awkward. Read More >> Goldman is designing target-date funds that would provide guaranteed income in retirement. And it's promoting funds that invest in alternative asset classes such as commodities and real estate. Both moves are part of a push to get more companies to include Goldman funds among employees' 401(k) investment options, Bloomberg News reports. The $2.7 trillion 401(k) market is growing as companies continue to move away from traditional pension plans. Goldman currently manages less than $20 billion in 401(k) savings. Fidelity Investments, the biggest player, manages about $350 billion. Of course, this may not be the most opportune moment for Goldman to sell itself as the guardian of workers' nest eggs -- what with the SEC lawsuit, criminal probe and Senate hearing into allegations that the company misled investors. Goldman says it did nothing wrong. And it draws a bright line between its work as a market maker, where it allows clients to buy and sell whatever they want, and its asset management business, where it has a duty to manage investors' money in the most prudent manner possible. But the general public may be skeptical of that distinction. On the other hand, people may want to tap into Goldman's proven ability to make money. \"We understand risk and we understand asset allocation,\" a Goldman exec tells Bloomberg. \"We're looking to leverage that for the 401(k) market.\" Planet Money Question of the Day: Would you invest your retirement savings in a fund managed by Goldman Sachs?", "In one of the worst quarters since the beginning of the financial crisis, Goldman Sachs profits fell 82 percent. The powerful investment banking firm says its revenue is also down. In part, its profits declined because of a huge settlement it paid to the Securities and Exchange Commission, NPR's Yuki Noguchi explains. On top of that, it also paid $600 million in British taxes on executive bonuses. \"Despite those big-ticket expenses, Goldman Sachs profits topped analysts' estimates,\" Noguchi said, adding that \"the larger ongoing problem for the bank is that revenue is down more than expected, because of a decline in activity across all of its businesses.\" That is adding to some concern that the economy is slowing down once again. Read More According to Bloomberg's Christine Harper,\"Goldman Sachs, which posted the highest equities trading revenue on Wall Street last year, said the division's revenue slumped 62 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier to $1.21 billion.\" Still, the unit's revenue beat equities divisions at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. in the quarter. Last week, Goldman Sachs paid a record $550 million fine to settle a charge it had misled investors about a risky mortgage-related security. The company settled that fraud complaint without admitting or denying the claims. (You can read the company's second quarter 2010 results here.)", "Goldman Sachs today reported that its quarterly earnings were sharply up, beating Wall Street expectations. Here & Now&#8216;s Jeremy Hobson speaks with The Wall Street Journal&#8217;s Jason Bellini about what&#8217;s behind the bank&#8217;s strong earnings report, and also about a number of other stories in the business pages today &#8212; including the CEOs of Caterpillar and Visa both stepping down. Guest\nJason Bellini, video reporter and senior producer at the Wall Street Journal. He tweets @jasonbellini.", "Federal regulators charged the Wall Street megabank Goldman Sachs with civil fraud Friday. The Securities and Exchange Commission announced the charges in connection with subprime mortgage securities. Within minutes of the charges being announced, Goldman Sachs' shares fell more than 10 percent.", "The up and down markets from last year, took its toll even on Goldman Sachs, which is thought of as the rock star of investment banks. Goldman posted a billion dollar profit during the last quarter of 2011. And while that may seem like a lot, it's 58 percent down. The AP reports that the profit follows a third quarter in which Goldman lost money for only the third time since it went public in 1999. The AP adds: \"Goldman's typical clients are large hedge funds and multinational corporations that need to hedge their bets on foreign currencies, fluctuating interest rates and commodities. \"The bumpy financial markets hurt revenue in those parts of Goldman's business. Revenue from client services fell 16 percent to $3.06 billion for the quarter. Transactions in commodities, currency and fixed income fell 17 percent. \"Besides trading for those clients, Goldman has made big profits trading for itself — especially when markets are volatile. In 2009, as the country grappled with a financial crisis and a deep recession, Goldman turned a record $13.4 billion profit. But regulations taking effect this year will reduce Goldman's ability to make those trades for the firm.\" Bloomberg reports that at $1.84 a share, Goldman still beat investor's expectations. They were predicting a $1.23 profit. And market took the news in stride. Goldman's stock was up 6.8 percent.", "Wall Street titan Goldman Sachs reported close to $3.5 billion in first quarter earnings. The news comes days after the Securities and Exchange Commission announced fraud charges against the firm over Goldman’s role in selling a subprime-mortgage investment was allegedly created to lose value. Host Michel Martin talks more about the news and what’s next for Goldman Sachs with Jacob Goldstein (GOLD-steen), blogger and correspondent for NPR’s Planet Money team.", "Goldman Sachs is going on the offensive to defend itself against allegations that it was \"betting against\" its own clients during the financial crisis. In a letter to shareholders released Wednesday, Goldman executives offered a different way to look at it: The firm had simply hedged its real estate exposure, even as some clients chose to stick with more bullish bets on real estate.", "Just four days after being accused of civil fraud for allegedly misrepresenting some of its investment plans, Goldman Sachs is reporting that it earned more than $3 billion in the first quarter of the year. As the Associated Press writes: \"Goldman Sachs Group Inc. says its first-quarter earnings almost doubled to $3.3 billion as its trading business again surpassed the rest of the financial industry. It was a bit of good news for the bank as it faces a government civil fraud charge.\" Bloomberg News says the earnings also surpassed analysts' expectations. But, there's this news from the BBC: \"Earlier, the U.K.'s Financial Services Authority announced a formal enforcement investigation into the bank regarding recent fraud allegations.\" Planet Money figures all this kind of new out over here.", "The free dating app Tinder has launched a paid subscription service called Tinder Plus. The paid tier offers more functions than the free app, but it comes with a catch: users over age 30 are being charged twice as much as younger subscribers for the same service. Here & Now&#8217;s Jeremy Hobson takes a look at Tinder Plus with Jason Bellini of The Wall Street Journal. \nRead more on this story via The Wall Street Journal\n\nGuest\n\nJason Bellini, senior producer at The Wall Street Journal. He tweets @jasonbellini.\n\nRelatedTrue Love, Tinder, and 30 via FastCompany Tinder is the best way for people in their thirties to meet via Buzzfeed", "President Bush has chosen Wall Street veteran Henry M. Paulson Jr. to be his third treasury secretary. If confirmed, he would succeed John Snow. <em>The Wall Street Journal</em>'s David Wessel tells Steve Inskeep that the Goldman Sachs CEO can make a difference at Treasury by taming the federal budget process and the tending to the value of the dollar.", "Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have valued Uber at $120 billion ahead of an initial public offering scheduled for the second half of 2019. Here & Now&#8216;s Jeremy Hobson takes a closer look with Wall Street Journal reporter Liz Hoffman (@lizrhoffman).", "\"Silence Is Goldman,\" The New York Post's front page screams today. \"Booming Bank's Boss To Staff: Don't $how Off.\" The story: According to the Post: Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein has warned his employess to avoid making big-ticket, high-profile purchases as the gold-plated Wall Street firm hunkers down amid a firestorm of public and political anger over outsize bonus payments. The Post says it has gotten that news from \"sources at the bank.\" For the record, Goldman Sachs \"declined to comment.\" Our friends over at Planet Money last month had the chance to sit down with Goldman Sachs spokesman Lucas Van Praag to talk about the help his company got from taxpayers -- and the billions of dollars it's now making after getting that assistance. As Planet Money notes, Goldman Sachs: Just released a fantastic report on its earnings, with net revenues of $23 billion for the first half of 2009. Goldman is setting aside almost half of that money for paying its 30,000 employees. In rough terms, that amounts to almost $400,000 for each worker.", "Billionaire Warren Buffett bet on a Wall Street revival by buying a $5 billion stake in Goldman Sachs. The move may be designed to help people feel more confident in the market. Also, the FBI says it's investigating Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers and insurer AIG for potential mortgage fraud. ALEX CHADWICK, host: From NPR News it's Day to Day. With all the government talk of a bailout for Wall Street, a private investor comes to the rescue, today. Not just any investor, it's Warren Buffett. He is giving Goldman Sachs a $5 billion cash infusion. Some other investors are following his lead, bidding up the Goldman stock. Marketplace's Nancy Marshall-Genzer joins us. Nancy, so why is Warren Buffett so confident about Goldman Sachs, which was the subject of a lot of grim news? NANCY MARSHALL-GENZER: It certainly was. The big thing is Buffett thinks he's getting a good deal. Goldman stock has been beaten down, along with other financial stocks, and Buffett is buying $5 billion in preferred Goldman stock. He's also got warrants to buy another $5 billion in common stock at a set price, a very good deal. And Goldman got a lot more attractive after the government let it change its status to a bank holding company, and basically that gives it permanent access to Fed funds. It can borrow money a lot more easily from the Fed. I talked about this with Ralph Shive and he's chief investment officer at 1st Source Bank. He says Buffett's confidence is partly due to Goldman's new status as a bank holding company. Mr. RALPH SHIVE (Chief Investment Officer, 1st Source Bank): I think that really helps cement the situation that that federal government wants them to stay alive, and is going to allow them into the banking system. CHADWICK: I'm sorry, is there any suspicion that Warren Buffett is just giving Goldman a show of support, and that's designed to just make all the other investors feel a little more confident about the situation overall? MARSHALL-GENZER: You know, there really is, and he's a businessman. As I said, he feels he's getting a great deal. He also says he's confident in the management at Goldman Sachs. In a statement Buffett said it had a, quote, \"proven and deep management team.\" CHADWICK: So, still, maybe his confidence is going to make others feel better? MARSHALL-GENZER: Very well could. I, you know, there is still a lot of uncertainty on Wall Street, but this is definitely a vote of confidence in Goldman Sachs, and some investors are starting to look at other financial stocks. And Georgetown University associate finance professor, James Angel, told me that Buffett is one of the nation's most respected investors. So, it's only natural that people are going to follow his lead. Professor JAMES ANGEL (Associate Finance Professor, Georgetown University): Sharp investors are sniffing around the wreckage of the credit crunch looking for good deals. There are a lot of distressed sellers out there who have to get rid of these assets, and they're desperate to raise capital. MARSHALL-GENZER: Now, Alex, there are a lot of good deals out there, but you have to do your homework, Angel says. And of course nobody wants to do that, it's just easier to do what Buffett does and peep over at his homework. CHADWICK: How about these reports we see that the FBI is investigating the economic crisis and things that have gone wrong. Who's being investigated? MARSHALL-GENZER: Yeah. Apparently the probe includes Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, and the insurer American International Group. The FBI is reportedly investigating potential mortgage fraud, possibly involving the companies and senior executives who've been at the center of the whole financial crisis. CHADWICK: We'll follow that. Thank you, Nancy, Nancy Marshall-Genzer of public radio's daily business show, Marketplace.", "Bank stocks tumbled Friday after the federal government charged Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs with fraud. The case alleges that Goldman Sachs sold investors securities tied to subprime mortgages that were designed to go bad. The Securities and Exchange Commission said that investors lost about $1 billion in the deal. A hedge fund manager who helped Goldman structure the securities made about the same amount by betting that the mortgage bonds would go sour.", "A beleaguered Wall Street titan got a much needed infusion of cash and a huge vote of confidence from Warren Buffett. But it's not like the cash came cheap. Goldman Sachs, a bank based in New York, structured the deal in two parts. First, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is getting warrants -- essentially the option to buy shares at a future date -- worth $5 billion of common stock for $115 a share at any time in the next five years. Based on yesterday's closing price, Buffett reaped an instant paper profit of $437 million on the warrants. More eye-opening is that Buffett is buying $5 billion of \"perpetual preferred stock\" that pays a 10 percent dividend unless the company buys them back at a premium. The highly unusual arrangement gives permanently gives him TEN times the divided payment investors would get on the common stock today. Read More >> \"We view this as expensive capital by just about any measure,'\" Guy Moszkowski, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, wrote in a note to clients. \"It's a sign of bad times and there appears no way around that.'' Investors appear to be taking the investment -- and its tradeoffs -- in stride. The company's stock is up 7.34, or 6%, in late day trading.", "ProPublica, the new New York-based investigative non-profit, has a joint story with the Los Angeles Times this morning that is quite interesting. According to confidential documents obtained by ProPublica, Goldman Sachs has been playing both sides of the coin with California taxpayers' money. On the one hand, it was making millions from fees selling California bonds. At the same time, it appears to have been making lots of cash advising people on how to profit from California's deepening financial misery and helping push down the price of those bonds and increase the interest rate California pays on its debt. Nothing illegal to all that. But it's not exactly the kind of financial advisor you want to bring home to Mom. Here's an excerpt: Goldman, Sachs & Co. urged some of its big clients to place investment bets against California bonds this year despite having collected millions of dollars in fees to help the state sell some of those same bonds. The giant investment firm did not inform the office of California Treasurer Bill Lockyer that it was proposing a way for investment clients to profit from California's deepening financial misery. In Sacramento, officials said they were concerned that Goldman's strategy could raise the interest rate the state would have to pay to borrow money, thus harming taxpayers. \"It could exaggerate people's worries about our credit,\" said Paul Rosenstiel, head of the public finance division of the treasurer's office." ]

[ "Flucloxacillin (INN) or floxacillin (USAN) is a narrow-spectrum beta-lactam antibiotic of the penicillin class. It is used to treat infections caused by susceptible Gram-positive bacteria.Unlike other penicillins, flucloxacillin has activity against beta-lactamase-producing organisms such as Staphylococcus aureus as it is beta-lactamase stable.However, it is ineffective against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).It is very similar to dicloxacillin; they are considered interchangeable.t is used to treat infections caused by susceptible Gram-positive bacteria. Unlike other penicillins, flucloxacillin has activity against beta-lactamase-producing organisms such as Staphylococcus aureus as it is beta-lactamase stable.", "flucloxacillin is a broad spectrum antibiotic it is usually used skin infections such as acne, in growing toe nails that have become infected etc it isn't used for things like cheast infections etc.eport Abuse. Flucloxacillin (a.k.a. floxacillin) is a fluorinated cloxacilin. It is a narrow spectrum penicillin family antibiotic that is used to treat penicillin resistant bacteria. (betalactamase producers). It is related to dicloxacillin." ]

[ "Each type of antibiotic only works against certain types of bacteria or parasites. This is why different antibiotics are used to treat different types of infection. The main types of antibiotics include: Penicillins - for example, phenoxymethylpenicillin, flucloxacillin and amoxicillin.", "Antibiotics only active against Gram-positive bacteria such as flucloxacillin, are narrow in their spectrum, whilst antibiotics capable of lulling both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, such as cephradine, are broad in their activity [1].", "FLUCLOXACILLIN Flucloxacillin, as the sodium salt What is in this leaflet This leaflet answers some common questions about FLUCLOXACILLIN. It does notcontain all the information available on this medicine. It does not take the place oftalking to your doctor or pharmacist.All medicines have risks and benefits.LUCLOXACILLIN Flucloxacillin, as the sodium salt What is in this leaflet This leaflet answers some common questions about FLUCLOXACILLIN. It does notcontain all the information available on this medicine. It does not take the place oftalking to your doctor or pharmacist.", "Types of antibiotics. There are many different types of antibiotics, but most can be broadly classified into six key groups: Penicillins such as amoxicillin and flucloxacillin. Cephalosporins such as cefalexin and cefixime. Aminoglycosides such as gentamicin. Tetracyclines such as tetracycline. Macrolides such as erythromycin and azithromycin.", "They are well known in medicine as they are one of the first types of antibiotic used for major infections and diseases, and are still used regularly in modern medicine. Penicillins are all β-Lactam (Beta-Lactam) antibiotics, which are antibiotic molecules with a β-Lactam nucleus. There are a number of penicillin types, that react to bacteria in a variety of degrees, some of these are: 1 ampicillin. 2 amoxicillin. 3 flucloxacillin. 4 phenoxymethylpenicillin.", "1 Before you start this antibiotic, read the manufacturer's printed information leaflet from inside the pack. 2 The leaflet will give you more information about flucloxacillin and a full list of side-effects which you may experience from taking it. 3 Take flucloxacillin exactly as your doctor tells you to.long with their useful effects, most medicines can cause unwanted side-effects although not everyone experiences them. The table below contains some of the most common ones associated with flucloxacillin. You will find a full list in the manufacturer's information leaflet supplied with your medicine.", "Penicillins are all β-Lactam (Beta-Lactam) antibiotics, which are antibiotic molecules with a β-Lactam nucleus. There are a number of penicillin types, that react to bacteria in a variety of degrees, some of these are: 1 ampicillin. 2 amoxicillin. 3 flucloxacillin. 4 phenoxymethylpenicillin.", "mould- or bacteria-derived agents that inhibit growth of other microorganisms, but ineffective against primary viral infections; used to counter bacterial infection (Table 1), but many bacteria are now resistant to antibiotics (e.g. meticillin-resisant Staphylococcus aureus [MRSA]); treatment is initiated with a broad-spectrum antibiotic, until bacterial culture confirms sensitivity; skin bacterial infections, e.g. impetigo, respond to topical fusidic acid, oral flucloxacillin or ...", "Antibiotics can be classified by their activity against a spectrum of microorganisms. The more species of organisms that are killed, the broader is the spectrum of activity. Antibiotics only active against Gram-positive bacteria such as flucloxacillin, are narrow in their spectrum, whilst antibiotics capable of lulling both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, such as cephradine, are broad in their activity .", "1 Generic name. 2 Each medicine has an approved name called the generic name. 3 A group of medicines that have similar actions often have similar-sounding generic names. 4 For example, phenoxymethylpenicillin, ampicillin, amoxicillin and flucloxacillin are in one group of antibiotics. 5 Brand (trade) name. Start a discussion. 2 Generic name. 3 Each medicine has an approved name called the generic name. 4 A group of medicines that have similar actions often have similar-sounding generic names. 5 For example, phenoxymethylpenicillin, ampicillin, amoxicillin and flucloxacillin are in one group of antibiotics.", "How long does fever associated with mastitis last - With mastitis, how long does a fever last when prescribed flucloxacillin? Should get better in. 2-3 days after starting antibiotic. If it persists after that, please call your doctor.", "Penicillins are a certain collection of antibiotics that eliminate infection causing bacteria. Also known in short as pen or PCN, they originate from a type of fungi called Penicillium fungi.They are used in the treatment or prevention of many different bacterial infections, usually caused by Gram-positive organisms.enicillins are all β-Lactam (Beta-Lactam) antibiotics, which are antibiotic molecules with a β-Lactam nucleus. There are a number of penicillin types, that react to bacteria in a variety of degrees, some of these are: 1 ampicillin. 2 amoxicillin. 3 flucloxacillin. 4 phenoxymethylpenicillin.", "Neosporin is a triple antibiotic, containing three different antibiotics -- bacitracin, neomycin, and polymyxin). It's a wide spectrum antibiotic, and it's what you use when you don't know what bacteria you're defending against.", "Commonly prescribed Staph infection antibiotics can include (but are not limited to): 1 B-lactams: Such as Oxacillin, Flucloxacillin. 2 First generation Cephalosporins: Such as Cefazolin, Cephalothin and Cephalexin. 3 Lincosamides: Such as Clindamycin and Lincomycin. Macrolides: Such as 1 Erythromycin. Tetracyclines: Such as Doxycycline, Minocycline.", "Staphylococcal infections are a group of infections caused by the bacterium Staphylococcus. You may have heard them referred to as staph infections. Staph bacteria can cause a wide range of infections, from relatively minor skin infections such as boils, to more serious infections of the blood, lungs and heart. 1 There are many types of Staphylococci, but most infections are caused by a group called Staphylococcus aureus. This group of bacteria includes meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which is resistant to certain antibiotics that are commonly used for staph infections, such as flucloxacillin.", "Antibiotics can be classified in different ways. Broad-spectrum vs Narrow-spectrum. Narrow-spectrum antibiotics act against only limited types of bacteria. List of narrow-spectrum antibiotics and their spectrum of activity: 1 Penicillin, Flucloxacillin, Dicloxacillin, Nafcillin sodium: Gram-positive bacteria. 2 Aztreonam: Gram-negative aerobic bacteria. 3 Linezolid: Gram-positive bacteria. 4 Polymyxin B: Gram-negative bacilli other than proteus.", "This leads to furuncles (boils) and carbuncles (a collection of furuncles). Staph infections can be spread through contact with pus from an infected wound, skin to skin contact with an infected person, and contact with objects such as towels, sheets, clothing, or athletic equipment used by an infected person.Deep Staphylococcus infections can be very severe.. aureus has become resistant to many commonly used antibiotics. Up to 20% of all Staphylococcus isolates is resistant to penicillin, which has led to the introduction of flucloxacillin as first-line antistaphylococcal antibiotic.", "Antibiotic use. It is common to have a yellow film tongue after antibiotic use i.e. using antibiotics such as amoxicillin, ampicillin, doxycycline monohydrate, etc. This is due to the swift of the right balance of oral microbes (yeast and bacteria) or what is referred to natural flora balance in your mouth.", "The role of the adaptive immune system in adverse drug reactions that target the liver has not been defined. For flucloxacillin, a delay in the reaction onset and identification of human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-B*57:01 as a susceptibility factor are indicative of an immune pathogenesis.uman leukocyte antigen (HLA)-B*57:01-restricted activation of drug-specific T cells provides the immunological basis for flucloxacillin-induced liver injury.", "Neosporin is a triple antibiotic, containing three different antibiotics -- bacitracin, neomycin, and polymyxin). It's a wide spectrum antibiotic, and it's what you use when you don't know what bacteria you're defending against. It's probable that one of the other two antibiotics in the neosporin can encourage redness.", "What's the difference between Antibiotics and Vaccines? Antibiotics and vaccines are both used to fight germs but they work in different ways. While vaccines are used to prevent disease, antibiotics are used to treat diseases that have already occurred. In addition, antibiotics do not work on viruses or viral i...", "Which drug is used to treat cases of TB? Isoniazid What antibiotic is mixed with neomycin and polymyxin to make an antibiotic ointment (Neosporin) for superficial skin infections?", "1. Get a prescription for antibiotics from your doctor. Antibiotics will not help an ear infection that is caused by a virus, so doctors do not always prescribe antibiotics for ear infections. All children under 6 months old will be treated with antibiotics. 1 Tell your doctor about the last time you used antibiotics, as well as what kind.", "What is Antibiotic Resistance and why is it a problem? General Background. About bacteria & antibiotics; About antibiotic resistance; Multi-drug resistance; Antibiotic resistance: a societal problem ; What can be done about antibiotic resistance? When and how to take antibiotics; Antibacterial agents; Bioterrorism & stockpiling antibiotics; The Cost of Resistance", "Digestive upset can occur as a side effect of flucloxacillin in treated patients, explains Medsafe, the New Zealand medicine and medical devices safety authority. Typically, digestive upset symptoms include nausea or vomiting.kin Rash or Discoloration. Patients taking flucloxacillin can develop skin related side effects during treatment, explain medical professionals with Patient UK. Affected patients can develop red, irritated patches of skin across the body.", "This medication is part of a class of drugs called penicillins and works by preventing bacteria from spreading through the body. As of 2010, flucloxacillin is not marketed within the United States. Patients should discuss the side effects of flucoxacillin with a medical professional before beginning treatment.kin Rash or Discoloration. Patients taking flucloxacillin can develop skin related side effects during treatment, explain medical professionals with Patient UK. Affected patients can develop red, irritated patches of skin across the body.", "1 What Doxycycline capsules are and what they are used for. Doxycycline belongs to a group of medicines called tetracycline antibiotics. It is also known as a broad-spectrum antibiotic and may be used to treat a wide range of infections caused by bacteria, these include:1 respiratory tract infections. 2 urinary tract infections.3 sexually transmitted diseases.oxycycline belongs to a group of medicines called tetracycline antibiotics. It is also known as a broad-spectrum antibiotic and may be used to treat a wide range of infections caused by bacteria, these include: 1 respiratory tract infections.", "Antibiotics are medicines used to treat infections or diseases caused by bacteria. There are many different types of antibiotics. The best antibiotic for your infection will depend on what infection you have and the type of bacteria causing it.", "CRE can be so deadly, because few antibiotics work against its different variations. That's what the name carbapenem-resistant means -- carbapenem is a class of antibiotics often used as a last resort against a bad bacterial infection.RE can be so deadly, because few antibiotics work against its different variations. That's what the name carbapenem-resistant means -- carbapenem is a class of antibiotics often used as a last resort against a bad bacterial infection.", "Bacteria are often able to become resistant to antibiotics quickly, which makes staying ahead of bacteria when developing antibiotics very difficult. What causes this is that when antibiotics are used such as penicillin, if there are any microbes left behind, they begin to repopulate with resistances to the antibiotic.", "What antibiotics are used for urinary tract infections? A: Levofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, nitrofurantoin and fosfomycin are some of the antibiotics used to treat urinary tract infections, reports WebMD. The symptoms ... Full Answer >", "Question and answer. What might people do to prevent the development of more superbugs? (1 point) They should use antibiotics only when necessary. They should develop stronger antibiotics and use them often. They." ]

[ "['cranky.', 'dour.', 'grouchy.', 'melancholy.', 'sad.', 'sullen.', 'testy.', 'ugly.']" ]

[ "When you hear zoom, think fast. Zoom is a word that can be a sound effect, a noun, or a verb. ... You could say, \"In one zoom, we were in the air!\" Zooming can also mean to move while making a low humming noise that sounds like zoom. Like boom, zoom is a fun word: it's hard to say Zoom zoom! and be in a bad mood.", "A persons buttocks or anus. In the modern world the word “ass” is usually referring to the second and third definition which can definitely be offensive and therefore I would count it as a “bad word”. ... Conclusion: the word “ass” is sometimes a bad word and sometimes not a bad word.", "['What food do you wish you cook like a world-class chef?', \"What's the last book you read and really enjoyed? (Not sure? ... \", 'What is one song that can always pull you out of a bad mood?', \"What's the worst movie you've ever seen?\"]", "In grammar, mood refers to a verb form that shows the writer's attitude toward the content of his or her words. There are three different kinds of mood in English grammar. Subjunctive mood expresses a desire, a requirement, a suggestion, or a hypothetical.", "“Mood” is just what it sounds like—it's the caption for a picture that expresses your current feelings. It's a little bit more versatile than that, though: It can extend to things you're in the mood for. ... “Mood” is to present day slang what “I'm feeling it” was to 2013.", "Both atmosphere and mood refer to feelings, but there's a small difference. The atmosphere is an external feeling coming from the physical environment. The mood is the internal feeling of the reader. ... In other words, the atmosphere in a text influences the mood.", "Tone and mood are similar!! Tone is the author's attitude toward the writing (his characters, the situation) and the readers. ... Mood is the general atmosphere created by the author's words. It is the feeling the reader gets from reading those words.", "The word is not a bad word, a four letter word, a swear word, or anything like that. Look up its meaning in a dictionary, and then decide for yourself when it's bad to be gullible. ... Do gullible people know they are gullible?", "Mood changes. Feeling very tired or weak. Very bad irritation where Xulane (ethinyl estradiol and norelgestromin) is used.", "affective. Affective is a word that crops up a lot in psychology—it means having to do with emotions or moods. Affective disorders are characterized by mood swings. ... Affective is about how someone acts, or feels.", "curse. The definition of a curse is a swear word or a bad word or the state of bad luck caused by someone wishing evil or injury to happen to someone else. An example of a curse is the \"f\" word. An example of a curse is when your enemy put a hex on you or wished bad things upon you.", "In literature, mood is a literary element that evokes certain feelings or vibes in readers through words and descriptions. Usually, mood is referred to as the atmosphere of a literary piece, as it creates an emotional setting that surrounds the readers.", "The word pride can be used in a good sense as well as in a bad sense. ... In a bad sense, pride can mean that someone has an exaggerated sense of feeling good. This might mean that someone has no respect for what other people do, only respect for what he or she does. Someone who is described as proud may be arrogant.", "While some studies on stress and miscarriage are conflicting, Dr. Schaffir says that everyday tension or anxiety—tight deadlines at work or worrying about what labor will be like—has not been linked to pregnancy loss. What's more, no studies have ever linked excessive bad moods to miscarriage, says Dr.", "Is 'fickle' a bad word? - Quora. It is not considered a swear word, if that is what you mean. Fickle (giving affection lightly, short attention span, lack of loyalty, etc.) is not a desirable quality, so calling someone fickle could be insulting.", "#41 mal → bad, evil The Latin root word mal means “bad” or “evil.” This root is the word origin of many English vocabulary words, including malformed, maltreat, and malice.", "Mood Swings PTSD doesn't always come with clues like nightmares and flashbacks. Sometimes it seems like a mood change unrelated to the traumatic event. You'll know it by its negativity. You may feel hopeless, numb, or bad about yourself or others.", "Mood swings are one of those symptoms that may be a symptom of anxiety directly, or they may be a symptom of symptoms - in other words, for some people, other symptoms of anxiety cause so much distress that they cause mood swings, rather than the anxiety itself leading to mood swings.", "curse. When you curse, you say words you wouldn't want your mother or your priest to hear you saying. A curse can also be wishing something awful on someone, like the witch who puts a curse on Sleeping Beauty. ... The Italian word tells you just what a curse is — it's a \"bad saying\" — a really bad saying.", "Edit: The most original idiom I can find is “piss in one's corn flakes” which basically means to irritate or disappoint someone. Asking “who pissed in your corn flakes” is a variant of this, meaning essentially, “why are you in such a bad mood (what/who pissed you off?).", "The word “Shoot” is just like a sleeveless sweater. ... It is a non intense intensive to replace the word “shit” which is a bad word.", "Asking “who pissed in your corn flakes” is a variant of this, meaning essentially, “why are you in such a bad mood (what/who pissed you off?). Corn flakes were invented before Wheaties cereal but since Wheaties became a very popular brand it would be a natural substitute.", "mental/mood/behavior changes (such as agitation, aggression, mood swings, abnormal thoughts, thoughts of suicide), uncontrolled muscle movements (such as twitching, shaking), sudden outbursts of words or sounds that are hard to control, or. vision changes (such as blurred vision).", "Bath and body works wallflowers are not safe for your pets. It contains toxic chemicals and may harm your pet. ... Humans may love these sweet and strong fragrances and put them in a good mood but for your cat, room fragrances might be toxic and harmful and will put them in a bad, irritable mood.", "Those are both grammatical, but mean very different things. 'If I were' is in the subjective mood, 'if I was' is in the indicitive mood. 'If I were' is correct in the vast majority of cases. ... The subjunctive mood of the verb to be is be in the present tense and were in the past tense, regardless of what the subject is.", "Definition of you can say that again —used to express complete agreement with something just said\"She's in a bad mood.\" \"You can say that again.\"", "Profanity is socially offensive language, which may also be called cursing, cussing or swearing, cuss words (American English vernacular), curse words, swear words, bad words, or expletives.", "Why is ”shit” a bad word, and boop, dooky, dung, crap, and feces is not? - Quora. Why is ”shit” a bad word, and boop, dooky, dung, crap, and feces is not? In modern-day English, the word Shit is considered to be vulgar, profane and a slang word. As a noun, it refers to fecal matter, and as a verb, it means to defecate ...", "Why This is Bad Deeply nested conditionals make it just about impossible to tell what code will run, or when. The big problem with nested conditionals is that they muddy up code's control flow: in other words, they make it just about impossible to tell what code will run, or when.", "[\"Take a look at the impact of your emotions. Intense emotions aren't all bad. ... \", 'Aim for regulation, not repression. ... ', \"Identify what you're feeling. ... \", 'Accept your emotions — all of them. ... ', 'Keep a mood journal. ... ', 'Take a deep breath. ... ', 'Know when to express yourself. ... ', 'Give yourself some space.']", "Mood and tone are two literary elements that help create the main idea of a story. The mood is the atmosphere of the story, and the tone is the author's attitude towards the topic. We can identify both by looking at the setting, characters, details, and word choices.", "No it is not a bad word. It is a word normally referring to the size- of wideness of the male's penis. ... It is another word for penis & “dick.”To each its own way." ]

[ "Arthur Franklin Mapes" ]

[ "Dr. Who" ]

[ "The third John Walter, the founder's grandson, succeeded his father in 1847. The paper continued as more or less independent, but from the 1850s The Times was beginning to suffer from the rise in competition from the penny press, notably The Daily Telegraph and The Morning Post." ]

[ "Kerry's paternal grandparents, shoe businessman Frederick A. \"Fred\" Kerry and musician Ida Lowe, were immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Fred was born as \"Fritz Kohn\" before he and Ida took on the \"Kerry\" name and moved to the United States. Fred and Ida were born Jewish, and converted to Catholicism together in Austria. His maternal ancestors were of Scottish and English descent, and his maternal grandfather James Grant Forbes II was a member of the Forbes family, while his maternal grandmother Margaret Tyndal Winthrop was a member of the Dudley–Winthrop family. Margaret's paternal grandfather Robert Charles Winthrop served as the 22nd Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Robert's father was Governor Thomas Lindall Winthrop. Thomas' father John Still Winthrop was a great-great-grandson of Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor John Winthrop and great-grandson of Governor Thomas Dudley. Through his mother, John is a first cousin once removed of French politician Brice Lalonde.", "In 1922, John Jacob Astor, son of the 1st Viscount Astor, bought The Times from the Northcliffe estate. The paper gained a measure of notoriety in the 1930s with its advocacy of German appeasement; then-editor Geoffrey Dawson was closely allied with those in the government who practised appeasement, most notably Neville Chamberlain.", "Lee has said that To Kill a Mockingbird is not an autobiography, but rather an example of how an author \"should write about what he knows and write truthfully\". Nevertheless, several people and events from Lee's childhood parallel those of the fictional Scout. Lee's father, Amasa Coleman Lee, was an attorney, similar to Atticus Finch, and in 1919, he defended two black men accused of murder. After they were convicted, hanged and mutilated, he never tried another criminal case. Lee's father was also the editor and publisher of the Monroeville newspaper. Although more of a proponent of racial segregation than Atticus, he gradually became more liberal in his later years. Though Scout's mother died when she was a baby, Lee was 25 when her mother, Frances Cunningham Finch, died. Lee's mother was prone to a nervous condition that rendered her mentally and emotionally absent. Lee had a brother named Edwin, who—like the fictional Jem—was four years older than his sister. As in the novel, a black housekeeper came daily to care for the Lee house and family.", "The Times faced financial extinction in 1890 under Arthur Fraser Walter, but it was rescued by an energetic editor, Charles Frederic Moberly Bell. During his tenure (1890–1911), The Times became associated with selling the Encyclopædia Britannica using aggressive American marketing methods introduced by Horace Everett Hooper and his advertising executive, Henry Haxton. Due to legal fights between the Britannica's two owners, Hooper and Walter Montgomery Jackson, The Times severed its connection in 1908 and was bought by pioneering newspaper magnate, Alfred Harmsworth, later Lord Northcliffe.", "The Times was founded by publisher John Walter on 1 January 1785 as The Daily Universal Register, with Walter in the role of editor. Walter had lost his job by the end of 1784 after the insurance company where he was working went bankrupt because of the complaints of a Jamaican hurricane. Being unemployed, Walter decided to set a new business up. It was in that time when Henry Johnson invented the logography, a new typography that was faster and more precise (three years later, it was proved that it was not as efficient as had been said). Walter bought the logography's patent and to use it, he decided to open a printing house, where he would daily produce an advertising sheet. The first publication of the newspaper The Daily Universal Register in Great Britain was 1 January 1785. Unhappy because people always omitted the word Universal, Ellias changed the title after 940 editions on 1 January 1788 to The Times. In 1803, Walter handed ownership and editorship to his son of the same name. Walter Sr had spent sixteen months in Newgate Prison for libel printed in The Times, but his pioneering efforts to obtain Continental news, especially from France, helped build the paper's reputation among policy makers and financiers.", "Notable Old Etonians in the media include the former Political Editor of both ITN and The Times, Julian Haviland; the current BBC Deputy Political Editor, James Landale, and the BBC Science Editor, David Shukman; the current President of Conde Nast International and Managing Director of Conde Nast UK, Nicholas Coleridge; the former ITN newscaster and BBC Panorama presenter, Ludovic Kennedy; current BBC World News and BBC Rough Justice current affairs presenter David Jessel; former chief ITV and Channel 4 racing commentator John Oaksey; 1950s BBC newsreader and 1960s ITN newscaster Timothy Brinton; 1960s BBC newsreader Corbet Woodall; the former Editor of The Daily Telegraph, Charles Moore; the former Editor of The Spectator, Ferdinand Mount; and the current Editor of The Mail on Sunday, Geordie Greig.", "Martin Goodman founded the company later known as Marvel Comics under the name Timely Publications in 1939. Martin Goodman, a pulp magazine publisher who had started with a Western pulp in 1933, was expanding into the emerging—and by then already highly popular—new medium of comic books. Launching his new line from his existing company's offices at 330 West 42nd Street, New York City, he officially held the titles of editor, managing editor, and business manager, with Abraham Goodman officially listed as publisher.", "Harper Lee was pleased with the movie, saying: \"In that film the man and the part met... I've had many, many offers to turn it into musicals, into TV or stage plays, but I've always refused. That film was a work of art.\" Peck met Lee's father, the model for Atticus, before the filming. Lee's father died before the film's release, and Lee was so impressed with Peck's performance that she gave him her father's pocketwatch, which he had with him the evening he was awarded the Oscar for best actor. Years later, he was reluctant to tell Lee that the watch was stolen out of his luggage in London Heathrow Airport. When Peck eventually did tell Lee, he said she responded, \"'Well, it's only a watch.' Harper—she feels deeply, but she's not a sentimental person about things.\" Lee and Peck shared a friendship long after the movie was made. Peck's grandson was named \"Harper\" in her honor.", "Thomas Barnes was appointed general editor in 1817. In the same year, the paper's printer James Lawson, died and passed the business onto his son John Joseph Lawson(1802–1852). Under the editorship of Barnes and his successor in 1841, John Thadeus Delane, the influence of The Times rose to great heights, especially in politics and amongst the City of London. Peter Fraser and Edward Sterling were two noted journalists, and gained for The Times the pompous/satirical nickname 'The Thunderer' (from \"We thundered out the other day an article on social and political reform.\"). The increased circulation and influence of the paper was based in part to its early adoption of the steam-driven rotary printing press. Distribution via steam trains to rapidly growing concentrations of urban populations helped ensure the profitability of the paper and its growing influence.", "On 7 July 2004, in response to verbal attacks in Liverpool on Wayne Rooney, just before his transfer from Everton to Manchester United, who had sold his life story to The Sun, the paper devoted a full-page editorial to an apology for the \"awful error\" of its Hillsborough coverage and argued that Rooney (who was still only three years old at the time of Hillsborough) should not be punished for its \"past sins\". In January 2005, The Sun's managing editor Graham Dudman admitting the Hillsborough coverage was \"the worst mistake in our history\", added: \"What we did was a terrible mistake. It was a terrible, insensitive, horrible article, with a dreadful headline; but what we'd also say is: we have apologised for it, and the entire senior team here now is completely different from the team that put the paper out in 1989.\"", "Murdoch found he had such a rapport with Larry Lamb over lunch that other potential recruits as editor were not interviewed and Lamb was appointed as the first editor of the new Sun. He was scathing in his opinion of the Mirror, where he had recently been employed as a senior sub-editor, and shared Murdoch's view that a paper's quality was best measured by its sales, and he regarded the Mirror as overstaffed, and primarily aimed at an ageing readership. Lamb hastily recruited a staff of about 125 reporters, who were mostly selected for their availability rather than their ability.", "His father's career as a university professor influenced Friedrich's goals later in life. Both of his grandfathers, who lived long enough for Friedrich to know them, were scholars. Franz von Juraschek was a leading economist in Austria-Hungary and a close friend of Eugen Böhm von Bawerk, one of the founders of the Austrian School of Economics. Von Juraschek was a statistician and was later employed by the Austrian government. Friedrich's paternal grandfather, Gustav Edler von Hayek, taught natural sciences at the Imperial Realobergymnasium (secondary school) in Vienna. He wrote systematic works in biology, some of which are relatively well known.", "Stanley Crouch wrote in a New York Daily News piece \"Obama's mother is of white U.S. stock. His father is a black Kenyan,\" in a column entitled \"What Obama Isn't: Black Like Me.\" During the 2008 campaign, the African-American columnist David Ehrenstein of the LA Times accused white liberals of flocking to Obama because he was a \"Magic Negro\", a term that refers to a black person with no past who simply appears to assist the mainstream white (as cultural protagonists/drivers) agenda. Ehrenstein went on to say \"He's there to assuage white 'guilt' they feel over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history.\"", "After 14 years as editor, William Rees-Mogg resigned the post upon completion of the change of ownership. Murdoch began to make his mark on the paper by appointing Harold Evans as his replacement. One of his most important changes was the introduction of new technology and efficiency measures. In March–May 1982, following agreement with print unions, the hot-metal Linotype printing process used to print The Times since the 19th century was phased out and replaced by computer input and photo-composition. This allowed print room staff at The Times and The Sunday Times to be reduced by half. However, direct input of text by journalists (\"single stroke\" input) was still not achieved, and this was to remain an interim measure until the Wapping dispute of 1986, when The Times moved from New Printing House Square in Gray's Inn Road (near Fleet Street) to new offices in Wapping.", "Some succeeded their fathers as rulers, such as Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur, who ruled Morocco from 1578 to 1608. He was not technically considered as a mixed-race child of a slave; his mother was Fulani and a concubine of his father. Such tolerance for black persons, even when technically \"free\", was not so common in Morocco. The long association of sub-Saharan peoples as slaves is shown in the term abd (Arabic: عبد‎,) (meaning \"slave\"); it is still frequently used in the Arabic-speaking world as a term for black people.", "On 3 May 1966 it resumed printing news on the front page - previously the front page featured small advertisements, usually of interest to the moneyed classes in British society. In 1967, members of the Astor family sold the paper to Canadian publishing magnate Roy Thomson. His Thomson Corporation brought it under the same ownership as The Sunday Times to form Times Newspapers Limited.", "The Times is the originator of the widely used Times Roman typeface, originally developed by Stanley Morison of The Times in collaboration with the Monotype Corporation for its legibility in low-tech printing. In November 2006 The Times began printing headlines in a new font, Times Modern. The Times was printed in broadsheet format for 219 years, but switched to compact size in 2004 in an attempt to appeal more to younger readers and commuters using public transport. The Sunday Times remains a broadsheet.", "During her grandfather's reign, Elizabeth was third in the line of succession to the throne, behind her uncle Edward, Prince of Wales, and her father, the Duke of York. Although her birth generated public interest, she was not expected to become queen, as the Prince of Wales was still young, and many assumed that he would marry and have children of his own. When her grandfather died in 1936 and her uncle succeeded as Edward VIII, she became second-in-line to the throne, after her father. Later that year Edward abdicated, after his proposed marriage to divorced socialite Wallis Simpson provoked a constitutional crisis. Consequently, Elizabeth's father became king, and she became heir presumptive. If her parents had had a later son, she would have lost her position as first-in-line, as her brother would have been heir apparent and above her in the line of succession.", "The Times used contributions from significant figures in the fields of politics, science, literature, and the arts to build its reputation. For much of its early life, the profits of The Times were very large and the competition minimal, so it could pay far better than its rivals for information or writers. Beginning in 1814, the paper was printed on the new steam-driven cylinder press developed by Friedrich Koenig. In 1815, The Times had a circulation of 5,000.", "The Times Literary Supplement (TLS) first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to The Times, becoming a separately paid-for weekly literature and society magazine in 1914. The Times and the TLS have continued to be co-owned, and as of 2012 the TLS is also published by News International and cooperates closely with The Times, with its online version hosted on The Times website, and its editorial offices based in Times House, Pennington Street, London.", "John Forbes Kerry was born on December 11, 1943 in Aurora, Colorado, at Fitzsimons Army Hospital. He was the second oldest of four children born to Richard John Kerry, a Foreign Service officer and lawyer, and Rosemary Isabel Forbes, a nurse and social activist. His father was raised Catholic (John's paternal grandparents were Austro-Hungarian Jewish immigrants who converted to Catholicism) and his mother was Episcopalian. He was raised with an elder sister named Margaret (born 1941), a younger sister named Diana (born 1947) and a younger brother named Cameron (born 1950). The children were raised in their father's faith; John Kerry served as an altar boy.", "The Times is the first newspaper to have borne that name, lending it to numerous other papers around the world, including The Times of India (founded in 1838), The Straits Times (Singapore) (1845), The New York Times (1851), The Irish Times (1859), Le Temps (France) (1861-1942), the Cape Times (South Africa) (1872), the Los Angeles Times (1881), The Seattle Times (1891), The Manila Times (1898), The Daily Times (Malawi) (1900), El Tiempo (Colombia) (1911), The Canberra Times (1926), and The Times (Malta) (1935). In these countries, the newspaper is often referred to as The London Times or The Times of London.", "The Kushan Empire expanded out of what is now Afghanistan into the northwest of the subcontinent under the leadership of their first emperor, Kujula Kadphises, about the middle of the 1st century CE. They came of an Indo-European language speaking Central Asian tribe called the Yuezhi, a branch of which was known as the Kushans. By the time of his grandson, Kanishka, they had conquered most of northern India, at least as far as Saketa and Pataliputra, in the middle Ganges Valley, and probably as far as the Bay of Bengal.", "The Flying Fathers, a Canadian group of Catholic priests, regularly toured North America playing exhibition hockey games for charity. One of the organization's founders, Les Costello, was a onetime NHL player who was ordained as a priest after retiring from professional hockey. Another prominent exhibition hockey team is the Buffalo Sabres Alumni Hockey Team, which is composed almost entirely of retired NHL players, the majority of whom (as the name suggests) played at least a portion of their career for the Buffalo Sabres.", "More than 200 newspapers and 350 consumer magazines have an office in the city, and the publishing industry employs about 25,000 people. Two of the three national daily newspapers in the United States are New York papers: The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, which has won the most Pulitzer Prizes for journalism. Major tabloid newspapers in the city include: The New York Daily News, which was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson and The New York Post, founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton. The city also has a comprehensive ethnic press, with 270 newspapers and magazines published in more than 40 languages. El Diario La Prensa is New York's largest Spanish-language daily and the oldest in the nation. The New York Amsterdam News, published in Harlem, is a prominent African American newspaper. The Village Voice is the largest alternative newspaper.", "Avicenna was born c. 980 in Afšana, a village near Bukhara (in present-day Uzbekistan), the capital of the Samanids, a Persian dynasty in Central Asia and Greater Khorasan. His mother, named Setareh, was from Bukhara; his father, Abdullah, was a respected Ismaili scholar from Balkh, an important town of the Samanid Empire, in what is today Balkh Province, Afghanistan, although this is not universally agreed upon. His father worked in the government of Samanid in the village Kharmasain, a Sunni regional power. After five years, his younger brother, Mahmoud, was born. Avicenna first began to learn the Quran and literature in such a way that when he was ten years old he had essentially learned all of them.", "Greek surnames were widely in use by the 9th century supplanting the ancient tradition of using the father’s name, however Greek surnames are most commonly patronymics. Commonly, Greek male surnames end in -s, which is the common ending for Greek masculine proper nouns in the nominative case. Exceptionally, some end in -ou, indicating the genitive case of this proper noun for patronymic reasons. Although surnames in mainland Greece are static today, dynamic and changing patronymic usage survives in middle names where the genitive of father's first name is commonly the middle name (this usage having been passed on to the Russians). In Cyprus, by contrast, surnames follow the ancient tradition of being given according to the father’s name. Finally, in addition to Greek-derived surnames many have Latin, Turkish and Italian origin.", "The Times was the first newspaper to send war correspondents to cover particular conflicts. W. H. Russell, the paper's correspondent with the army in the Crimean War, was immensely influential with his dispatches back to England.", "As explained by Richard Meade in the English Journal of the (American) National Council of Teachers of English, the form daylight savings time (with an \"s\") was already in 1978 much more common than the older form daylight saving time in American English (\"the change has been virtually accomplished\"). Nevertheless, even dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster's, American Heritage, and Oxford, which describe actual usage instead of prescribing outdated usage (and therefore also list the newer form), still list the older form first. This is because the older form is still very common in print and preferred by many editors. (\"Although daylight saving time is considered correct, daylight savings time (with an \"s\") is commonly used.\") The first two words are sometimes hyphenated (daylight-saving[s] time). Merriam-Webster's also lists the forms daylight saving (without \"time\"), daylight savings (without \"time\"), and daylight time.", "Alexander Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on March 3, 1847. The family home was at 16 South Charlotte Street, and has a stone inscription marking it as Alexander Graham Bell's birthplace. He had two brothers: Melville James Bell (1845–70) and Edward Charles Bell (1848–67), both of whom would die of tuberculosis. His father was Professor Alexander Melville Bell, a phonetician, and his mother was Eliza Grace (née Symonds). Born as just \"Alexander Bell\", at age 10 he made a plea to his father to have a middle name like his two brothers.[N 6] For his 11th birthday, his father acquiesced and allowed him to adopt the name \"Graham\", chosen out of respect for Alexander Graham, a Canadian being treated by his father who had become a family friend. To close relatives and friends he remained \"Aleck\".", "Roncalli was summoned to the final ballot of the conclave at 4:00 pm. He was elected pope at 4:30 pm with a total of 38 votes. After the long pontificate of Pope Pius XII, the cardinals chose a man who – it was presumed because of his advanced age – would be a short-term or \"stop-gap\" pope. They wished to choose a candidate who would do little during the new pontificate. Upon his election, Cardinal Eugene Tisserant asked him the ritual questions of whether he would accept and if so, what name he would take for himself. Roncalli gave the first of his many surprises when he chose \"John\" as his regnal name. Roncalli's exact words were \"I will be called John\". This was the first time in over 500 years that this name had been chosen; previous popes had avoided its use since the time of the Antipope John XXIII during the Western Schism several centuries before.", "The Times commissioned the serif typeface Times New Roman, created by Victor Lardent at the English branch of Monotype, in 1931. It was commissioned after Stanley Morison had written an article criticizing The Times for being badly printed and typographically antiquated. The font was supervised by Morison and drawn by Victor Lardent, an artist from the advertising department of The Times. Morison used an older font named Plantin as the basis for his design, but made revisions for legibility and economy of space. Times New Roman made its debut in the issue of 3 October 1932. After one year, the design was released for commercial sale. The Times stayed with Times New Roman for 40 years, but new production techniques and the format change from broadsheet to tabloid in 2004 have caused the newspaper to switch font five times since 1972. However, all the new fonts have been variants of the original New Roman font:" ]

[ "John Lennon" ]

[ "writings", "Writings on Reckoning", "quality of the writing", "Freud's writings", "constrained writing", "writing implements", "sequential writes", "Hindu writings", "The Who by Numbers", "About %", "Cryptic Writings", "Betty Who", "the Hansen Writing Ball", "Dr. Who", "deficiency in the ability to write", "writing system software", "about", "Who You Are", "Reading, Writing and Arithmetic", "essay writing competitions", "Who's That Girl", "limited write endurance", "Windows and Walls", "who is and who is not a New Zealand citizen", "ancient cave writings", "Who We Are", "A Lady Writing a Letter", "making writing faster", "by writing a letter of resignation", "writing letters by hand", "a tactile writing system", "city walls" ]

[ "Although he doesn't yet know the playbook and his knee is bothering him, Koren Robinson expects to suit up for the Green Bay Packers this weekend." ]

[ "The NFL reinstated suspended Green Bay Packers wide receiver Koren Robinson on Wednesday.", "The NFL reinstates Green Bay Packers wide receiver Koren Robinson, who had been suspended for violating the league's substance abuse policy.", "Green Bay Packers wide receiver Koren Robinson has been allowed back into the NFL after serving a one-year suspension for breaching the league's substance abuse policy.", "Green Bay Packers wide receiver Koren Robinson was sentenced Wednesday to 90 days for violating probation in a drunken driving case. The sentence allows Robinson to finish this season before having to serve the time.", "As the sun set Saturday evening, Michael Robinson lay face-up on a football field in Madison, Wis. At the same moment, Adam Taliaferro sat on a sofa in his State College apartment.", "Once a member of the Packers, Dave Tollefson, a defensive end for the Giants, will return to Green Bay and play for the National Football Conference championship on Sunday.", "The Knicks’ Nate Robinson is playing in his third straight summer league, a signal that he is committed to improving his game, if not necessarily changing his persona.", "Sven-Goran Eriksson may gamble by playing goalkeeper Paul Robinson and striker Jermain Defoe in Poland.", "&quot;Mike McKenzie is back here to play for the Packers, and that is where we are right now. We will take it one day at a time,&quot; coach and general manager Mike Sherman said Wednesday.", "GREEN BAY, Wis. -- The Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings usually play tight games. And the Packers usually come out on top.", "Nets forward-center Clifford Robinson, among the NBA's career leaders in games and minutes played, will undergo arthroscopic surgery on his left knee Monday.", "A possible playoff precursor will be on tap at Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday, when the Philadelphia Eagles play host to the red- hot Green Bay Packers.", "LAKE FOREST, Ill. -- Veteran defensive lineman Bryan Robinson (pictured) was among 21 players cut Sunday as the Chicago Bears pared their roster to 53.", "Former England coach Andy Robinson says he would not have played Jonny Wilkinson against Scotland on Saturday.", "The Green Bay Packers didn't have to choose between playing it safe and playing to win on Sunday. The Packers finished their turnaround regular season with a 34-13 victory over the Detroit Lions while resting several key players for the playoffs.", "ST. PETER, Minn. -- Former Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Koren Robinson must serve 90 days in jail for fleeing police last August, a prosecutor said.", "The Packers have a far better shot at making the playoffs than the Titans. The Packers play in a much easier division, which gives them a better chance at winning the magic number of games (10?", "The Bears&#39; release of eight-year veteran defensive tackle Bryan Robinson on Sunday was shocking only if the progress made by first-round draft choice Tommie Harris is ignored.", "The wife of Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre has been diagnosed with breast cancer, according to The Biloxi (Miss.) Sun Herald.", "Because for all of Koren Robinson’s undisputed talent, the 6-foot-1 frame, the sprinter’s speed, the Pro Bowl on his résumé, he has let folks down in the past.", "Darren Sharper is confident there will be two Sharper brothers starting when his Green Bay Packers play the Texans in Houston Sunday night.", "Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre will return for his 17th season, Favre told the Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss., on Friday.", "Washington Redskins linebacker LaVar Arrington and kicker John Hall will not play Sunday versus the Green Bay Packers.", "Finance Minister Peter Robinson is \"keeping an open mind\" on plans for a stadium at the former Maze prison site.", "For those still wondering what Washington&#39;s basketball team would look like had Nate Robinson turned pro, last night they got a look at the possibilities.", "Business travel specialist Hogg Robinson revives plans to list on the stock exchange, a week after shelving the move.", "If the Giants know whether Eli Manning will play Sunday against the Packers, they have done a masterful job of hiding it.", "After a season plagued by injuries and a bad attitude, Glenn Robinson recognized it was time to get serious, get in shape and get ready to prove he still has some bite in his game.", "Craig Robinson believes you can tell a lot about a guy by how he plays basketball, which is why he liked Barack Obama long before the Democrat decided to run for president.", "England goalkeeper Paul Robinson plans to repay Steve McClaren&#39;s faith by frustrating Russia in Wednesday&#39;s crucial Euro 2008 qualifier.", "Reggie White, one of the greatest players in N.F.L. history, played for the Philadelphia Eagles, the Green Bay Packers and the Carolina Panthers.", "Eli Manning has a bruised right shoulder and it is uncertain whether the Giants quarterback will play against the Green Bay Packers on Sunday." ]

[ "Francie Brady" ]

[ "young boys and girls", "When the Boys Meet the Girls", "reign name", "What's Happening!!", "things are what they are", "The Street with No Name", "chemical names", "A domain name", "What If It's You", "What Are Words", "brand names", "What Car?", "For What It's Worth", "Be What You Are" ]

[ "What are some examples of cultural relativism?" ]

[ "What are some of the criticisms of cultural relativism?", "What is relativism? What are some examples?", "What is cultural integration? What are some examples of cultural integration?", "What are cultural myths? What are some examples?", "What are some examples of cultural integration?", "What is cultural geography and what are some examples?", "What is cultural diffusion in sociology and what are some examples?", "What are some contemporary examples of cultural imperialism?", "What is an example of mass culture theory?", "Why is spirit animal an example of cultural appropriation?", "What are some examples regarding the effect of socio-cultural environments in business?", "What are subcultures? What are some examples?", "What is isolationism? What are some examples?", "What are some examples of Kantianism?", "What are some cultural faux pas in Singapore?", "What are some examples of values?", "What are some examples of isolationism?", "What is analogy? What are some examples?", "What are some ways in which the American culture is different from the Chinese culture?", "What are some examples of ethics?", "What is a paradox? What are some examples?", "What are examples of companies getting cross-cultural communication right?", "What is Matching Principle? What are some examples of it?", "What are some examples of nationalities?", "What is media convergence? What are some examples?", "What is acknowledgement? What are some examples?", "What are some examples of hyperbole?", "What's the definition of culture?", "What are some examples of RNA?", "What are some examples of metaphors?", "Is culture equal?", "What are some real life examples of fallacies?" ]

[ "The world’s last surviving male northern white rhinoceros, Sudan, died Monday at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy (OPC) in Kenya, potentially dooming the species to extinction. The only known surviving members of the species are two females, Najin and Fatu, who are Sudan’s daughter and granddaughter respectively.\nThe animal was suffering from age-related issues that gave him skin wounds, and also caused degeneration of the bones and muscles. In the last 24 hours before his death, he was suffering greatly and couldn’t even stand, due to an infection in his right hind leg, leading his veterinary team to make the decision to euthanize him.\nThe species (there is still ongoing debate whether it is a distinct species or a subspecies of the white rhinoceros) is called Ceratotherium simum cottoni and is thought to have gone extinct in the wild over 10 years ago, even though it is still listed as critically endangered (possible extinct in the wild) in the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species, an entry that was last updated in 2011.\nSudan was used as a poster-boy by OPC during a fund-raising campaign it did last year with Tinder, in which the rhino was called “the most eligible bachelor in the world” and proceeds from which would go toward research on artificial reproductive techniques for the animals. Given his age and other complications, Sudan was unable to mate with either of the two females. And even if that had been successful, there were concerns about the species’ longevity due to inbreeding, and a narrowing gene pool.\nPhoto: Reuters/Baz Ratner\nGenetic material from Sudan was collected before he died, in the hope that medical breakthroughs of the future would allow using that to birth northern white rhinos. These techniques could involve individuals from the closely related species, the southern white rhinoceros (both of these are regarded by some taxonomists as subspecies of the white rhinoceros species), used as surrogates.\nAfter being caught in the wild at the age of 3, Sudan spent much of his life in the Dvůr Králové Zoo in the Czech Republic, which also owns the surviving females of the species. All three animals (and another, who died in 2014) were moved to OPC in 2009 as part of a breeding program, in the hope that a more natural environment may induce the animals to procreate. All surviving northern white rhinos were watched by armed wardens round the clock.\n“We on Ol Pejeta are all saddened by Sudan’s death. He was a great ambassador for his species and will be remembered for the work he did to raise awareness globally of the plight facing not only rhinos, but also the many thousands of other species facing extinction as a result of unsustainable human activity. One day, his demise will hopefully be seen as a seminal moment for conservationists world-wide,” Richard Vigne, CEO of the conservancy, said reacting to Sudan’s death.\nSome other well-known names also expressed their disappointment." ]

[ "There may only be two female northern white rhinos left alive, but there is still hope the 'doomed' species could come back from the brink of extinction.\nFor the first time, scientists have managed to create hybrid embryos of the northern white rhino (NWR) — the world's most endangered mammal.\nResearchers have successfully developed rhinoceros embryos to the blastocyst stage, which means they are ready for implantation in a surrogate.\nThe last male northern white rhino, Sudan, died in Kenya at the age of 45 in March.\nScroll down for video\nThe world's last male northern white rhino, Sudan, died in Kenya at the age of 45 in March. For the first time researchers have successfully developed rhinoceros embryos to the blastocyst stage — potentially ready for implantation\nResearchers led by Dr Thomas Hildebrandt from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research have created hybrid rhinoceros embryos and derived stem cells from these using in vitro fertilisation, or IVF.\nTo create the lab-grown embryo, researchers used thawed sperm from previously frozen northern white rhino males.\nGiven the dwindling number of available northern white rhino female eggs (oocytes), researchers fertilised eggs from a closely related subspecies, the southern white rhinoceros (SWR).\nThe resulting hybrid NWR‒SWR embryos developed to the blastocyst stage.\nThese successful embryos have been frozen for possible implantation into surrogate southern white rhinoceros females in the future.\nThe next challenge will be to transfer the frozen embryos to the surrogate mothers to establish and carry the pregnancy to term.\nResearchers also plan to harvest eggs from the two living female NWRs.\nThe study 'raises hopes that genes from the functionally extinct northern white rhino subspecies can be conserved,' researchers said.\nExperts had worried resurrecting the subspecies using frozen cells could create a heavily inbred population.\nHowever, research from May suggested that the species has enough diversity in its DNA to survive this 'genetic bottleneck'.\nThere may only be two northern white rhinos (pictured) left alive, but scientists say there is hope yet to bring the 'doomed' mammals back from the brink of extinction\nHOW DO SCIENTISTS HOPE TO SAVE THE NORTHERN WHITE RHINO USING IVF? Scientists are hoping to use IVF and stem cell techniques developed for humans to resurrect the northern white rhino - but the process is fraught with challenges While the death of Sudan marks a symbolic turning point in the fight to save the northern white rhino, in fact the survival of the species has been entirely reliant on untested IVF techniques for years. It was hoped that Sudan, his daughter Najin and granddaughter Patu might be able to produce offspring when they were moved to Kenya in 2009, but their close genetic relationship rendered them infertile. Since at least 2015 scientists have been working with IVF and stem cell techniques in the hopes of being able to create a viable northern white rhino embryo, according to a GoFundMe page for the project. Researchers in Berlin and San Diego are using DNA samples collected from a dozen northern whites, including Sudan, and trying to apply techniques developed for humans to the animal. If a viable embryo can be created, it would then have to be implanted into the womb of a southern white rhino, since Majin and Patu will likely be dead before the technique is perfected. While the southern white rhino would be responsible for giving birth to the baby, because the infant's genetic material came solely from northern whites, it would be a member of that species. However, as Save The Rhino points out, the process is fraught with difficulty and has a low chance of success. In the last 15 years just 10 rhino births have resulted from artificial insemination and only two embryos have ever been created - one of which divided into two cells before perishing, and the other one into three. For the northern white rhino to be genetically viable a minimum of 20 healthy individuals must be born - meaning the whole process must be successfully completed 20 times - to avoid inbreeding. Then, it would be necessary to find a suitable habitat for them, since their old habitat has largely been destroyed and led the species to the brink of extinction in the first place.\nDuring such a bottleneck, only a small number of animals contribute to the gene pool, which leads to a weaker species that struggles against disease outbreaks and environmental changes.\nThe closely-related SWR recovered from near-extinction itself, following a sharp drop in numbers driven by poaching and habitat destruction.\nIn the early 20th century the subspecies was world's most endangered rhino with just 20 left alive, however, there are now more than 20,000 living in the wild.\nScientists said the northern white could make a similar recovery through conservation efforts that make use of frozen cell lines.\nThe world's last male northern white rhino, Sudan, is survived by just two females – his daughter Najin and granddaughter Fatu.\nIn vitro fertilization is used in the cattle industry to breed more robust herds, and a Cape buffalo was conceived through IVF for the first time in 2016.\nSudan was survived by just two females - his daughter Najin (left) and granddaughter Fatu (right). Semen from dead northern white rhinos is stored in various locations around the world, and the result provides hope for those looking to resurrect the northern white\nSupporters believe the work could be used to help other endangered species, while some conservationists believe the focus should be on other critically endangered species, including the Javan and Sumatran rhinos, that have suffered because of poaching and human encroachment on habitats.\nNorthern white rhinos were particularly vulnerable because of conflicts that swept their central African range.\nThe last ones in the wild were observed more than a decade ago in Congo's Garamba National Park, a frequent target of well-armed poachers.\nThe 'much-hyped' plan for rhino in vitro fertilization is probably too late to save the northern white subspecies, according to Save the Rhino, a London-based group. Pictured is Sudan, the world's last male northern white, shortly before he died in March\nThe 'much-hyped' plan for rhino in vitro fertilization is probably too late to save the northern white subspecies, according to Save the Rhino, a London-based group.\n'With small chance of healthy new calves, and limited place in their historic range to go, Save the Rhino believes that the best outcome will be to put our efforts and funding - including research into IVF - into saving the species which do still have a chance,' it said on its website.\n'The real fight for the survival of northern white rhinos in their natural habitat was lost over a decade ago,' Jo Shaw, African rhino expert with the WWF conservation group, told the Associated Press in March.\n'Large mammals, like rhinos, should be seen as symbols of large functioning ecosystems and we must focus our efforts and energy on their protection and ongoing survival within these vital landscapes around the globe.'", "The last male northern white rhino has died in Kenya, keepers have confirmed.\nThe 45-year-old animal died from \"age-related complications\", leaving only two females of his subspecies alive.\nIn a statement, the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya said the rhino, called Sudan, was put down after his condition \"worsened significantly\" and he was unable to stand.\nScientists have gathered his genetic material and are working on developing in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) to save his subspecies.\nImage: A caregiver calms Sudan, the last known male of the northern white rhinoceros subspecies\nIn a statement, the zoo wrote: \"Sudan will be remembered for his unusually memorable life.\n\"In the 1970s, he escaped extinction of his kind in the wild when he was moved to Dvůr Králové Zoo. Throughout his existence, he significantly contributed to survival of his species as he sired two females.\n\"Additionally, his genetic material was collected yesterday and provides a hope for future attempts at reproduction of northern white rhinos through advanced cellular technologies.\n\"During his final years, Sudan came back to Africa and stole the heart of many with his dignity and strength.\"\nRichard Vigne, Ol Pejeta's CEO, said: \"We on Ol Pejeta are all saddened by Sudan's death.\nImage: Maasai warriors pose with Sudan, who died at the age of 45\n\"He was a great ambassador for his species and will be remembered for the work he did to raise awareness globally of the plight facing not only rhinos, but also the many thousands of other species facing extinction as a result of unsustainable human activity.\n\"One day, his demise will hopefully be seen as a seminal moment for conservationists worldwide.\"\nThe northern white rhino population in Uganda, Sudan, Chad and Central African Republic was largely wiped out by poachers in the 1970s and 1980s, fuelled by a demand for rhino horn in traditional Chinese medicine and dagger handles in Yemen.\nFour fertile northern white rhinos, two male and two female, were moved from a zoo in the Czech Republic to Ol Pejeta with high hopes they would breed in an environment similar to their native habitat.\nAlthough they were seen mating, there were no successful pregnancies.\nImage: Care giver Peter crouches next to Najin, the older of only two remaining female northern white rhinoceros subspecies\nThe other male rhino, Suni, died of natural causes in October 2014.\nJan Stejskal, Director of International Projects at the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic, said: \"Sudan was the last northern white rhino that was born in the wild. His death is a cruel symbol of human disregard for nature and it saddened everyone who knew him.\n\"But we should not give up. We must take advantage of the unique situation in which cellular technologies are utilised for conservation of critically endangered species. It may sound unbelievable, but thanks to the newly developed techniques even Sudan could still have an offspring.\"", "Sudan, the last northern white rhino, died early this year, but it may not be the end of the line.\nScientists have created hybrid white rhinoceros embryos in the lab using frozen sperm from extinct male northern white rhinoceros.\nRhino teaser Key points This is the first time artificial reproductive technologies have been used to extract eggs from rhinos\nThe eggs from southern white rhinos have been combined with frozen sperm from northern rhinos to produce hybrid embryos in the lab\nThe embryos will be implanted in surrogate mothers\nIt has a long way to go, but scientists hope this technology could eventually be used to save the northern white rhino and other endangered species\nTheir work is the latest step in an attempt to bring the most endangered mammal on Earth back from the brink.\nOnly two female northern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum cottoni) still exist.\nThe last male northern white rhino, Sudan, died earlier this year.\nGlobal pioneer in reproductive science Thomas Hildebrandt has watched the decline of the subspecies of the iconic animal over the past 20 years.\n\"I think science can bring back this magnificent creature,\" Professor Hildebrandt said.\n\"We may need a little bit of luck, but I think what we can demonstrate already is quite impressive.\"\nProfessor Hildebrandt and colleagues have shown for the first time that artificial reproduction techniques can be successfully used to create rhino embryos, they report in the journal Nature Communications.\nThey have also proven the ability to generate embryonic stem cells, which could potentially produce more eggs and sperm.\nCreating embryos using frozen sperm\nArtificial reproduction techniques have never been attempted before in the rhino, said study co-author Marilyn Renfree.\n\"This is the first time it's been done in this species because it's a very large animal and has a particular shape to its reproductive tract,\" Professor Renfree of the University of Melbourne said.\nAbout the size of an SUV, the white rhinoceros is the largest of all rhino species.\nThere are two subspecies: the almost-extinct northern white rhinoceros, and their cousins the southern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum)\nShare Southern white rhinoceros will play surrogate mothers to embryos created through artificial reproductive technologies.\nUsing a specially designed tool, the team harvested eggs from live southern white rhinos and combined them with frozen sperm that had been previously collected from northern white males and stored in sperm banks.\nThe frozen sperm was a bit sluggish at first, but after zapping it with electricity the team were able to successfully produce early-stage embryos known as blastocysts.\nThe team also used eggs and sperm from the southern white rhinoceros to create pure embryos.\nThree of the early-stage embryos — two hybrid and one pure — have been cryofrozen.\nThe team plan to implant embryos into southern white rhino females to see if the surrogate mothers can carry a pregnancy to term.\n\"We have several of these embryos in high quality,\" Professor Hildebrandt said.\nThe quest to create a northern white rhino baby\nWhile this phase of the work aims to create hybrid calves, the goal of the project is to create a pure northern white rhino calf.\nTo do this, the team plan to harvest eggs from the last two females —Sudan's daughter Najin and granddaughter Fatu, which live at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Laikipia national park in Kenya.\nShare Fatu and Najin graze at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Laikipia national park, Kenya.\n\"Before we collect the [eggs] … we need proof of concept that the embryo transfer with hybrid embryos is working,\" Professor Hildebrandt said.\nIt is also unclear at this stage whether or not Najin and Fatu will have viable eggs, he said.\n\"Nobody has any idea about how they look inside. The younger female is 18, the older female is 26, so we're running out of time.\"\nIf the team can produce a pure white rhino calf they could use the stem cell technology, which they used in this paper, to produce a line of northern white rhino eggs from embryonic stem cells.\n\"We need one or two northern white rhino female calves, then I think we are all go for sure,\" Professor Hildebrandt said.\nProfessor Renfree said the work still had a long way to go, but it was a proof of principle.\n\"This is a stunning result,\" she said.\n\"I don't know if it'll ever save the northern white rhino … but it certainly is a great step in the right direction.\"\nShould we bring animals back from near extinction?\nWhile powerful in their scope, using artificial technologies to save near-extinct species, such as the northern white rhinoceros is controversial.\nConservation biologist Guy Castley of the Environmental Futures Research Institute at Griffith University applauded the team's work.\n\"They've made some big strides in advancing what has been known about artificial reproductive technologies and using IVF potentially to rescue genetic material for a species on the brink of extinction,\" said Dr Castley, who was not involved in the research.\nVideo Player failed to load. Play Press play then disable your screen reader. Use space bar to pause or play, and up and down arrows to control volume. Use left arrow to rewind and right arrow to fast forward.\nBut, he said, it does not address the bigger picture issues such as poaching and habitat loss that led to demise of the species in the first place.\n\"If we were able to secure those rhinos they may end up with a life kept in captivity because there's just no space for them to go in their natural environment.\"\nIt would also take time to build up a viable herd, said Dr Castley, who has worked with the southern white rhino in the past.\n\"You'd have to have multiple surrogate females and multiple [embryos] that you can then generate an insurance population,\" he said.\n\"Once that happens, the rhinos would have to get to an age where they would be able to breed, so you're looking at 10 years old.\"\nWith only two live northern white females and sperm from four males available, genetic diversity has been raised as another issue.\nBut Professor Hildebrandt is optimistic boosting the genetic gene pool could be achieved by using stem cell technology to create eggs from frozen skin cells of 12 different northern white rhinos stored in cell banks around the world.\n\"It is not just our goal to produce one live northern white rhino — we are now pretty sure we can produce it in the next three years — but we can also produce a wider genetic population.\"\nThe technique, inspired by the work of the 2012 Nobel Prize winners, has been proven to work in mice by Japanese scientist Katsuhiko Hayashi, another member of the team.\n\"The southern white rhino was nearly extinct at the beginning of the 20th century, there were less than 50 individuals left and now we have more than 20,000,\" Professor Hildebrandt said.\n\"And their genetic variation is lower than what we have with these 12 samples.\"\nLast-ditch effort could save other species\nProfessor Renfree said having low biological diversity was better than not having the animals at all.\n\"There have been many, many, many attempts to save rhinos by classical conservation methods and they've all failed,\" she pointed out.\n\"This is the last possible step to save these guys.\"\nThe technology and the techniques developed by the team could also be used to help prevent the extinction of other large animals and related species such as the Sumatran rhino.\nShare It is estimated that there are fewer than 100 Sumatran rhinoceros left in the wild.\n\"If you really want to be successful you start doing it a lot earlier than the last few animals.\"\nDr Castley agreed.\n\"I would hate to see another species go extinct,\" he said.\n\"We weren't able to take control of the situation and read the signs fast enough to do anything for the northern white rhino … but we might still be able to do something for other threatened species.\n\"If this research can assist with the progression and the development of novel technologies that can assist with those efforts then we should be using that,\" he said.", "Months after the death of Sudan, the world's last male northern white rhino, scientists said on Wednesday they have grown embryos containing DNA of his kind, hoping to save the subspecies from extinction.\nWith only two northern white rhino (NWR) known to be alive today - both infertile females - the team hopes their breakthrough technique will lead to the re-establishment of a viable NWR breeding population.\n\"Our goal is to have in three years the first NWR calf born,\" Thomas Hildebrandt, head of reproduction management at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, told journalists of the work.\n\"Taking into account 16 months (of) pregnancy, we have a little more than a year to have a successful implantation.\"\n* Sign up to News24's top Africa news in your inbox: SUBSCRIBE TO THE HELLO AFRICA NEWSLETTER\nFOLLOW News24 Africa on Twitter and Facebook\nThe team's work, using a recently-patented, 2m egg extraction device, resulted in the first-ever test tube-produced rhino embryos.\nNow frozen, these \"have a very high chance to establish a pregnancy once implanted into a surrogate mother,\" said Hildebrandt.\nThe hybrid embryos were created with frozen sperm from dead NWR males and the eggs of southern white rhino (SWR) females, of which there are thousands left on Earth.\nThe eggs were harvested from rhinos in European zoos.\nThe team now hopes to use the technique to collect eggs from the last two northern white rhinos - Najin and Fatu, the daughter and granddaughter of Sudan. They live in a Kenyan national park.\nRisk and reward\nBy fertilising these with northern white rhino sperm and implanting the resulting embryos in surrogate southern white rhino females, the team intends to create a new, fledgling NWR population.\n\"Our results indicate that ART (assisted reproduction techniques) could be a viable strategy to rescue genes from the iconic, almost extinct, northern white rhinoceros,\" the team wrote in the journal Nature Communications.\nThe researchers have sought permission to harvest eggs from Najin and Fatu in Kenya, hopefully before the end of the year.\nBut the procedure is not without risk: \"we have to do a full anaesthesia, the animal is down for two hours, and it is quite a risky situation\" for the last two of their kind, conceded Hildebrandt.\n\"We are highly afraid something unexpected would happen, that would be a nightmare.\"\nIn the meantime, the team will practice, implanting some of their hybrid embryos into SWR surrogates \"to test the system\".\nAny hybrids born as a result may play a crucial future role as surrogates, sharing more genes with northern rhinos than purely southern surrogates.\nThere is, however, a key obstacle to the team's envisaged NWR repopulation.\nWith only two NWR females left and all the available semen from only four dead males, ART alone would likely lead to a population without the genetic diversity required for a species to thrive.\nCan it work?\nTo this end, the researchers hope to use stem cell technology to engineer eggs and sperm from the frozen skin cells of 12 dead northern white rhinos, unrelated to one another.\n\"This would enlarge the founding diversity of the future NWR population substantially,\" the team said in a statement.\nThere is time pressure, they pointed out, with only two animals still around to socialise the babies in the mysterious ways of northern white rhinos.\n\"It is a motivating aspect to succeed as soon a possible so the calf that we produce can grow up with Najin and Fatu,\" said Hildebrandt.\nTerri Roth and William Swanson of the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, in a comment on the study, said ART alone cannot save a species from extinction.\n\"Impressive results in a Petri dish don't easily translate into a herd of healthy offspring,\" wrote the duo, not involved in the research.\n\"Achieving the latter requires navigating an untrodden path fraught with obstacles, and it remains unlikely that a viable population of northern white rhinos will be restored.\"\nFor the researchers, however, a combination of ART and stem cell techniques, could \"provide a blueprint on how to save highly endangered species that have already dwindled to numbers that make conventional conservation efforts impossible.\"", "Najin (L) and Fatu are the only two northern white rhino known to be alive today - both are infertile females Months after the death of Sudan, the world's last male northern white rhino, scientists said Wednesday they have grown embryos containing DNA of his kind, hoping to save the subspecies from extinction.\nWith only two northern white rhino (NWR) known to be alive today—both infertile females—the team hopes their breakthrough technique will lead to the re-establishment of a viable NWR breeding population.\n\"Our goal is to have in three years the first NWR calf born,\" Thomas Hildebrandt, head of reproduction management at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, told journalists of the work.\n\"Taking into account 16 months (of) pregnancy, we have a little more than a year to have a successful implantation.\"\nThe team's work, using a recently-patented, two-metre (6.6-foot) egg extraction device, resulted in the first-ever test tube-produced rhino embryos.\nNow frozen, these \"have a very high chance to establish a pregnancy once implanted into a surrogate mother,\" said Hildebrandt.\nThe hybrid embryos were created with frozen sperm from dead NWR males and the eggs of southern white rhino (SWR) females, of which there are thousands left on Earth.\nThe eggs were harvested from rhinos in European zoos.\nThe team now hopes to use the technique to collect eggs from the last two northern white rhinos—Najin and Fatu, the daughter and granddaughter of Sudan. They live in a Kenyan national park.\nRisk and reward\nBy fertilising these with northern white rhino sperm and implanting the resulting embryos in surrogate southern white rhino females, the team intends to create a new, fledgling NWR population.\n\"Our results indicate that ART (assisted reproduction techniques) could be a viable strategy to rescue genes from the iconic, almost extinct, northern white rhinoceros,\" the team wrote in the journal Nature Communications.\nThe researchers have sought permission to harvest eggs from Najin and Fatu in Kenya, hopefully before the end of the year.\nBut the procedure is not without risk: \"we have to do a full anaesthesia, the animal is down for two hours, and it is quite a risky situation\" for the last two of their kind, conceded Hildebrandt.\n\"We are highly afraid something unexpected would happen, that would be a nightmare.\"\nIn the meantime, the team will practice, implanting some of their hybrid embryos into SWR surrogates \"to test the system\".\nAny hybrids born as a result may play a crucial future role as surrogates, sharing more genes with northern rhinos than purely southern surrogates.\nThere is, however, a key obstacle to the team's envisaged NWR repopulation.\nWith only two NWR females left and all the available semen from only four dead males, ART alone would likely lead to a population without the genetic diversity required for a species to thrive.\nCan it work?\nTo this end, the researchers hope to use stem cell technology to engineer eggs and sperm from the frozen skin cells of 12 dead northern white rhinos, unrelated to one another.\n\"This would enlarge the founding diversity of the future NWR population substantially,\" the team said in a statement.\nThere is time pressure, they pointed out, with only two animals still around to socialise the babies in the mysterious ways of northern white rhinos.\n\"It is a motivating aspect to succeed as soon a possible so the calf that we produce can grow up with Najin and Fatu,\" said Hildebrandt.\nTerri Roth and William Swanson of the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, in a comment on the study, said ART alone cannot save a species from extinction.\n\"Impressive results in a Petri dish don't easily translate into a herd of healthy offspring,\" wrote the duo, not involved in the research.\n\"Achieving the latter requires navigating an untrodden path fraught with obstacles, and it remains unlikely that a viable population of northern white rhinos will be restored.\"\nFor the researchers, however, a combination of ART and stem cell techniques, could \"provide a blueprint on how to save highly endangered species that have already dwindled to numbers that make conventional conservation efforts impossible.\"\nExplore further: Rhino in San Diego pregnant, could help save subspecies", "FILE: With only two northern white rhino (NWR) known to be alive today -- both infertile females -- the team hopes their breakthrough technique will lead to the re-establishment of a viable NWR breeding population. Photo: Flickr.com / Wellcome Images\nPARIS - Months after the death of Sudan, the world's last male northern white rhino, scientists said Wednesday they have grown embryos containing DNA of his kind, hoping to save the subspecies from extinction.\nWith only two northern white rhino (NWR) known to be alive today -- both infertile females -- the team hopes their breakthrough technique will lead to the re-establishment of a viable NWR breeding population.\n\"Our goal is to have in three years the first NWR calf born,\" Thomas Hildebrandt, head of reproduction management at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, told journalists of the work.\n\"Taking into account 16 months (of) pregnancy, we have a little more than a year to have a successful implantation.\"\nThe team's work, using a recently-patented, two-metre (6.6-foot) egg extraction device, resulted in the first-ever test tube-produced rhino embryos.\nNow frozen, these \"have a very high chance to establish a pregnancy once implanted into a surrogate mother,\" said Hildebrandt.\nThe hybrid embryos were created with frozen sperm from dead NWR males and the eggs of southern white rhino (SWR) females, of which there are thousands left on Earth.\nThe eggs were harvested from rhinos in European zoos.\nThe team now hopes to use the technique to collect eggs from the last two northern white rhinos -- Najin and Fatu, the daughter and granddaughter of Sudan. They live in a Kenyan national park.\nRisk and reward\nBy fertilising these with northern white rhino sperm and implanting the resulting embryos in surrogate southern white rhino females, the team intends to create a new, fledgeling NWR population.\n\"Our results indicate that ART (assisted reproduction techniques) could be a viable strategy to rescue genes from the iconic, almost extinct, northern white rhinoceros,\" the team wrote in the journal Nature Communications.\nThe researchers have sought permission to harvest eggs from Najin and Fatu in Kenya, hopefully before the end of the year.\nBut the procedure is not without risk: \"we have to do a full anaesthesia, the animal is down for two hours, and it is quite a risky situation\" for the last two of their kind, conceded Hildebrandt.\n\"We are highly afraid something unexpected would happen, that would be a nightmare.\"\nIn the meantime, the team will practice, implanting some of their hybrid embryos into SWR surrogates \"to test the system\".\nAny hybrids born as a result may play a crucial future role as surrogates, sharing more genes with northern rhinos than purely southern surrogates.\nThere is, however, a key obstacle to the team's envisaged NWR repopulation.\nWith only two NWR females left and all the available semen from only four dead males, ART alone would likely lead to a population without the genetic diversity required for a species to thrive.\nCan it work\nTo this end, the researchers hope to use stem cell technology to engineer eggs and sperm from the frozen skin cells of 12 dead northern white rhinos, unrelated to one another.\n\"This would enlarge the founding diversity of the future NWR population substantially,\" the team said in a statement.\nThere is time pressure, they pointed out, with only two animals still around to socialise the babies in the mysterious ways of northern white rhinos.\n\"It is a motivating aspect to succeed as soon a possible so the calf that we produce can grow up with Najin and Fatu,\" said Hildebrandt.\nTerri Roth and William Swanson of the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, in a comment on the study, said ART alone cannot save a species from extinction.\n\"Impressive results in a Petri dish don't easily translate into a herd of healthy offspring,\" wrote the duo, not involved in the research.\n\"Achieving the latter requires navigating an untrodden path fraught with obstacles, and it remains unlikely that a viable population of northern white rhinos will be restored.\"\nFor the researchers, however, a combination of ART and stem cell techniques, could \"provide a blueprint on how to save highly endangered species that have already dwindled to numbers that make conventional conservation efforts impossible.\"\nAFP", "FILE: Scientists have used in-vitro fertilization techniques to develop hybrid rhino embryos -- \"test-tube rhinos\" -- which could help save the endangered northern white rhinoceros species.\n(CNN) — Scientists have used in-vitro fertilization techniques to develop hybrid rhino embryos — “test-tube rhinos” — which could help save the endangered northern white rhinoceros species, according to a new study.\nThe team was also able to extract stem cell lines from southern white rhino embryos, a closely related subspecies to northern white rhinos, which could be used to make reproductive cells such as eggs and sperm to create embryos.\nThese techniques could become a valuable tool in the conservation of rhino populations, according to the research published Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications.\n“It shows for the first time that modern technology can offer some options for conservation when the situation gets very bad, when species become endangered, such as the case of the northern white rhino,” said Cesare Galli, who works at Avantea’s laboratory of reproductive technologies and was one of the authors of the report.\nThe northern white rhinoceros is the most endangered mammal in the world. Sudan, the northern white rhino’s last male — once called the “most eligible bachelor in the world” by the dating app Tinder — died in March. That leaves only two females, Najin and Fatu, to represent the subspecies,\nOver the past two decades, attempts at establishing a sustainable northern white rhino population — including natural breeding programs as well as artificial insemination — have been unsuccessful, according to Jan Stejskal, director of communication and international projects at the Dvůr Králové Zoo in the Czech Republic, who was involved in the study.\nRecent efforts to repopulate the northern white rhino have been hamstrung by the fact that both Najin and Fatu are infertile, according to the study.\nHowever, scientists believed that assisted reproduction technologies used on equines could also be transferred to northern white rhinos as a way boosting their reproductive capacity, the study says.\nAmong horses, assisted reproduction technologies have resulted in pregnancy 50% of the time, according to Galli.\nUsing similar techniques, the scientists were able to fertilize southern white rhinoceros eggs taken from different females in European zoos with previously frozen northern white rhinoceros sperm, creating hybrid embryos. The procedure had never been attempted among northern and southern white rhinos, according to the study.\nThe embryos have been frozen for possible implantation.\n“What we’ve done is very similar to what’s done to couples with fertility problems,” Galli said. “We’ve made a test-tube rhino.”\nEmbryo transfer — or the use of a surrogate mother — has never been accomplished in rhinos, according to Roth. Nonetheless, if successful, the goal is to create a population of hybrid rhinos — both southern white and northern white rhinos.\nSeveral generations of intensive interbreeding would dilute out the southern white rhino genes, “getting us to the point where we basically have a 99% northern white rhino,” says Terri Roth, vice-president of conservation and science and CREW director at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, who was not involved in the study.\nSperm, eggs and Petri dishes\nThe extraction of stem cell lines from southern white rhino embryos was another outcome of the research, according to the study.\nBy creating embryo stem cell lines from southern white rhinos, scientists demonstrated what Roth calls “proof of concept,” meaning that if you could achieve this outcome with a southern white rhino, you could ostensibly achieve a similar outcome in the northern white rhino.\nIt’s a feat that, in theory, would allow the research team to produce sperm and eggs from the cells, which could then hypothetically be used to create northern white rhino embryos, according to Roth.\nIn the future, they also hope to use frozen skin cells taken from 13 northern white rhinos to create induced pluripotent stem cells. These cells are adult cells, such as blood or skin cells, that are reprogrammed to act like stem cells. From these, sperm and eggs could be derived, which can in turn be used to create the embryo.\nThe embryos could then be implanted in a surrogate mother, most likely a southern white rhino, to produce a northern white rhino.\n“The beauty of it is that we have a southern white rhino that is very closely related to the northern white rhino, and it’s very likely that a southern white rhino could carry a northern white embryo to term,” Roth said.\nHowever, because of the complexity around creating pure northern white rhino embryos, Galli estimates that it will take 10 years to accomplish.\nThe future of conservation\nAs more species slide towards extinction, the use of assisted reproductive technologies as a conservation mechanism has entered the spotlight.\nMany scientists see these technologies as a valuable tool in the repopulation of disappearing species. Artificial insemination — an assisted reproductive technology — has been used to produce offspring with 60 mammals, including the giant panda, black-footed ferret and Asian elephant, and 35 non-domestic birds.\nYet the use of assisted reproduction for wildlife conservation is still rare, according to a paper co-authored by Roth, having been met with a lot of resistance from within the animal conservation community.\nFor Galli, it’s a a simple matter of using the best tools at your disposal.\n“Many people working in conservation are strongly against using biotechnologies, which seems crazy, because if you have the technology, why not use it for the good?” he said.\nBurgeoning new technology — such as the methods used in this study — may offer promising alternatives for conservation efforts, but technology is not a panacea for wildlife conservation, according to Roth.\n“The concern in the conservation community is that people will hear this and think, ‘We can save the rhinos with science and then become more complacent about the other strategies we have in action now,’ ” Roth said.\nRoth doesn’t believe that one size will fit all. Rather, she urges for multiple strategies — including forest conservation, natural breeding programs, the use of rangers to guard against poaching and assisted reproductive technologies — to be used in wildlife conservation.\n“We should be working on all fronts,” Roth said.\n“It’s very unfortunate that we find ourselves in this situation. I do think that if there’s one thing we should learn from this, it’s that we shouldn’t allow species to get to such a critical state that these high-tech approaches are the only ways of saving its genes.”\nThe-CNN-Wire™ & © 2018 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.", "Image copyright Reuters Image caption Sudan, the last male northern white rhino, died in March 2018\nThe seemingly \"disastrous\" story of the world's most endangered mammal - the northern white rhino - could be rewritten by IVF, scientists claim.\nThey used the method to produce rhino embryos with sperm from two dead males.\nThe embryos were made using eggs from a closely related sub-species, but the scientists say the method could save the northern white rhino.\nOne of the team said he hoped a baby that's fully northern white rhino would be born \"within three years\".\nThis could provide a way of \"rescuing valuable genes\" from a sub-species that is already functionally extinct; the last male northern white rhino, named Sudan, died earlier this year at the age of 45.\nOnly two females now remain, but the researchers who carried out this project say their carefully-developed method of assisted reproduction could work with eggs harvested from those two precious animals.\nHow do you carry out rhino IVF?\nImage copyright NAture Communications Image caption The researchers extracted microscopic eggs using a needle guided by ultrasound\nIn the journal Nature Communications, Prof Thomas Hildebrandt, from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, and his international team of colleagues, described the complexities of safely extracting an egg, or oocyte, from a two-tonne female rhino.\n\"You can't reach the ovaries by hand, so we developed a special device,\" Prof Hildebrandt explained to BBC News. \"We used ultrasound to very precisely inject a needle into [the area of the ovary that releases] eggs.\"\nThis was done while the female southern white rhino was under general anaesthetic, but the process is still very risky. Very close to the ovaries, Prof Hildebrandt explained, is a \"huge artery\" that if punctured would probably cause the rhino to bleed to death.\nBut once viable eggs were safely preserved, the team then had the challenge of fertilising them with sperm from male northern white rhinos - animals that died several years ago. They injected each egg with the sperm and used pulses of electrical current to stimulate the egg and sperm to fuse.\nThe result - viable embryos containing genetic material from a sub-species that is already functionally extinct.\n\"Everyone believed there was no hope for this sub-species,\" said Prof Hildebrandt. \"But with our knowledge now, we are very confident that this will work with northern white rhino eggs and that we will be able to produce a viable population.\"\nCould this bring back the northern white rhino?\nMedia playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Last male northern white rhino dies in Kenya\nThese researchers think so, and others around the world who have been involved in efforts to save the northern white rhino say it is an important step.\nBut Dr Terri Roth, from Cincinnati Zoo, said the team's suggestion that they would have a \"new baby on the ground\" within three years was \"optimistic\".\n\"Embryo transfer [into a surrogate mother] in rhinos is in its infancy and has not yet been successful in any rhino species,\" Dr Roth told BBC News.\n\"And there are just two female northern white rhinos alive today, so acquiring white rhino [eggs] will be challenging and their number will be limited. Any embryos produced would likely need to be cryopreserved (or frozen) until a surrogate could be set up.\"\nWhy are there so few northern white rhinos left?\nAs Dr Roth explained, poaching is the primary threat facing all rhino species.\n\"The most effective way to save rhinos from extinction is to stop the poaching, however, that has proven difficult,\" she told BBC News.\n\"In the late 1990s, even the wild northern white rhino had a chance to recover from low numbers until civil unrest broke out in the DRC and the rhinos were all killed.\"\nLoss of habitat is the other primary threat to rhinos, and conservationists say that governmental protection of parks and reserves is now essential.\n\"The proper legislation must be passed, the resources to enforce the regulations must be provided and the law must be upheld,\" said Dr Roth, who has worked in rhino conservation for more than two decades.\n\"It is important that we learn from the plight of the northern white rhino and we make sure what happened to it does not happen to other endangered species.\n\"As impressive as science can be, we should not reach a point where these hi-tech approaches are the only source of hope for rescuing genes of valuable individuals, sub-species or entire species.\"\nFollow Victoria on Twitter", "Scientists have used in-vitro fertilization techniques to develop hybrid rhino embryos – “test-tube rhinos” – which could help save the endangered northern white rhinoceros species, according to a new study.\nThe team was also able to extract stem cell lines from southern white rhino embryos, a closely related subspecies to northern white rhinos, which could be used to make reproductive cells such as eggs and sperm to create embryos.\nThese techniques could become a valuable tool in the conservation of rhino populations, according to the research published Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications.\n“It shows for the first time that modern technology can offer some options for conservation when the situation gets very bad, when species become endangered, such as the case of the northern white rhino,” said Cesare Galli, who works at Avantea’s laboratory of reproductive technologies and was one of the authors of the report.\nThe northern white rhinoceros is the most endangered mammal in the world. Sudan, the northern white rhino’s last male – once called the “most eligible bachelor in the world” by the dating app Tinder – died in March. That leaves only two females, Najin and Fatu, to represent the subspecies,\nOver the past two decades, attempts at establishing a sustainable northern white rhino population – including natural breeding programs as well as artificial insemination – have been unsuccessful, according to Jan Stejskal, director of communication and international projects at the Dvůr Králové Zoo in the Czech Republic, who was involved in the study.\nRecent efforts to repopulate the northern white rhino have been hamstrung by the fact that both Najin and Fatu are infertile, according to the study.\nHowever, scientists believed that assisted reproduction technologies used on equines could also be transferred to northern white rhinos as a way boosting their reproductive capacity, the study says.\nAmong horses, assisted reproduction technologies have resulted in pregnancy 50 percent of the time, according to Galli.\nUsing similar techniques, the scientists were able to fertilize southern white rhinoceros eggs taken from different females in European zoos with previously frozen northern white rhinoceros sperm, creating hybrid embryos. The procedure had never been attempted among northern and southern white rhinos, according to the study.\nThe embryos have been frozen for possible implantation.\n“What we’ve done is very similar to what’s done to couples with fertility problems,” Galli said. “We’ve made a test-tube rhino.”\nEmbryo transfer – or the use of a surrogate mother – has never been accomplished in rhinos, according to Roth. Nonetheless, if successful, the goal is to create a population of hybrid rhinos – both southern white and northern white rhinos.\nSeveral generations of intensive interbreeding would dilute out the southern white rhino genes, “getting us to the point where we basically have a 99 percent northern white rhino,” says Terri Roth, vice president of conservation and science and CREW director at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, who was not involved in the study.\nSperm, eggs and Petri dishes\nThe extraction of stem cell lines from southern white rhino embryos was another outcome of the research, according to the study.\nBy creating embryo stem cell lines from southern white rhinos, scientists demonstrated what Roth calls “proof of concept,” meaning that if you could achieve this outcome with a southern white rhino, you could ostensibly achieve a similar outcome in the northern white rhino.\nIt’s a feat that, in theory, would allow the research team to produce sperm and eggs from the cells, which could then hypothetically be used to create northern white rhino embryos, according to Roth.\nIn the future, they also hope to use frozen skin cells taken from 13 northern white rhinos to create induced pluripotent stem cells. These cells are adult cells, such as blood or skin cells, that are reprogrammed to act like stem cells. From these, sperm and eggs could be derived, which can in turn be used to create the embryo.\nThe embryos could then be implanted in a surrogate mother, most likely a southern white rhino, to produce a northern white rhino.\n“The beauty of it is that we have a southern white rhino that is very closely related to the northern white rhino, and it’s very likely that a southern white rhino could carry a northern white embryo to term,” Roth said.\nHowever, because of the complexity around creating pure northern white rhino embryos, Galli estimates that it will take 10 years to accomplish.\nThe future of conservation\nAs more species slide towards extinction, the use of assisted reproductive technologies as a conservation mechanism has entered the spotlight.\nMany scientists see these technologies as a valuable tool in the re-population of disappearing species. Artificial insemination – an assisted reproductive technology – has been used to produce offspring with 60 mammals, including the giant panda, black-footed ferret and Asian elephant, and 35 non-domestic birds.\nYet the use of assisted reproduction for wildlife conservation is still rare, according to a paper co-authored by Roth, having been met with a lot of resistance from within the animal conservation community.\nFor Galli, it’s a a simple matter of using the best tools at your disposal.\n“Many people working in conservation are strongly against using biotechnologies, which seems crazy, because if you have the technology, why not use it for the good?” he said.\nBurgeoning new technology – such as the methods used in this study – may offer promising alternatives for conservation efforts, but technology is not a panacea for wildlife conservation, according to Roth.\n“The concern in the conservation community is that people will hear this and think, ‘We can save the rhinos with science and then become more complacent about the other strategies we have in action now,'” Roth said.\nRoth doesn’t believe that one size will fit all. Rather, she urges for multiple strategies – including forest conservation, natural breeding programs, the use of rangers to guard against poaching and assisted reproductive technologies – to be used in wildlife conservation.\n“We should be working on all fronts,” Roth said.\n“It’s very unfortunate that we find ourselves in this situation. I do think that if there’s one thing we should learn from this, it’s that we shouldn’t allow species to get to such a critical state that these high-tech approaches are the only ways of saving its genes.”", "The survival prospects of the nearly extinct northern white rhinoceros seemed bleak for years. But their fate could turn around with an in-vitro fertilization method to develop “test-tube rhinos.”\nA paper published in the journal Nature Communications avers that scientists have used stored sperm from the last white rhino male – Sudan who died in March – to fertilize eggs from southern white rhinos, close relatives to the northern species.\nTwo of the resulting hybrid embryos, who started their lives in lab dishes, have been frozen for later implementation, although such a transfer procedure is yet to be developed for rhinos.\nWhile scientists have developed assisted-reproduction technologies for some 60 other large mammals such as cows and horses, this is the first time lab-grown rhino embryos have reached the point where they could be implanted into a uterus.\nResearchers hope they could build on their recent breakthrough and create pure white rhino embryos. To be able to do so, the team will need to extract eggs from the two remaining female white rhinos, Fatu and Najin, who live in a protected sanctuary in Kenya.\nAccording to NPR, the team awaits permission to obtain Fatu and Najin’s eggs. Jan Stejskal, of the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic, told the outlet he hopes his colleagues can collect the precious cells by the end of the year.\n“Our goal is that we have, in three years, the first northern white rhino calf born,” said Thomas Hildebrandt, of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin.\nBecause of the many biological and technological uncertainties that dot the leap from an embryo to a healthy rhino baby, scientists are looking into a years-long process and mulling different possibilities.\nFor one, the creation of hybrid northern and southern white rhinos could lead to nearly pure northern specimen after generations of inbreeding that would dilute southern genes.\nEmbryonic stem cell lines, which have been produced with the southern white rhino, provide another option. Hildebrandt said that the induction of sperm and eggs from northern white rhino’s blood or skin cells could take a decade. A southern white rhino could then carry the resultant embryos to full term.\nTerri Roth, director of the Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, however, sees tech-laded reproduction as “highly speculative” and an indication that all other conservation efforts have failed.\n“The concern in the conservation community is that people will hear this and think, ‘We can save the rhinos with science and then become more complacent about the other strategies we have in action now,'” Roth said as cited by CNN.", "Hope is in sight for the most endangered mammal on Earth after scientists used an IVF technique to create hybrid rhino embryos.\nFrozen sperm from male northern white rhinos – none of which remain alive on the planet – was thawed and used to fertilise eggs donated by females from a closely related sub-species.\nThe eggs successfully developed into early stage embryos, called blastocysts, ready for implantation into a rhino womb.\nIt is the first time the assisted reproduction technique, adapted from horses and cattle, has ever been used on rhinos.\nThe researchers hope it will enable them to pluck the northern white rhino from the brink of extinction.\nOnly two of the animals remain alive, protected around the clock by armed guards on a Kenyan conservation park, and both are female.\nAt a later stage the plan is to repeat the procedure using eggs from one or both of the surviving females.\nAdvertising\nThe resulting embryos would then contain all the genes necessary to produce a new generation of northern white rhinos (NWRs).\nProfessor Thomas Hildebrandt, from the German Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, said: “These are the first in-vitro (laboratory) produced rhinoceros embryos ever. They have a very high chance to establish a pregnancy once implanted into a surrogate mother.\n“Our results are solid, reproducible and very promising. Now we are well prepared to go to Kenya and collect oocytes (eggs) from the last two NWR females in order to produce pure NWR blastocysts where both eggs and sperm are from NWR.”\nThe last surviving male northern white rhino, named Sudan, died earlier this year at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, aged 45.\nAdvertising\nHis daughter and granddaughter, both of whom shared his home, are now the last two remaining members of the sub-species left alive.\nHowever scientists have a stock of stored frozen sperm from male northern white rhinos that could rescue the animal from extinction.\nUsing an IVF method called Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (Icsi), members of the international team injected NWR sperm directly into eggs donated by female southern white rhinos.\nThe southern white rhino is still quite numerous, with an estimated 21,000 of the animals living in South Africa today.\nFemale southern white rhinos could act as surrogate mothers for a fledgling NWR population, say the scientists whose results are reported in the journal Nature Communications.\nTo remove the eggs, the researchers patented an almost two metre long (6.5ft) needle device guided by ultrasound.\nMore than 20 egg collections were performed among southern white rhinos from European zoos.\nSeveral embryos have been frozen for future implantation into the wombs of surrogate mothers.\nThe procedure for carrying out the embryo transfers is still being developed.\nProfessor Cesare Galli, from the Avantea research laboratory in Cremona, Italy, which specialises in veterinary IVF, said: “In our lab we were able to develop procedures to mature the oocytes, fertilise them by Icsi and culture them.\n“For the first time we had rhino blastocysts – an early stage of an embryo – developed in-vitro, similarly to what we do routinely for cattle and horses.”\nSteven Seet, spokesman for the Leibniz Institute, said the scientists were in a “race against time”.\nHe added: “This research is groundbreaking. We are witnessing the development of a method that can help to compensate the negative impact of humans on nature.”", "Scientists say they are closer to preventing the extinction of northern white rhinos, of which only two are known to still be alive.\nScientists say they are closer to preventing the extinction of northern white rhinos, of which only two are known to still be alive.\nAccording to a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers have succeeded in creating embryos using frozen northern white rhino sperm and eggs from a southern white rhino, a closely related sub-species.\nFatu, left, and Najin are the only two female northern white rhinos left in the world (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)\nIt is the first time such hybrid embryos have been created and the scientists from Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic say it could provide a pathway to saving the critically endangered northern white rhino after the last male, called Sudan, died in March.\nThey plan to harvest the egg cells of the two surviving female rhinos soon and use preserved sperm to produce “pure” northern white rhino embryos.\nSince the females, a mother and daughter called Najin and Fatu, are unable to bear offspring themselves, the embryos would be implanted in a southern white rhino surrogate.\nWe are quite confident with the technology we have developed Thomas Hildebrandt, Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research “We are quite confident with the technology we have developed” https://www.independent.ie/world-news/embryo-breakthrough-could-save-northern-white-rhino-37081910.html “We are quite confident with the technology we have developed” https://www.independent.ie/world-news/embryo-breakthrough-could-save-northern-white-rhino-37081910.html\nIn order to increase the supply of eggs and preserve the northern white rhino’s genetic diversity, scientists are also working on a second method that would coax frozen skin cells from deceased animals into becoming egg cells, a procedure that has already succeeded in mice.\nThomas Hildebrandt, of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, said researchers hope the first northern white rhino calf will be born in about three years.\n“We are quite confident with the technology we have developed,” he said.\nSaving the northern white rhino has become an international effort, with co-operation but also some rivalry among scientists and institutions around the world, including zoos in San Diego and Cincinnati.\nSome experts have criticised the effort however, saying it comes too late.\n“I have no doubt that its purely scientific merit is laudable and it might have some application to endangered species conservation in the future,” said Richard Kock, a conservationist at Britain’s Royal Veterinary College who has worked extensively in Africa.\n“But I am afraid it is very much Nero fiddling after Rome is burning with respect to (northern) white rhino.”\nMr Hildebrandt insisted the effort is worthwhile. “The northern white rhino didn’t fail in evolution,” he said. “It failed because it’s not bulletproof. It was slaughtered by criminals which went for the horn because the horn costs more than gold.”\nNorthern white rhinos were once abundant across Central and East Africa, but conflicts and poaching wiped them from their natural habitat.\nThe rhino’s disappearance has left a void in the region’s ecosystem that could have significant impacts in the future, Mr Hildebrandt said. “We have the tools in our hands to correct that.”\nPress Association", "The world's last male northern white rhino has died, the Kenyan conservancy taking care of it said, leaving only two females of its subspecies alive in the world although scientists still hopes they can save it from extinction.\nOl Pejeta Conservancy said in a statement it had made the decision with wildlife officials and his previous caretakers to euthanize on Monday the 45-year-old rhino, named Sudan, due to the rapid deterioration in his condition.\nSudan was being treated for age-related complications that had affected his muscles and bones and also gave him extensive skin wounds.\nWildlife ranger Zachariah Mutai is shown with Sudan last year. (Joe Mwihia/Associated Press)\nThe rhino had spent two weeks in late February and early March lying in his pen due to discomfort from a deep wound on his right hind leg.\n\"His condition worsened significantly in the last 24 hours; he was unable to stand up and was suffering a great deal,\" Ol Pejeta said.\n\"The veterinary team from the Dver Kralove Zoo, Ol Pejeta and Kenya Wildlife Service made the decision to euthanize him.\"\nSurvived by Najin and Fatu\nSudan had previously lived at the Dver Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic before being transported to Ol Pejeta Conservancy, about 250 kilometres north of Nairobi, where he lived with the last two females of the same species, 27-year-old Najin and 17-year-old Fatu.\nAfter all attempts at getting him to mate naturally failed, conservationists last year put Sudan on dating app Tinder, hoping to raise enough money to pay for a $9-million fertility treatment.\nOl Pejeta said that they had collected Sudan's genetic material on Monday that could be used in future to attempt reproduction of northern white rhinos. It said scientists were also seeking ways to do in vitro fertilization.\n\"The only hope for the preservation of this subspecies now lies in developing in vitro fertilisation techniques using eggs from the two remaining females, stored northern white rhino semen from males and surrogate southern white rhino females,\" it said.\nWhile there are thousand of southern white rhinos still roaming the plains of sub-Saharan Africa, decades of rampant poaching have drastically cut numbers of northern whites. Poachers can sell northern white rhino horns for $50,000 US per kilo, making them more valuable than gold.\nKenya had 20,000 rhinos in the 1970s, falling to 400 in the 1990s. It now has 650, almost all of which are black rhinos.", "Frank Jordans, The Associated Press\nBERLIN -- Scientists say they're several steps closer to perfecting a method that could prevent the extinction of northern white rhinos, of which only two animals are known still to be alive.\nAccording to a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications, researchers have succeeded in creating embryos using frozen northern white rhino sperm and eggs from a southern white rhino, a closely related sub-species.\nIt's the first time such hybrid embryos have been created and the scientists from Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic say it could provide a pathway to saving the critically endangered northern white rhino after the last male, called Sudan, died in March.\nThey plan to harvest the egg cells of the two surviving female rhinos soon and use preserved sperm to produce \"pure\" northern white rhino embryos. Since the females, a mother and daughter called Najin and Fatu, are unable to bear offspring themselves, the embryos would be implanted in a southern white rhino surrogate.\nIn order to increase the supply of eggs and preserve the northern white rhino's genetic diversity, scientists are also working on a second method that would coax frozen skin cells from deceased animals into becoming egg cells, a procedure that has already succeeded in mice.\nThomas Hildebrandt, of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, said researchers hope the first northern white rhino calf will be born in about three years.\n\"We are quite confident with the technology we have developed,\" he said during a telephone conference with reporters detailing the research.\nSaving the northern white rhino has become an international effort, with co-operation but also some rivalry among scientists and institutions around the world, including zoos in San Diego and Cincinnati.\nSome experts have criticized the effort however, saying it comes too late.\n\"I have no doubt that its purely scientific merit is laudable and it might have some application to endangered species conservation in the future,\" said Richard Kock, a conservationist at Britain's Royal Veterinary College who has worked extensively in Africa. \"But I am afraid it is very much Nero fiddling after Rome is burning with respect to (northern) white rhino.\"\nKock and fellow conservationists warned against focusing only on the northern white rhino sub-species, noting that its southern cousin has come back from the brink of extinction and now numbers some 21,000 individuals.\nInstead, they suggested, work should focus on saving other endangered rhino species that can still be found in the wild.\n\"Assisted reproductive technologies are very expensive and their success is far from guaranteed. Meanwhile, we don't have enough funding to conserve the other four rhino species, all of which are more threatened with extinction than the white rhino,\" said Bob Smith, director of the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent, England.\nHildebrandt insisted the effort is worthwhile. \"The northern white rhino didn't fail in evolution,\" he said. \"It failed because it's not bulletproof. It was slaughtered by criminals which went for the horn because the horn costs more than gold.\"\nNorthern white rhinos were once abundant across Central and East Africa, but conflicts and poaching wiped them from their natural habitat.\nThe rhino's disappearance has left a void in the region's ecosystem that could have significant impacts in the future, Hildebrandt said. \"We have the tools in our hands to correct that.\"\nCesare Galli, whose Italy-based company Avantea has lengthy experience with the artificial reproduction of horses, said recent advances in stem cell technology could help the rhino preservation effort. The team is hoping that within a decade, scientists will be able to produce new rhino eggs from frozen skin cells\nJan Stejskal, a spokesman for Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic, which has a long history of rhino conservation, said scientists hope to travel to Kenya before the end of the year. They are still waiting for permission from Kenyan authorities to perform the delicate procedure of removing egg cells from Najin and Fatu.\nWhile the scientists are confident about being able to harvest eggs from the two females, questions remain over the risk to the rare animals' health.\n\"We as scientists are highly afraid that something unexpected happens during that procedure,\" said Hildebrandt. \"That would be a nightmare.\"", "According to a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers have succeeded in creating embryos using frozen northern white rhino sperm and eggs from a southern white rhino, a closely related sub-species.\nScientists say they are closer to preventing the extinction of northern white rhinos, of which only two are known to still be alive.\nSince the females, a mother and daughter called Najin and Fatu, are unable to bear offspring themselves, the embryos would be implanted in a southern white rhino surrogate.\nThey plan to harvest the egg cells of the two surviving female rhinos soon and use preserved sperm to produce “pure” northern white rhino embryos.\nIt is the first time such hybrid embryos have been created and the scientists from Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic say it could provide a pathway to saving the critically endangered northern white rhino after the last male, called Sudan, died in March.\nSorry, this content isn't available on your device.\nIn order to increase the supply of eggs and preserve the northern white rhino’s genetic diversity, scientists are also working on a second method that would coax frozen skin cells from deceased animals into becoming egg cells, a procedure that has already succeeded in mice.\nThomas Hildebrandt, of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, said researchers hope the first northern white rhino calf will be born in about three years.\n“We are quite confident with the technology we have developed,” he said.\nSaving the northern white rhino has become an international effort, with co-operation but also some rivalry among scientists and institutions around the world, including zoos in San Diego and Cincinnati.\nSome experts have criticised the effort however, saying it comes too late.\n“I have no doubt that its purely scientific merit is laudable and it might have some application to endangered species conservation in the future,” said Richard Kock, a conservationist at Britain’s Royal Veterinary College who has worked extensively in Africa.\n“But I am afraid it is very much Nero fiddling after Rome is burning with respect to (northern) white rhino.”\nMr Hildebrandt insisted the effort is worthwhile. “The northern white rhino didn’t fail in evolution,” he said. “It failed because it’s not bulletproof. It was slaughtered by criminals which went for the horn because the horn costs more than gold.”\nNorthern white rhinos were once abundant across Central and East Africa, but conflicts and poaching wiped them from their natural habitat.\nThe rhino’s disappearance has left a void in the region’s ecosystem that could have significant impacts in the future, Mr Hildebrandt said. “We have the tools in our hands to correct that.”", "scientists have gathered his genetic material and are working on developing in-vitro fertilisation techniques to preserve the subspecies.. By TONY KARUMBA (AFP/File)\nThe last male northern white rhino has died in Kenya at the age of 45, his keepers announced Tuesday, leaving only two females of his subspecies alive.\nThe rhino, named Sudan, \"was being treated for age-related complications that led to degenerative changes in muscles and bones combined with extensive skin wounds,\" according to a statement from the Ol Pejeta Conservancy where he lived under armed guard to prevent poaching.\n\"His condition worsened significantly in the last 24 hours; he was unable to stand up and was suffering a great deal. The veterinary team... made the decision to euthanize him.\"\nTheoretically, the death of Sudan assures the extinction of this subspecies of rhino.\nHowever scientists have gathered his genetic material and are working on developing in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) techniques to preserve the subspecies.\nThe northern white rhino population in Uganda, Central African Republic, Sudan and Chad was largely wiped out during the poaching crisis of the 1970s and 80s, fueled by demand for rhino horn in traditional Chinese medicine in Asia and dagger handles in Yemen.\nA final remaining wild population of about 20-30 rhinos in the Democratic Republic of Congo was killed in fighting in the late nineties and early 2000s, and by 2008 the northern white rhino was considered extinct in the wild.\nFour fertile rhinos, two males and females, were moved from the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic to Ol Pejeta in Kenya, with high hopes that conditions similar to their native habitat would encourage breeding.\nHowever, despite the fact that they were seen mating, there were no successful pregnancies.\nFurther efforts to mate a male southern white rhino with the females -- and thus conserve some of the northern white genes -- were also unsuccessful.\nThe other male rhino, Suni, died of natural causes in October 2014.\n\"Sudan was the last northern white rhino that was born in the wild. His death is a cruel symbol of human disregard for nature and it saddened everyone who knew him,\" said Jan Stejskal, Director of International Projects at the Dvur Kralove Zoo.\n\"But we should not give up. We must take advantage of the unique situation in which cellular technologies are utilised for conservation of critically endangered species. It may sound unbelievable, but thanks to the newly developed techniques even Sudan could still have an offspring.\"", "Rhino embryos created in a lab are raising hopes that high-tech assisted reproduction may help save the northern white rhino, the most endangered mammal in the world.\nOnly two of these rhinos are still alive, both females living in a sanctuary in Kenya and protected around the clock by armed guards.\nThe last male, a rhino named Sudan, died in March. But before the males died off, wildlife experts collected and froze sperm. Now, in the journal Nature Communications, scientists say they successfully have used this stored sperm to fertilize eggs taken from a closely related subspecies, the southern white rhinoceros.\nThe resulting hybrid embryos started to develop in a lab dish. Two were frozen for later implantation into a surrogate rhino, although the researchers note in their paper that \"the embryo transfer procedure has yet to be developed and validated in rhinoceroses.\"\nStill, the researchers are hopeful that once they get this working with hybrid embryos, they can use the same techniques to produce pure northern white rhino embryos.\nTo make those, they'll need eggs from the two remaining northern white rhinos. Jan Stejskal, of the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic — where rhinos Najin and Fatu were born — says the team has requested permission to obtain the eggs, \"but it's not granted yet.\" Still, he hopes the research team can go to Kenya to collect them by the end of the year.\n\"Our goal is that we have, in three years, the first northern white rhino calf born,\" says Thomas Hildebrandt, of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin.\nWhile this kind of assisted reproduction is used for other large mammals, including horses and cows, this is the first time lab-grown rhino embryos have reached the point they could be transferred into a uterus.\n\"That's a big deal. That's a big jump in rhino assisted-reproductive technology,\" says Terri Roth, director of the Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. \"In the past, we've really struggled to just produce two-cell embryos. So this is taking it way beyond that.\"\nBut Roth, who wasn't involved in the study, cautions that going from an embryo in the lab to an actual baby rhino is no small feat. \"There are many, many steps from the petri dish to the live calf on the ground,\" she says.\nBecause of the uncertainties, the scientists are pursuing several different strategies. Besides trying to produce pure northern white rhinos, they also plan to transfer hybrid embryos into surrogates. Hybrids of southern and northern white rhinos could help conservationists, if they ever try to introduce white rhinos back to their northern range.\nIt also could be possible to use generations of inbreeding to dilute out the southern white rhino genes and get to something close to a pure northern white rhino—although that would require a small herd of the hybrids.\n\"Will we ever get back to having a pure northern white rhino again? I think the odds are low,\" says Roth. \"But that doesn't mean those genes aren't important.\"\nBesides working with sperm and eggs collected from northern white rhinos, the scientists have a longer-term goal of making sperm and eggs to order in the lab, by manipulating stored skin cells taken from the animals.\n\"That might take maybe a decade,\" says Hildebrandt. Already though, using some rhino embryos, the team has established that they can make an embryonic stem cell line, a step that's useful in that process.\nRoth calls that whole plan \"highly speculative,\" and thinks the most important lesson here is that it's a mistake to get to a point where advanced technology is the only remaining option to save a species.\nThe northern white rhino isn't the only rhino that's in trouble, after all: Of the five living rhino species, three are listed as critically endangered because of poaching and habitat loss. Fewer than a hundred Sumatran rhinos, for example, are believed to exist today.\n\"We could still bring them back,\" says Roth, \"but if we lose another 90 of those animals and we're down to 10, then we're going to lose that one too.\"", "Sudan was the last surviving male northern white rhino (Picture: Reuters/Baz Ratner/File Photo)\nThe world’s last male northern white rhino, Sudan, has died after `age-related complications’.\nHis species now faces certain extinction with just two female northern white rhinos left at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy north of Nairobi, Kenya.\nThe picture above is believed to be the last one taken of him and he was suffering from an infected leg.\nHe was 45 years old.\nHe spent the last several weeks of his life in pain because of the deep wound on his right hind leg which suffered from an infection.\nSudan had been suffering from an infected leg (Picture: Ol Pejeta/Twitter)\nThere are now just two northern white rhinos at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy – they are both female (Picture: Reuters/Baz Ratner/File Photo)\nHis keepers had wondered whether it might be time to put him down but conservancy vetinarian Stephen Ngulu said they had managed to bring the infection under control with painkillers and antibiotics, and Sudan had regained his healthy appetite.\nAfter all attempts at getting him to mate naturally failed, conservationists last year put Sudan on Tinder, hoping to raise enough money to pay for a £6,500,000 million fertility treatment.\nSelf-driving Uber kills woman in first fatality of its kind\n‘He is an animal that is showing the will to live,’ Ngulu said before his death.\nSudan struggled to walk in his pen while his companions Najin, 27, and 17-year old Fatu played in the mud a short distance away.\nSudan was under constant guard from poachers in Kenya (Picture: Reuters/Baz Ratner/File Photo)\nPoachers can sell northern white rhino horns for £36,000 per kilo, making them more valuable than gold or cocaine.\nKenya, whose tourism sector is a huge source of foreign exchange, had 20,000 rhinos in the 1970s, falling to 400 in the 1990s. It now has 650, almost all of which are black.\nMelania Trump trips on White House lawn as she prepares to board helicopter\nScientists tried to help Sudan reproduce via in vitro fertilisation using eggs taken from Najin. The embryo would have been implanted in a surrogate southern white, Ngulu said.\nReproductive experts from Kenya, Europe and South Africa hoped to have designed a means of extracting the eggs from Najin by the end of this year, he said.\nWith the old male nearing the end of his life, Zachary Mutai, who has cared for him at Ol Pejeta for the last eight years, said the ravages of age were a source of sadness.\n‘Sudan is my great friend,’ he said.\nMORE: Woman with epilepsy so severe she set herself on fire sees benefits removed\nMORE: TV cop ‘masturbated in front of woman then rubbed semen on her’", "In less than two weeks after the world observed the the World Giraffe Day on June 21, the pictures of an American woman posing with a dead giraffe that she had killed while hunting in South Africa, have gone viral. Tess Thompson Talley, the hunter, is seen grinning in front of a dead giraffe with a hunting rifle in hand.\nThough the clicks belonged to June 2017 hunting incident, they have hit the internet recently. A local Twitter user, AfricLandPost, posted the pictures on the social media platform. \"White American savage who is partly a Neanderthal comes to Africa and shoot down a very rare black giraffe courtesy of South Africa stupidity. Her name is Tess Thompson Talley. Please share,\" the user captioned the post.\nWhite american savage who is partly a neanderthal comes to Africa and shoot down a very rare black giraffe coutrsey of South Africa stupidity. Her name is Tess Thompson Talley. Please share pic.twitter.com/hSK93DOOaz — AfricaDigest (@africlandpost) June 16, 2018\nTalley has not only been slammed by the locales but also by many celebrities who have criticized the act of hunting given the extinction of the species from the planet. Actress Debra Messing was among the first few public figures who opposed such a cruel act, calling the hunter \"disgusting, vile, amoral, heartless, selfish murderer.\"\nIn a press statement, the American woman defended herself saying that she helped other animals by killing it. The giraffe was unable to breed because of being too old and he had already killed three young bulls, she added.\n\"The giraffe I hunted was the South African subspecies of giraffe. The number of this subspecies is actually increasing due, in part, to hunters and conservation efforts paid for in large part by big-game hunting,\" she told the Today show. \"The breed is not rare in any way other than it was very old. Giraffes get darker with age.\"\nThe viral pictures reminded the world of the cruelty of the same level as seen in the killing of Cecil the lion in 2015. The matter has come into the limelight within the two weeks of the celebration of World Giraffe Day on June 21. The giraffes have the longest neck and hence the World Giraffe Conservation Foundation declared the longest day of the year as the World Giraffe Day.\nThe outrage that emerged as a result of the killing of the giraffe is evident in view of the fast plummeting population of the species by up to 40 percent in the last 30 years. The International Union for Conservation of Nature or IUCN has already put giraffe under the \"Red List\" as the species that is nearing its extinction.", "LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have created hybrid embryos from the sperm of near-extinct northern white rhinoceroses in the laboratory, hoping they can ultimately help save the species.\nFILE PHOTO: Najin (R) and her daughter Fatou, the last two northern white rhino females, graze near their enclosure at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Laikipia National Park, Kenya March 31, 2018. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya/File Photo\nThe northern white rhino is the world’s most endangered mammal, and its only two living members are a mother and daughter, living in Kenya’s Ol Pejeta Conservancy.\nScientists did, however, managed to collect around 300 millilitres of semen from the last four bull rhinos, which they say is a large quantity, albeit too low-quality for insemination.\nHaving used some of this to fertilise eggs in vitro from the closest relative - the southern white rhino - they hope to use the same techniques to create an embryo of a pure northern white rhino with eggs harvested from the two females. This could then be implanted into a surrogate to gestate.\n“Within three years we hope to have the first (northern white) rhino calf born,” said Thomas Hildebrandt of Germany’s Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, who co-led the work. The findings were published in the journal Nature Communications on Wednesday.\nFILE PHOTO: Najin (R) and her daughter Fatou (L), the last two northern white rhino females, graze alongside Ndauwo (C), a southern white rhino near their enclosure at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Laikipia National Park, Kenya March 31, 2018. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya/File Photo\nThe low-grade sperm have to be activated with a lab culture so that they can be used in an IVF technique known as intracytoplasmic injection.\nThe hybrid embryos have developed enough for implantation, and have now been frozen while scientists seek potential surrogate southern white rhino females to carry them to term.\nCesare Galli of the Italian animal assisted reproduction firm Avantea, who worked with Hildebrandt, said there had originally been strong opposition from some conservationists to “interfering in nature” by using IVF or other lab techniques to save the northern white rhino.\n“Many people working in the conservation area are very against using biotechnology,” he said.\nHildebrandt argued that using biotechnology was not unnatural, and would simply correct a change in the ecosystem created by the human hunting of rhinos.\n“The northern white rhino did not fail evolution, it failed because it was not bullet-proof. It was slaughtered,” he said.\nFILE PHOTO: Sudan, the last male northern white rhino, is fed by a warden at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Laikipia national park, Kenya, May 3, 2017, about a year before his death. REUTERS/Baz Ratner/File Photo\n“It caused a disbalance in the ecosystem ... and we have the tools in our hands to correct that.”", "A rare image from 2012 shows a critically endangered Java rhino taking care of its calf at Indonesia's Ujung Kulon National Park\nIllegal poaching, logging and fishing of sometimes critically endangered species is taking place in nearly half of the world's most protected natural sites, environmental campaigners WWF warned Tuesday.\nNatural world heritage sites such as Australia's Great Barrier Reef, Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Galapagos Islands support large populations of rare plant and animal species.\nBut in a report WWF said species listed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) faced the threat of illegal harvesting and trafficking in 45 percent of the more than 200 natural world heritage sites on the planet.\n\"Natural world heritage sites are among the most recognised natural sites for their universal value,\" said Marco Lambertini, head of WWF International.\nVaquita marina\n\"Yet many are threatened by destructive industrial activities and... their often unique animals and plants are also affected by overexploitation and trafficking,\" he added, stressing that \"unless they are protected effectively, we will lose them forever.\"\nAlmost a third of the world's remaining 3,890 wild tigers and 40 percent of all African elephants are found in UNESCO-listed sites, which are often a last refuge for critically endangered species such as the Javan rhino in Indonesia, the report said.\n- 'Brink of extinction' -\nIllegal poaching, logging and fishing inside such sites is therefore \"driving endangered species to the brink of extinction\", WWF warned.\nThe species most at risk because of illegal activity within natural world heritage sites is probably the vaquita, the world's smallest porpoise, which is indigenous to Mexico's Gulf of California, Colman O'Criodain, WWF's wildlife policy manager, told AFP.\nThe species most at risk because of illegal activity within natural world heritage sites is probably the vaquita, the world's smallest porpoise, which is indigenous to Mexico's Gulf of California\nWhile the vaquita itself is not being fished illegally, it is being caught in nets used to poach the totoaba -- a giant Mexican fish coveted in China for its swim bladder, which itself is considered a threatened species.\n\"When I started working on the issue of vaquita two years ago, there were 96 left. Now it is less than 30,\" O'Criodain said, adding that at the current rate the tiny porpoise could be extinct within a year.\nAccording to Tuesday's report, poaching of vulnerable and endangered animal species such as elephants, rhinos and tigers occurs in 42 of the UNESCO-listed natural sites, while illegal logging of rosewood, ebony and other valuable plant species happens in 26 of them.\nIllegal fishing, including of sharks and rays occurs in 18 of 39 listed marine coastal world heritage sites, it said.\n- 'Double outrage' -\nSuch illegal activities inside what should be the best-protected sites on the planet are \"a double outrage,\" O'Criodain said.\nStacks of elephant tusks and rhinoceros horns are burned after being seized from traffickers at the Nairobi National Park in 2016\n\"We're talking about very iconic species, and we are also talking about iconic sites,\" he said, demanding more efforts at the national and international level to beat the trend.\nBut it is difficult to fight the illegal wildlife trade, which rakes in between $15-20 billion (14.1- 18.8 billion euros) annually, making it the fourth largest illegal global trade, after drugs, counterfeiting and human trafficking, according to UN numbers.\nAt the same time, the illegal timber trade, which is responsible for up to 90 percent of all deforestation in major tropical countries, is valued at between $30-100 billion annually.\nThere are large economic interests in bringing an end to such illegal activities, especially inside world heritage sites, WWF said.\nGreat Father: Javan rhino\nThis is because poaching and trafficking inside these sites threatens not only species, but also livelihoods and entire tourist industries.\nAfrica is estimated to lose up to $25 million per year in lost tourism due to elephant poaching, while the illegal rosewood trade has, over a two-year period, cost the people of Madagascar up to $200 million in lost income, the report found.", "Scientists say they are several steps closer to perfecting a method for saving the northern white rhino from extinction.\nWriting in the journal Nature Communications, researchers said they have succeeded in creating embryos using frozen northern white rhino sperm and eggs from a southern white rhino.\nIt is the first time such hybrid embryos have been created.\nREAD MORE: CO2 shortage: why can’t we just pull carbon dioxide out of the air?\nThe scientists from Europe and the United States hope it will provide a pathway to saving the northern white rhino sub-species, of which only two females remain.\nThey plan to harvest the females’ egg cells soon and produce “pure” northern white rhinos to be borne by a southern white surrogate in three years.\nThey are also working on a second method that would see sperm and eggs produced from preserved cells of northern white rhinos.\nA proposed ivory ban in Britain could meanwhile be extended to protect hippos, walruses and narwhals as well as elephants, the UK Government has said.\nMinisters have proposed tough legislation to ban the sale of ivory items of all ages, with only a few “narrowly defined” exemptions, as part of efforts to protect elephants from poaching.\nAround 20,000 elephants a year are being slaughtered for their ivory, and wildlife campaigners believe reducing global demand for their tusks is an important part of ending the carnage.\nBut concerns have been raised that other animals such as hippos are at risk of poaching for their ivory and there has been an increase in trade in hippo and other non-elephant ivory in the UK because of the focus on elephants in the ban.\nBoth Labour and the Conservative former environment secretary Owen Paterson have called for the Ivory Bill currently going through Parliament to protect other ivory-bearing species, with hippos of particular concern.\nThe Government has responded to the concerns by announcing it will consult on extending the scope of the Bill to protect other ivory-bearing species such as hippos, walruses and narwhals, as well as sperm whales and killer whales.\nHippos are listed as “vulnerable” to extinction on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, with their population thought to have declined around 12% in the last decade.\nThe Government has also brought forward an amendment to the Bill to ensure that if necessary ivory from all animals could be banned, not just ones covered by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites).\nThis would allow the ban to be extended to species such as warthogs and even the tusks of prehistoric mammoths which could help continue demand for elephant ivory, if a case for their inclusion was made during the consultation.\nThe consultation will begin as soon as practicable after the Bill has become law, and will not delay the introduction of the ban on dealings in elephant ivory, ministers said.\nEnvironment Secretary Michael Gove said: “Our ivory ban is one of the toughest in the world and will provide vital protection for the African and Asian elephant from the scourge of illegal poaching.\n“But there are many more precious species, like the hippo and walrus, which could fall victim to the callous trade in ivory.\n“The Government will therefore consult on extending the ivory ban to other ivory-bearing animals.\n“We are determined to end this insidious trade and make sure ivory from any animal is never seen as a commodity for financial gain or a status symbol.”\nProposed Labour changes to the Bill, which sought to extend the scope of the ivory ban to other animals, were defeated in the Commons.\nThe Bill went on to receive its third reading unopposed and has now been sent to the House of Lords for further scrutiny.\nShadow environment secretary Sue Hayman welcomed the passage of the Bill, saying it was a “welcome step forward for the future of global elephant populations”.\nShe added: “I look forward to working with colleagues from right across the House to ensure we continue to do everything else we can in our power to stamp out the global ivory trade and preserve these iconic animal species for generations to come.”\nTory MP Sir David Amess, who has consistently campaigned against the ivory trade, also welcomed the move and said: “This is a day of celebration for all animals who have horns.”" ]

[ "Reno, Nevada (CNN) -- Sarah Palin warned Monday that the mainstream Republican Party must embrace the core conservative principles of the Tea Party movement or disappear. In comments to CNN at a Tea Party Express rally to kick off its fourth national tour, Palin said the Republican Party machine realizes how the Tea Party movement's \"we the people\" message has resonated on the political right, as well as with independents and moderates. The message emphasizes free market principles and individual and state powers instead of expanded federal powers. \"Heaven forbid the GOP machine strays from this message,\" said the former Alaska governor and unsuccessful Republican vice presidential candidate. \"If so, the GOP is through.\" Her comments, in response to the question of whether the Tea Party movement is dividing the Republican Party, showed how Palin and other Tea Party leaders are trying to galvanize the political right by bringing their supporters together with the traditional GOP structures. Tea Party-backed candidates have defeated mainstream Republican candidates, including several congressional incumbents, in several primaries across the country this year. In some cases, the Tea Party victories have harmed Republican chances for victory. For example, Palin backed Christine O'Donnell over nine-term Republican Rep. Mike Castle, a former governor, in Delaware's GOP Senate primary. Castle was considered a likely general election winner, but the primary upset by the inexperienced and controversial O'Donnell now makes a Democratic victory likely in the November 2 vote. In her speech at Monday's rally, Palin said the Republican Party should \"man up\" and support Tea Party candidates such as O'Donnell, who has been criticized by some Republican figures, including longtime strategist Karl Rove. \"The bigwigs in the machine, they're driving me crazy because they're too chicken to support the Tea Party candidates,\" Palin said at Monday's rally. \"The ideas of the Tea Party movement are the American ideals that will put us back to work.\" Palin to GOP: 'Man up' She also told the crowd to support Tea Party candidates for the good of America's future. In her comments to CNN, Palin called for Republican moderates and independents to embrace the \"time-tested truths\" of \"commonsense\" conservative principles, but she also noted that \"the planks in the GOP platform really are the strongest, most solid planks to build a strong economy, because it's all about entrepreneurial spirit and equal prosperity and opportunity according to a work ethic.\" Her speech Monday followed an appearance Saturday in California with Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. The Tea Party Express tour, titled \"Liberty at the Ballot Box,\" is the group's fourth since 2009 and their last of the 2010 election cycle. Their prime tactic is to crisscross the country urging voters to oust Democrats from office and purge the Republican Party of members deemed \"RINOs,\" or \"Republicans in Name Only,\" considered not conservative enough. It will make 30 stops over 15 days, ending in Concord, New Hampshire, one day before the critical congressional elections. Monday's crowd was considerably smaller than the last rally Palin kicked off for the Tea Party Express, in Searchlight, Nevada, in March. Palin has lent political star power and considerable time helping to spread the message of Tea Party movement, which includes smaller government, lower taxes, deflating a bloated federal deficit and urging lawmakers toward more faithful adherence to the Constitution. She and other supporters of the movement staunchly support Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle in the race against the top Democrat in the Senate: Majority Leader Harry Reid. Polls show the race between the two candidates to be essentially deadlocked. Democrats continue to push their own strategy to smack back the bids of Tea Party candidates. Vice President Joe Biden will campaign for Reid in Reno on Wednesday, and President Barack Obama will appear at fundraisers on Reid's behalf on Friday." ]

[ "(CNN) -- Christine O'Donnell's upset win over Rep. Mike Castle in the Delaware Republican Senate primary is also another major victory for the Tea Party Express and for Sarah Palin. \"I also want to thank the Tea Party Express,\" said O'Donnell in her victory speech Tuesday night. The Tea Party Express, a leading Tea Party organization, endorsed O'Donnell on July 21 and spent more than $250,000 to help the once long shot candidate defeat Castle, a brand name in Delaware thanks to two terms as governor and the past 18 years as the statewide congressman. O'Donnell's victory comes two weeks after Sen. Lisa Murkowski conceded to Joe Miller in Alaska's GOP Senate primary. The Tea Party Express pumped in about $600,000 to help the once unknown Miller edge out Murkowski, part of a political dynasty in Alaska. Tea Party Express is one of the most recognized national Tea Party organizations, thanks to its three high-profile bus caravans and rallies. The group, based in Sacramento, California, has also become a major player in Republican Party politics, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads for Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown in Massachusetts, who in January upset Democrat Martha Coakley in a special election to fill the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's seat. More recently, the organization helped the little-known Sharron Angle win the Republican primary in Nevada, endorsing her and spending about a half-million dollars on ads. Angle now faces off in the general election against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the top Democrat in the chamber. Tea Party Express, along with other Tea Party groups and other conservative organizations, also targeted incumbent Republican Sen. Bob Bennett in Utah for his vote on the Troubled Assets Relief Program and helped defeat his bid for a fourth term. Tea Party Express then backed underdog Mike Lee's successful primary campaign in Utah and Lee now is heavily favored to win the general election in November and join the Senate next year. The group also endorsed Rand Paul in Kentucky. The son of former GOP presidential hopeful and Texas Rep. Ron Paul topped Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, the establishment Republican candidate, in the state's Senate primary. They also endorsed Marco Rubio in Florida. The former Florida House speaker, once a long shot to win the Republican Senate nomination, is now the party's nominee. The onetime front-runner, Gov. Charlie Crist, dropped his bid for the GOP nomination and is running for the Senate as an independent candidate. Among its rare statewide defeats: The Tea Party Express backed state lawmaker Chuck DeVore in California's Senate primary. He lost to Carly Fiorina. It also supported Rep. Todd Tiahrt in Kansas. Fellow Republican Rep. Jerry Moran beat Tiahrt in the primary. So what's the secret to the Tea Party Express' success? \"They have cut right to the chase. They have a very uncomplicated message that resonates with voters who think Washington's problems are quite simple and quite obvious: We're spending too much money, government is too big and we can't trust career politicians to fix these problems. And voters are indicating they would much rather try something or someone new instead of sticking with the status quo or the safe pick,\" said Republican strategist Kevin Madden. But not all the news for the Tea Party Express has been positive. Earlier this summer, the National Tea Party Federation, which seeks to represent the Tea Party political movement around the country, expelled the Tea Party Express because of an inflammatory blog post that one of its leaders, Mark Williams, wrote responding to criticism of the Tea Party movement from the NAACP. The story made national headlines and Williams later stepped down as spokesman for Tea Party Express. O'Donnell's victory is also a big win for Palin. \"Thank you Gov. Palin for your endorsement,\" said O'Donnell. \"She got behind us war-weary folks and gave us a boost of encouragement when we needed it.\" On September 9, the former Alaska governor and the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee endorsed O'Donnell. One day before the primary, a recording of Palin urging Delaware Republicans to vote for O'Donnell was blasted to voters by robo-calls across the state. Many statewide candidates that Palin has endorsed have done well in this year's Republican primaries. Alaska's Miller was one of three Palin-backed statewide candidates running in the August 24 primaries who went on to victory. She also endorsed Arizona Sen. John McCain, the former presidential candidate who rocketed Palin to stardom in 2008 when he selected her as his running mate. Though members of the Tea Party movement lined up against the longtime Arizona senator, Palin stayed loyal to McCain and appeared at a campaign event with him in March. Addressing long-standing concern among conservatives McCain is too centrist, Palin said the Arizona senator is driven by \"common-sense conservative principles\" and touted his steadfast opposition to the Obama administration. McCain beat former Rep. J.D. Hayworth by more than 30 points. In the race for Florida attorney general, Palin backed Pam Bondi, a Tampa prosecutor who faced the better-known Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp for the job. Palin's endorsement of Bondi came about a week before the vote and even surprised Bondi, who had no notice Palin would take to her Facebook page to back the campaign. Bondi came out on top in a three-candidate field. In August, several Palin-endorsed candidates suffered losses in statewide Republican primaries. She backed Tea Party activist and former NFL player Clint Didier, who was easily defeated by Dino Rossi for the Senate nomination in Washington. Wyoming State Auditor Rita Meyer, who had Palin's backing, narrowly lost her bid for the GOP gubernatorial nomination. Palin campaigned in person with former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, who lost a runoff to former Rep. Nathan Deal for the state's Republican nomination for governor. Palin also endorsed Tea Party Express-backed Tiahrt, who was defeated in the battle for the Senate nomination in Kansas. Earlier in the primary season, Palin successfully backed statewide candidates such as Nikki Haley in South Carolina, Terry Branstad in Iowa and Susana Martinez in New Mexico, who all won gubernatorial nominations, and Fiorina in California and Paul in Kentucky, who captured Senate nominations. CNN's Alex Mooney, Peter Hamby and Allison Harding contributed to this report.", "(CNN) -- Leaders of the burgeoning Tea Party movement say their projected midterm election victories should send a strong message: watch out in 2012. \"The Republicans need to know, we've done it in 2010. If they don't do the right thing in the next couple of years, it's not a problem. We'll come back in 2012. We'll do it all over again. We'll replace them with people that will uphold [our] principles,\" said Mark Meckler, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots -- one of the movement's largest groups. Tuesday's elections were seen as a crucial moment for measuring the staying power of the Tea Party movement, which was born out of frustration with the political establishment and steeped in economic anxiety. \"I don't think there's any question that if it were not for the Tea Party, the Republican margin in the House of Representatives would not be as high as it's going to be,\" CNN senior political analyst David Gergen said Tuesday night. \"They gave a lot of enthusiasm and fuel to the Republican Party.\" After CNN projected that two Tea Party-backed Republican candidates would win their Senate races -- Rand Paul in Kentucky and Marco Rubio in Florida -- Meckler said the movement would keep holding Republicans accountable. \"Frankly, the Republicans blew it over a very long period of time. The largest deficit ever run up in history, before the current administration, was run up by George Bush,\" he said. \"Our job is to reverse that course and not allow any party to ever do that again.\" With growing momentum after months of nationwide street protests and bus tours, Tea Party activists hoped to change the makeup of Congress and the way lawmakers were elected. At least one of their goals seemed to be likely early Wednesday, with CNN projections indicating that Republicans held 239 House seats to the Democrats' 183 -- well over the 218 seats needed for a majority. And in a tight battle and a significant win for Tea Party supporters, Republican candidate Pat Toomey defeated Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak to win the Pennsylvania Senate seat, CNN projects. But even though candidates endorsed by Tea Party activists made several key gains, the movement also suffered significant losses in high-profile contests. Far-right ideology from Tea Party candidates likely cost them Senate seats in Delaware and Nevada, according to John Avlon, a CNN contributor and senior political columnist for The Daily Beast. \"That could make all the difference in control of the Senate, so there should be some self-analysis about whether or not some of these more extreme candidates who won these partisan primaries represented their Republican Party best,\" he said. The grassroots nature of the Tea Party movement makes it difficult to define how many candidates on the ballot Tuesday were affiliated with it. There is no official entity that determines who is a Tea Party candidate. Before polls opened Tuesday, CNN analyzed races across the country to identify candidates who were Tea Party activists or whose campaigns were helped significantly by the Tea Party movement. From the list of the CNN 100 -- the top 100 House races in the country -- 21 candidates were closely connected with the movement's activists and ideology. At least 10 of them won, according to CNN projections. Nine Senate candidates and four gubernatorial candidates also had strong ties to the Tea Party. Of those candidates, at least five Senate race winners were backed by Tea Party activists. And the winner of South Carolina's governor race, Nikki Haley, received Tea Party support and an endorsement from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. In addition, various national and local Tea Party organizations endorsed more than 100 candidates in races across the country. The rise of the conservative Tea Party movement added a new element to this year's election cycle, roiling Republican races by boosting little-known and inexperienced candidates to victory over mainstream figures in GOP primaries across the country. But not all of them emerged victorious Tuesday. According to CNN projections, Tea Party-backed New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino lost to Democrat and former state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada avoided what many predicted would be a fatal blow to Democrats, beating out Tea Party activist Sharron Angle. And in Delaware, Democrat Chris Coons defeated Tea Party-backed Republican nominee Christine O'Donnell, CNN projects. Still, the losing Tea Party candidates appeared to be in high spirits as they addressed supporters after results came in. \"We were victorious, because the Delaware political system will never be the same. That's a great thing. The Republican Party will never be the same,\" O'Donnell said. Angle thanked supporters for fighting for their principles. \"I want you to see that I'm still smiling. And it's because I still believe in American exceptionalism,\" she said. No matter how many of the so-called Tea Party candidates won, the impact of the movement is expected to shift the Republican agenda to the right. Paul, on the heels of his victory, has already called for creating a Senate Tea Party caucus. Of those surveyed in CNN exit polls, 23 percent said one reason for their vote Tuesday was to send a message in favor of the Tea Party, 18 percent said they cast their ballots against the Tea Party and 56 percent of respondents said the Tea Party was not a factor in their decision. Independents surveyed were split, with 24 percent saying they were neutral toward the Tea Party, and 28 percent saying they opposed the Tea Party in this election. Exit poll results indicated a stronger showing for the Tea Party among older voters, with 47 percent of those 60 and older saying they support the Tea Party and only 26 percent of voters ages 18 to 29 saying they support the movement. But South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint said the success of the Tea Party is rooted in the fact that its members can't be easily counted. \"One mistake we're making in this election is to suggest that it's all about the official Tea Party movement,\" he told CNN Tuesday. \"For everyone who goes out to a rally, there are often hundreds, even thousands of people who feel the same way, who don't consider themselves a part of the Tea Party movement. I think there is an awakening going on in our country. There's a beginning of a process. It's not finalized tonight.\" CNN's John Helton and Robert Yoon contributed to this report.", "Nashville, Tennessee (CNN) -- Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin drew many standing ovations from a friendly crowd Saturday night as she blasted Washington Democrats and the Obama administration in a keynote speech for what was billed as the first national Tea Party Convention. \"It's so inspiring to see real people, not politicos, inside-the-beltway professionals, come out, stand up and speak out for common-sense conservative principles,\" Palin said. Palin sought to hold Washington accountable as she took on a number of issues, including national security, the economy, and the recent election of Republican Scott Brown to the Massachusetts Senate seat left vacant by the late Ted Kennedy. \"America is ready for another revolution and you are a part of this,\" Palin said. She called the Tea Party movement a \"ground-up call to action that is forcing both parties to change the way they're doing business.\" Palin gave particular attention to Brown's election, calling him a representative \"of this beautiful movement.\" \"If there's hope in Massachusetts, there's hope everywhere,\" she said. \"His victory is a sign of more good things to come.\" She called on the administration to take note of the election results, saying \"you better stop lecturing and start listening.\" \"The Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda will leave us less secure, more in debt and under the thumb of big government,\" she added, saying voters all over the country are sending a message that they want change in Washington. She harkened Obama's famous campaign slogan, asking, \"How's that hope-y, change-y stuff working out for you?\" Palin answers questions . On national security, Palin said Americans have grown uneasy in the wake of an attempted Christmas Day terror attack aboard a U.S.-bound flight from Amsterdam, Netherlands. She called on the administration to be transparent about threats facing the country. \"It's not politicizing our security to discuss our concerns because Americans deserve to know the truths about the threats that we face,\" she said, criticizing Obama's approach to foreign policy with such hostile regimes as Iran. On the economy, Palin said \"we are drowning in national debt and many of us have had enough,\" calling for a number of different reforms. Palin was the darling of many conservatives when she served as the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, which she said Saturday night was \"the honor of a lifetime.\" Many of those attending the convention at Nashville's Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center said they are big Palin supporters. Tea Party meets in Nashville . Pam Silleman, a 52-year-old small business owner and Tea Party activist who traveled to the convention from California's Napa Valley, called Palin \"the Tea Party's inspiration.\" Asked if Palin, who is considered a possible contender for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, should make a bid for the White House, Silleman said, \"I would like to see her in a higher office but I don't know that she'll do it. I wouldn't want her to be hurt that bad.\" Fremont Brown, a supporter who had \"Palin 2012\" bumper stickers with him, said Palin is \"the right person.\" \"She has fervent heart and she's conservative,\" added the 59-year-old Brown, who owns a small business in North Carolina. \"She was the only one truly qualified with executive experience of the four who ran in 2008. The others were glorified lobbyists.\" If Palin does make a stab at presidential politics, she'll have a natural following among Tea Party activists, whose grass-roots network is fueled by anger over the growth of the federal government and President Obama's policies. Neither the Tea Party Nation, the group that organized the convention, nor a Palin spokeswoman would confirm reports that the former governor is getting paid about $100,000 for her keynote appearance. \"I will not benefit financially from speaking at this event,\" Palin said in a statement this week. \"Any compensation for my appearance will go right back to the cause.\" In a blog post on the conservative Web site Townhall.com this past week, Palin said she looks forward to greater participation with the Tea Party movement in the coming weeks. She said she will be on hand next month for a kickoff rally for the third Tea Party Express, a cross-country bus caravan. The event will take place March 27 in Searchlight, Nevada, the hometown of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who finds himself in a tough re-election battle this year. Palin also said she will attend an April 14 Tea Party rally in Boston. Watch more on Tea Party movement . A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. national poll released Friday indicates that Americans are split on Palin, with 43 percent seeing her in a positive light and 46 percent holding an unfavorable view. \"Opinion on Sarah Palin breaks down along party lines, with 7 in 10 Democrats disliking her and 7 in 10 Republicans with a positive view of Palin. She has a net-negative rating among Independents: 42 percent favorable and 47 percent unfavorable,\" said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. \"She also continues to rate better among men than women.\" iReport: React to Tea Party convention, Palin speech . Palin's experience has frequently been called into question, most recently in a book that chronicles the 2008 campaign. \"Game Change\" by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann largely portrays the then-vice presidential candidate as wholly unprepared for the national stage and poorly versed in a range of pressing issues. The book also alleges McCain aides quickly grew troubled with Palin's lack of understanding on key issues, including the job of the Federal Reserve, the difference between North Korea and South Korea, and the purpose of the war in Afghanistan. Palin has called the book \"a bunch of BS from [McCain campaign manager Steve] Schmidt and those guys,\" Palin said. \"It's pretty made up.\" CNN's Alex Mooney, Paul Steinhauser and Pamela Sellers contributed to this report.", "(CNN) -- Tea Party favorites won two primary elections over more mainstream Republicans on Tuesday, demonstrating again the clout of the conservative political movement on the political right. Now the question is whether the right-wing candidates can also defeat Democratic rivals in November's congressional elections, when the stakes are higher and the full electorate is deciding. The results in Delaware and New York highlighted the last major day of primary voting before the upcoming election in just under seven weeks. Voting in seven states and the District of Columbia included embattled veteran U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel's victory in his New York Democratic primary despite allegations of ethics violations, and D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty's bid to hold off a major primary challenger. In addition, former Gov. Robert Ehrlich won the Republican gubernatorial primary in Maryland to set up a rematch against Martin O'Malley, the Democrat who ousted him in 2006. In Delaware, conservative political commentator Christine O'Donnell easily defeated nine-time U.S. Rep. Mike Castle in the Republican U.S. Senate primary, giving the Tea Party movement another major victory over a candidate backed by the national GOP. \"We the people will have our voice heard in Washington, D.C., once again,\" a beaming O'Donnell told exuberant supporters at her victory party in Dover. O'Donnell won more than 53 percent of the vote in the bitter campaign that displayed internal Republican warfare between conservative Tea Party supporters and the more moderate party structures. Castle was backed by the national Republican Party, while O'Donnell received the endorsement of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as well as $150,000 in late funding from the Tea Party Express. O'Donnell, running as a Washington outsider, insisted the Republican establishment was trying to drive her out of the race and hand victory to Castle, whom she refers to as \"the anointed one.\" In response, conservative stalwart Bill Kristol, who fears O'Donnell is incapable of winning the Senate seat in November, said: \"I know Sarah Palin. I respect Sarah Palin. And with all due respect -- Christine O'Donnell is no Sarah Palin.\" In her victory speech, O'Donnell made a plea unity, saying: \"If those same people who fought against me work just as hard for me, we will win.\" Later, she told CNN that she can win without the support of the national Republican Party. \"They don't have a winning track record,\" O'Donnell said of the national party. \"If they're too lazy to put in the effort that we need to win, then, so be it.\" The National Republican Senatorial Committee offered its congratulations to O'Donnell immediately after the result was determined. \"We congratulate Christine O'Donnell for her nomination this evening after a hard-fought primary campaign in Delaware,\" said a statement by Rob Jesmer, the NRSC executive director. However, a top Republican official told CNN on Tuesday night that O'Donnell will have to show she can generate viable support before the national party will give her money. \"It is now incumbent on Sarah Palin, (U.S. Sen.) Jim DeMint and the Tea Party Express to help support her,\" the official said on condition of not being identified by name. \"They got her here. Now make it happen.\" O'Donnell will face Democrat Christopher Coons, the New Castle County Executive, in November for the seat formerly held by Vice President Joe Biden. In New York, conservative Carl Paladino defeated Rick Lazio in the Republican gubernatorial primary to set up a November showdown with Democrat Andrew Cuomo, the son of former Gov. Mario Cuomo. Paladino received Tea Party support in defeating Lazio, who also was supported by some conservative groups. The New York governor's post has proven hazardous in recent years. Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned amid a prostitution scandal, and his successor, David Paterson, decided against running for another term due to allegations of wrongdoing involving World Series tickets and a domestic abuse case involving an aide. In New Hampshire, conservative candidate Ovide Lamontagne saw an early lead vanish in his bid to upset former state Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, the candidate favored by establishment Republicans. The winner will run in November to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Judd Gregg. Ayotte gave up her state post to run for the Senate nomination with encouragement from national Republicans. Considered the favorite in the seven-candidate contest for months, Ayotte instead found herself with a razor-thin lead with Lamontagne, a Manchester attorney and the 1996 Republican nominee for governor, with 52 percent of the returns accounted, according to AP figures. Local Tea Party groups, the conservative New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper and DeMint, the influential conservative senator from South Carolina, all backed Lamontagne. Unlike O'Donnell in Delaware, though, Lamontagne didn't get Palin's endorsement. Instead, Palin backed Ayotte, calling her a \"Granite Grizzly\" and \"the true conservative running for the U.S. Senate in New Hampshire.\" However, Palin's endorsement and Ayotte's support from many national Republicans may have backfired in fiercely independent New Hampshire. Victories by O'Donnell and Paladino, and the possibility of a triumph by Lamontagne in New Hampshire, showed the strength of the Tea Party within the political right, after similar results ousted GOP incumbents or insiders in Idaho and Alaska. However, the Republican infighting also raised questions about GOP unity heading into November. Rangel, meanwhile, received help from former President Bill Clinton in defeating five challengers in the Democratic primary for the House seat he has held for 40 years. Despite allegations by the House ethics committee that Rangel committed financial wrongdoing and harmed the credibility of Congress, he raised more money than his opponents and easily won the vote in his Harlem district. The situation was reversed in Washington, where Fenty swept into office in 2006 promising to fix the District of Columbia's struggling schools. However, the AP figures showed he trailed City Council Chairman Vincent Gray with 28 percent of the votes counted, in part because of union opposition to his education reform efforts. \"We've got an uphill battle because we made tough decisions,\" Fenty said before the vote. \"We'll continue to make those tough decisions because they're right for the people. But we're not naive. We know this has cost us a little political popularity that we came into the polls with.\" The race is being closely watched far beyond the District of Columbia because the outcome could carry significant implications for the national debate over education reform. Fenty brought in Michelle Rhee as chancellor of D.C. Public Schools, and she has since become famous for changes that that have become a model of education reform advocated by the Obama administration. Rhee shut down two dozen schools, fired hundred of educators -- including more than 100 teachers this summer -- for poor performance, and overhauled the teacher evaluation system to include, for the first time, student performance as a measure of success. Local and national teachers unions have fought her efforts. CNN's Jessica Yellin, Paul Steinhauser, Mark Preston, Kate Bolduan, Kevin Bohn, Mary Snow and Tom Cohen contributed to this report.", "Two long-standing political stalwarts who were expected to face defeat in primary elections held on to their seats in a night of unexpected turnarounds yesterday. Six-term Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi edged out tea party-backed challenger Chris McDaniel in a bruising, costly Republican runoff that pitted Washington clout against Tea Party values and an insistence on conservative purity. In New York's Harlem and upper Manhattan, 84-year-old Democratic Representative Charles Rangel, a 22-term congressman and the third-most-senior member of the House, celebrated after leading the vote 47 to 44 per cent - but his challenger refused to concede. Scroll down for video . Victory speech: Six-term Senator Thad Cochran won back the support of his party in Mississippi, beating out tea-party challenger Chris McDaniel in a primary runoff on Tuesday . Close vote: McDaniels pictured giving his concession speech Tuesday night. The Sarah Palin-supported candidate won the primary in the first round, but didn't secure enough votes to win the nomination outright so it went into a runoff . With 99 per cent of precincts . reporting, Cochran had 51 per cent to McDaniel's 49 per cent, three . weeks after McDaniel had beaten the veteran lawmaker in the initial . primary round but had fallen short of the majority needed for . nomination. In the three-week dash to the runoff, Cochran and his allies . had highlighted his seniority while McDaniel had argued that Cochran . was part of a blight of federal overspending. In . a brief speech, Cochran credited those who helped. 'It's a group . effort, it's not a solo and so we all have a right to be proud of our . state tonight.' McDaniel savaged the Republican party on Tuesday night after his narrow defeat. According to the Huffington Post, he condemned Cochran for courting Democratic voters. He told supporters: '[The GOP] was a party of principle at one point. A party of courage at one point. It was Reagan that said, ''We will be a party of bold colors, not pastels.'' And yet there are millions of people who feel like strangers in their own party.' He continued: 'There is something a bit unusual about a Republican primary that's decided by liberal Democrats. So much for bold colors. So much for principle. I guess they can take some consolation that they did something tonight by once again compromising, by once again reaching against the aisle, by once again abandoning the conservative movement.' The victory for a stalwart of the Senate Appropriations Committee was a fresh blow to the tea party movement, which spent millions to cast aside Cochran, a mainstream Republican who won a U.S. House seat in President Richard Nixon's GOP wave of 1972 and has served in the Senate for more than three decades. In another setback for the tea party, two-term Representative James Lankford of Oklahoma won the GOP nomination in the race to succeed Senator Tom Coburn, who is stepping down with two years left in his term. In the solidly Republican state, Lankford is all but assured of becoming the next senator. Part of the House GOP leadership, Lankford defeated TW Shannon, a member of the Chickasaw Nation and the state's first black House speaker, backed by former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and Texas Senator Ted Cruz, two stalwarts of the right. Despite Congress' abysmal public approval ratings, incumbents have largely prevailed midway through the primary season — with two notable exceptions. Victory hug: Two-term U.S. Representative James Lankford is embraced by his wife Cindy after securing the Republican party's nomination to run for the Senate . End of the road: Lankford beat out TW Shannon (pictured), a member of the Chickasaw Nation and the state's first black House speaker, who was supported by former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin and Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Shannon pictured above giving his concession speech . Little-known college professor Dave Brat knocked out House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in Virginia's Republican primary this month, and Republican Representative Ralph Hall, 91, lost in a Texas runoff to a younger Republican. McDaniel declared as he voted Tuesday, 'We are here, we're going to fight for our belief system no matter what, and we're going to reclaim Washington, DC, one race at a time.' But Cochran and his allies, notably former Governor Haley Barbour, promoted his Washington establishment credentials, focusing on the billions he funneled to his home state, one of the poorest in the nation. In a last-ditch effort, Cochran reached out to traditionally Democratic voters — blacks and union members — who could cast ballots in the runoff. That possible factor in Cochran's victory is sure to be cited by critics in days and weeks to come. In predominantly black neighborhoods of Hattiesburg's south side, an organized effort for Cochran was evident. Ronnie Wilson, a 50-year-old unemployed Hattiesburg man, said he had been encouraged by his pastor to vote for Cochran. Majority wins: Cochran supporters beam with joy at his victory party in Jackson, Mississippi on Tuesday night . Civic duty: McDaniel and his wife Jill vote in the primary race on Tuesday with the help of their patriotically-dressed children . 'They say the other guy is trying to cut food stamps and all that,' Wilson said. 'I'm trying to look after the majority of people not working.' McDaniel had railed against the federal 'spending sprees' by Cochran but his calls to slash the budget unnerved some voters. Frank McCain, a 71-year-old retired tax administrator from Mendenhall, voted for Cochran. 'I believe he is doing a good job,' McCain said. 'But mostly I'm more scared of the other candidate. He wants to do things like not taking school funding when everyone else is.' The Mississippi contest was the marquee race on a busy June primary day that included New York, Oklahoma, Colorado, Maryland and Utah. In a special House election on Florida's Gulf Coast, voters chose Republican businessman Curt Clawson to replace former Representative Trey Radel, who resigned in January after pleading guilty to cocaine possession. In New York's Harlem and upper Manhattan, 84-year-old Democratic Representative Charles Rangel, a 22-term congressman and the third-most-senior member of the House, held a slight edge over state Senator Adriano Espaillat, bidding to become the first Dominican-American member of Congress. With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Rangel had 47 per cent of the vote compared to Espaillat's 44 percent, according to the Associated Press. Espaillat has refused to concede with votes still to be counted. Rangel seemed content to celebrate his apparent victory at an election party in East Harlem. According to DNAinfo, he told the crowd: 'I think this election is historic. It shows the changes taking place in America.' Rangel, the face of Harlem politics for generations, raised his arms aloft and smiled. There is not a Republican contender for the seat, all but assuring Rangel's 23rd term in Congress. 'This was your victory,' Rangel told the crowd. 'This is your congressman. And you can rest assured all I will be doing is thinking about you and bringing resources back home.' Rangel wins: Charles Rangel, who has represented New York's Harlem and upper Manhattan in the House of Representatives for 22 terms, won his party's nomination again by beating state Senator Adriano Espaillat in the Tuesday primary. Pictured above at his victory party . His House: 84-year-old Rangel is the third most senior member of the House . Not giving up: Though Rangel led in the polls Tuesday night, Espaillat refused to concede saying the race was too close to call . Rangel, one of the founders of the Congressional Black Caucus, drew criticism last month when he dismissed the 59-year-old Espaillat as a candidate whose only accomplishment was to be a Dominican in a majority Latino district. Two years ago, Rangel prevailed in the primary by fewer than 1,100 votes. In Mississippi, outside groups, from tea party organizations to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, spent some $12million on the GOP Senate runoff. Former Green Bay Packers quarterback — and Gulfport, Mississippi, native — Brett Favre called the 76-year-old Cochran a 'proven and respected leader' in one Chamber ad. McDaniel, 41, an attorney and former radio host, had the strong backing of Palin and the tea party movement, which saw his political approach as a change from a Washington status quo of mainstream conservatives willing to compromise. Friends in high places: U.S. Senator John McCain supported Cochran in the race. Pictured together at a campaign rally on June 23 . Kellie Phipps, a 42-year-old public school teacher from Taylorsville, voted for McDaniel. 'I think we need some new blood,' Phipps said. In November, Cochran will face Democrat Travis Childers, a former congressman, in the heavily Republican state. In Colorado on Tuesday, former Representative Bob Beauprez won the crowded gubernatorial primary that included 2008 presidential candidate Tom Tancredo, an immigration opponent. That was welcome news to national Republicans who feared that Tancredo could be a drag on the GOP ticket in November. Beauprez will face Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper. In Maryland, Lieutenant Governor Anthony Brown won the Democratic primary for governor as the state chose a successor to outgoing Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley, who is considering a 2016 presidential bid. If elected in the Democratic-leaning state, Brown would make history as one of the few African-American governors; Massachusetts' Deval Patrick is retiring. Happy day: Former U.S. Representative Bob Beauprez won the Republican nomination to run for Governor in Colorado, pushing out competitor Tom Tancredo, a 2008 presidential candidate and strong immigration opponent . Bad news: Tancredo, pictured above at an election night gathering, won't be going on to face incumbent Governor John Hickenlooper .", "A new CNN poll finds that about half of Republicans sympathize with the tea party movement. The other half either remain aloof or (5%) even express hostility. That second group of Republicans has received remarkably little media attention this cycle. Yet their man -- Mitt Romney -- has held steady in first or second place for the past three years. Meanwhile tea party Republicans have bounced from Sarah Palin to Donald Trump to Michele Bachmann to Rick Perry to (now) Herman Cain, transfixing the media every time they lose faith in one messiah and search for another. Yet sooner or later, the tea party Republicans must converge on a single choice. When they do, they will present the non-tea party Republicans with a troubling menu of possibilities. Possibility 1: Romney is nominated, Romney is elected. From the point of view of non-tea party Republicans, this is the ideal outcome of the 2012 election. Yet it is also an outcome that looks worryingly out of reach. As we enter the final 12 months of the election countdown, Romney still cannot rise above 30% support in his own party. Worse, while it's easy to imagine (say) Herman Cain's voters shifting to Rick Perry or vice versa, it is very hard to imagine where Mitt Romney will find the additional Republican votes he needs. Possibility 2: Romney is nominated, Romney loses. For non-tea party Republicans, this second outcome opens all kinds of ugly, ominous possibilities. If candidate Romney loses, tea party Republicans will claim that the GOP lost because it failed to nominate a \"true conservative.\" That claim may fly in the face of political math (how would a more extreme candidate win more votes?), but it will pack a lot of emotional punch. Intense partisans are always ready to believe that the way to win is to be more intense and more partisan. Back-to-back losses under John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012 will open the way to an ultra-conservative nominee in 2016 -- and a true party debacle. Possibility 3: A tea party Republican is nominated and loses. From the point of view of a non-tea party Republican, the third possibility is the most tragic waste. A winnable election will be thrown away on an ideological adventure. Yet within the disaster might lurk a silver lining. At least the GOP will get the ideological adventure out of its system. For three years, Republican activists have lived in a fantasy world in which fringe characters like Sarah Palin and Herman Cain somehow \"speak for the common sense of the common people.\" It seems incredible that anybody could believe such a thing. It seems crazy that anyone would actually need a presidential election to disabuse them of such notions. But as Benjamin Franklin said: \"Experience is a hard teacher, but fools will have no other.\" Possibility 4: A tea party Republican is nominated and wins. This possibility has to be reckoned the most unlikely. But it cannot be excluded as utterly impossible, on two conditions: . If the U.S. economy continues as weak and sick as it is today, and; . If tea party Republicans revert from the utterly unelectable Herman Cain to Rick Perry, who as governor of Texas possesses at least the paper qualifications for the presidency. Then - who knows? - anything might happen. Perry would be a much weaker candidate than Romney, but if the voters are determined to fire the incumbent, then even a weak challenger can prevail. (See Barack Hussein Obama, 2008 candidacy of.) In which case, not only tea party Republicans but all Republicans and all Americans will confront the problem: what next? The tea party stands for a series of propositions that don't meet the reality test: that deficits matter more than jobs, that cutting deficits and tightening credit will accelerate economic growth, that high taxes and over-regulation are the most important reasons that growth has not revived, and that America still offers the world's best opportunity for the poor to rise. Tea party plans call for a radical shift in the burden of taxation from the rich to the poor -- and promise big reductions in government spending without touching any of the benefits of current retirees. If put into practice, the tea party platform is a formula for political and economic crisis. Fortunately, it remains a long-shot outcome. If you're betting the odds, you want to put your money on possibility three. As for possibility one -- that's just good government. And nobody seems to get much excited about that these days.", "Washington (CNN) -- Sarah Palin may have electrified the 2008 Republican presidential ticket when she was picked as John McCain's running mate, but just four years later her wattage has dimmed on the Republican stage. She was snubbed for a coveted speaking role at the Republican National Convention in Tampa even though McCain, the senator from Arizona who surprised many when he selected Alaska's governor, is scheduled to speak. Other speaking spots were doled out to lesser lights like Rick Santorum, who vied unsuccessfully for the nomination this year. Once the face of the tea party movement, Palin is not among speakers listed for the Tea Party Unity Rally on Sunday. Former presidential candidates Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minnesota, and pizza magnate Herman Cain are headlining. Rare opportunity for speakers at GOP convention . With Republicans positioning themselves for a presidential run last year, Palin drew the most attention when she rode into Washington on the back of a motorcycle before launching a bus tour. She eventually opted against a White House bid. Instead, Palin has hit the trail for down-ballot candidates in competitive congressional races, stumping for such political mavericks as Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock and more mainstream politicians like Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. Palin's mission: to recreate the same kind of success she had in the 2010 midterm elections when many of the candidates she endorsed won. Political experts say Palin is also carefully calculating how to wield her burgeoning kingmaker status and star power to position herself for even greater prominence in the party. \"She has a tremendous amount of pull among the people who make up the 800-pound gorilla in the party -- the conservative base of the party,\" said Keith Appell, a Republican strategist and senior vice president at CRC Public Relations. \"She will be a force to be reckoned with for the foreseeable future and beyond.\" Tea party candidate to receive prime RNC speaking slot . But first she has to figure out how to get back into the bigger national spotlight, political experts say. During this presidential election cycle, Palin has been relegated to the farm leagues, said Norm Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and co-author of the book \"It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism.\" It is a role that she slipped into through her own failure to bone up policy matters, he said. \"I think it's really interesting that she has fallen so far in the last year that they have no interest in having her appear at the convention,\" Ornstein said. \"In a lot of ways this political capital she pretty much squandered by becoming a Fox News commentator and going on reality television instead of deepening her knowledge of policy issues. She decided to focus more on making money than on throwing herself into remaining deeply relevant in politics.\" Will GOP talk about Bush, Palin? In her absence, some of the same Republican women who Palin supported as part of her \"Mama Grizzlies\" pack have come to gain broader acceptance by the party's mainstream. In 2010, Palin endorsed New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, calling her a \"Granite State 'mama grizzly' who has broken barriers.\" Just two years later, Ayotte will speak during a prime-time convention slot on Tuesday. Palin's relative absence on the national stage also allowed Bachmann \"to fill the vacuum,\" Ornstein said. Politics, parties keep some away from conventions . Palin's persona non grata status is \"more a matter of they can't control her message as they've already learned,\" said Michele Swers, professor of American government at Georgetown University. \"It's always useful when they can showcase Republican women, but they'd rather showcase Kelly Ayotte than Sarah Palin.\" Some conservatives feel the party is giving the cold shoulder by not allowing her to speak. \"I think it's a big mistake,\" Appell said. \"If no other reason you would have a very popular voice using prime time to peel the bark off Barack Obama in front of a national television audience.\" For her part, Palin is careful in how she has phrased her notable absence from the convention's speaking roster. \"This year is a good opportunity for other voices to speak at the convention and I'm excited to hear them,\" Palin wrote in statement earlier this month. \"As I've repeatedly said, I support Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan in their efforts to replace President Obama at the ballot box, and I intend to focus on grassroots efforts to rally Independents and the GOP base to elect Senate and House members so a wise Congress is ready to work with our new president to get our country back on the right path.\" But do not count Palin out, political experts say. She still has plenty of pull and will likely bide her time before making her next big move. Drama is rare in modern conventions . \"To say she is irrelevant would be a mistake,\" Ornstein said. \"When she gets involved in a primary it has an impact. That doesn't translate into the broader national role that she could have had. But there are second, third, fourth, and fifth acts in American politics. The fact that she isn't a major factor in American politics now doesn't mean she won't be in 2013 or a subsequent point.\" Palin backed Sarah Steelman in the Missouri Republican primary against politically beleaguered Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin. Republican leaders, including Romney, are now pushing Akin to drop out of the highly contested race against Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill after the congressman's controversial comments on \"legitimate rape.\" During a recent Fox News interview, Palin suggested \"maybe it is a third-party run of Sarah Steelman that I can get behind.\" Palin is scarcely twiddling her thumbs while sitting on the sidelines. Her endorsements of congressional candidates have built an army of supporters inside the Beltway. \"If Romney loses by a big margin there will be a move by center-leaning Republicans to recapture dominance,\" Ornstein said. \"But you're not going to see a lot of conservatives saying 'we were wrong about this.' You're going to have another chapter in this ongoing struggle. There will be a vacuum, Sarah could fill that vacuum.\" And if Romney wins Palin will be right there on his heels making sure he sticks to his conservative promises, political experts say. She'll be joined by other conservative voices such as Bachmann, Cain, Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, and Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina—all vying for dominance of who represents conservatives. \"If Romney and (Paul Ryan) win, the question is do they implement a series of policies that fit the sharp conservative agenda,\" Ornstein said adding that conservatives will rally to force the Romney administration to keep its promises. \"If (the Romney administration) tack to the center, who's going to be leading that charge ... Sarah Palin.\" Memorable convention moments .", "She’s got the beehive hairdo, the tailored business suit and the wire-rimmed glasses, but it won’t be Sarah Palin heating up Tampa come Republican convention time, but rather her porn star  doppelganger, Lisa Ann. From adult films to faux press conferences at strip clubs, Lisa Ann’s career has soared after the 2008 election thanks to the Tea Party favorite, a notable absentee from the 2012 convention line-up set to crown Mitt Romney the Republican presidential nominee next week. ‘I don't think she's as thrilled with me as I am with her,’ Lisa Ann told AFP at The Dollhouse club, which is hoping for a big week as tens of thousands of Republicans descend on Tampa for the convention that runs through Thursday. Dazzling doppelganger: Porn star and exotic dancer Lisa Ann, right, has made a living impersonating former Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin, left, after the latter's unsuccessful vice presidential run in 2008 . Lisa Ann, a 40-year-old certified dental assistant who alternates between homes in Los Angeles and New York, was included in CNBC's Dirty Dozen, a 2011 list of the 12 most popular porn stars. ‘We live in a pretty recession-proof business,’ the well-spoken adult film star said. ‘I mean, it did definitely change things for a lot of people. But for myself, having the gift to play Sarah Palin during the crunch has been just incredible.’ In a recent interview with the Tampa Bay Times, Lisa Ann said she has been reading up on Palin’s life and trying to study her to gain a better understanding of her life. 'Do you know how many guys at the airport have told me they voted for . Palin because they thought she was hot? I tell them, \"Don't vote,\"' she told the Times. Thanks . to the boost in business from the Republican convention, Tampa clubs . say exotic dancers can expect to double their take, with many of them . likely to take home $1,000 a night and even more. Show girl: Lisa Ann will be performing at The Dollhouse club in Tampa during the convention . Character study: The 40-year-old exotic dancer and adult film star said she has been reading up on Palin to become more familiar with her life . On . Wednesday, the GOP will officially nominate Romney as the Republican . presidential candidate to face off against President Barack Obama in the . November 6 election. During the 2008 Republican convention, then-Alaska Governor Palin emerged as the unlikely star of the GOP after being chosen as John McCain’s running mate. After delivering a well-received convention speech in which Palin introduced herself to the Republican delegates as just ‘an average hockey mom,’ she came unraveled after exhibiting an astonishing lack of knowledge in areas ranging from foreign policy to her choice of reading materials. Over the past four years, Palin came to be viewed as contributing to McCain's defeat in the election. Game change: Lisa Ann, right, is conconsidering following in the footsteps of her alter-ego, left, and getting into politics . A divisive figure within the Republican Party, Palin retains a loyal and committed following, especially among the Tea Party conservative fringe, and can act as an important kingmaker in key congressional races. Lisa Ann, who leans Democrat and appears well-versed in politics, said she may even pursue a career in the footsteps of her alter ego. ‘I wouldn't rule it out, but I don't know if I could play it as shady as some politicians do.’", "(CNN) -- Sen. John McCain told supporters he will \"take nothing for granted\" after defeating former Rep. J.D. Hayworth in a bitterly fought Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Arizona Tuesday. \"I ... will fight with every ounce of strength and conviction I possess to make the case for my continued service in the Senate, and the policies and principles I will advocate and defend if I'm fortunate to be re-elected,\" McCain said in his victory speech Tuesday night. McCain -- seeking a fifth term as senator -- was ahead 58.8 percent to 29.8 percent, with 20 percent of precincts reporting, according to The Associated Press. The race between McCain -- the 2008 GOP presidential nominee -- and conservative talk show host Hayworth started off nasty and didn't get any friendlier down the home stretch. Forced to spend $20 million in the campaign, McCain was driven to the right on some issues as Hayworth accused him of not being a true conservative. McCain is expected to easily beat any one of the four Democratic primary candidates in the solidly red state. In Florida -- one of four other states to hold primaries Tuesday -- millionaire political newcomer Rick Scott claimed victory over Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum in the Republican primary for governor. In a speech to supporters, Scott, who spent $50 million of his own fortune since joining the race in April, alluded to the divisive nature of his fight against McCollum, the party-establishment favorite and former Congressman. \"Some of you may have noticed this was a hard-fought race. We talked a lot about our differences, but tonight it's time to remember those things that bring us together -- to recall our core beliefs and recommit ourselves to fighting for our principles,\" Scott said. \"The Republican Party will come together, and the reason we will come together is our shared devotion to the values that make America great.\" Scott was ahead of McCollum, 46.5 percent to 43.4 percent, with 96 percent of precincts reporting, according to The Associated Press. The winner will face a November general election against Alex Sink, Florida's chief financial officer, whom CNN projected will win the state's Democratic primary for governor. In a different race featuring a political veteran against a self-funded candidate with deep pockets, Rep. Kendrick Meek declared victory over billionaire Jeff Greene in Florida's Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. Meek led Greene 57.3 percent to 31.2 percent, with 97 percent of precincts reporting, according to The Associated Press. Meek will take on Marco Rubio -- who won the Republican primary for Senate -- and Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican-turned independent, in the general election. In an e-mail Tuesday night, Meek thanked supporters for lifting him past Greene, a billionaire real estate investor who was funding his own bid after making a fortune betting against the housing market. \"The pundits thought this seat could be bought. Our critics wrote us off. But together, you and I proved them wrong,\" Meek's message said. Meek used his victory speech minutes later to try and establish himself as the candidate for Democratic voters in November. He noted that he is \"running against two conservative candidates\" -- a clear swipe at Crist, who could siphon votes from Meek in November. \"I made the case, and I am the real Democrat in this race,\" Meek said. Crist, who avoided a primary battle with Rubio by announcing an independent candidacy, framed the three-way Senate race as a choice between him, the hard right and the hard left. \"If ... you want somebody who wants to fight the gridlock in Washington and put the people first instead of the party, [and] do what's right for Florida rather than what's right for Washington or right for just Republicans or Democrats, then you have an alternative,\" he told CNN's \"Larry King Live\" on Tuesday night. Rubio told his supporters that Crist and Meek would be the candidates for voters who already \"like the direction that America is headed.\" \"If, on the other hand, you are unhappy with the direction that Washington is taking America ... then there is only one person running, there is only one campaign in Florida in 2010 that is offering to stand up to that agenda,\" Rubio said. Florida's Democratic primary for Senate and the Republican primary for governor were two races in which two deep-pocketed political novices came virtually out of nowhere this spring, but managed to transform a pair of primaries into two of the most outlandish contests of the 2010 cycle. Meek, a Democrat from Miami, Florida, had a clear path to his party's Senate nomination until April, when Greene decided to fund his own bid. Both campaigns quickly trained fire on one another, with Meek dubbing Greene a \"Meltdown Mogul.\" Greene linked Meek to an indicted Miami real estate developer and questioned Meek's commitment to Israel, a weighty charge in a state with a large population of Jewish voters. Republicans also were grappling with a divisive primary in the governor's race between McCollum, a former Congressman backed by the state's party establishment, and Scott, a millionaire former health care executive. Scott spent $50 million of his personal fortune since joining the race in April, mostly by blanketing Florida's expensive television and radio airwaves with advertisements questioning McCollum's conservative bona fides. He eventually stumbled on the campaign trail as he faced questions about his management of two health care companies that went on to face legal problems. Arizona's GOP Senate race also was bitter, with Hayworth insisting that after running to the right in the primary, McCain would seek to build his legacy by cutting deals with President Obama and the Democrats if re-elected. Fights over immigration fueled the race, as Hayworth and Tea Party activists challenged McCain's previous efforts at reform, which called for tougher border security, but included a pathway to citizenship for some undocumented workers. But McCain defended Arizona's new immigration law, State Bill 1070, and went on a six-stop statewide tour with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, whose signing of the bill earned her wide praise from conservatives, and made her the symbol of opposition to amnesty. On Tuesday night, McCain told supporters he was convinced that Republicans will regain majorities in both the Senate and the House. \"And when we do, we will stop the out of control spending and tax increases and repeal and replace Obamacare,\" McCain said. \"We will keep families in their homes, we will create new jobs and we will allow our businesses to grow without Washington interference. We will secure our borders, defend our nation and bring our troops home from Afghanistan with honor and victory.\" Other races: . -- Republican Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona easily won her party's gubernatorial nomination Tuesday night, according to a CNN projection. Brewer captured 87 percent of the vote in the GOP primary election, according to early unofficial vote returns from the AP. -- In Alaska, incumbent Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, with one of the best-known political names in the state, is pitted against an unknown challenger. But attorney Joe Miller's campaign picked up the support of the Tea Party movement and the backing of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. In a last-minute robocall for Miller, Palin went after Murkowski saying, \"Lisa Murkowski has voted with the Democrats more than any Republican up for re-election this year. She waffled on the repeal of ObamaCare, co-sponsored cap and trade and voted for TARP.\" But some think that endorsement of Miller is at least partly personal. Palin had tangled with Murkowski's father Frank and defeated him in the 2006 governor's race. The Tea Party made its support known again in the final hours, promoting the more than half-million dollars it put into Miller's campaign. -- Also in Alaska, voters decide on gubernatorial nominees. Gov. Sean Parnell, who replaced Palin when she resigned last year, faces two challengers in the GOP primary. Two Democrats are battling for their party's nomination. -- Longtime Republican Gov. Jim Douglas is retiring in Vermont, giving Democrats hope of competing for the seat. Five Democrats are running in what's considered a tight race. The winner will face GOP Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie. -- In Oklahoma, two U.S. House Republican nominations will be decided in a runoff. In the 2nd District, Republicans think they have a chance for a pickup this fall against conservative Democrat Dan Boren. And two Republicans are battling to likely replace Rep. Mary Fallin, who's running for governor. -- A 10-way Republican primary in the Arizona 3rd Congressional District race to replace retiring Rep. John Shadegg has attracted national attention because Ben Quayle, son of former Vice President Dan Quayle, is one of the candidates. The winner will face Democrat John Hulburd in the fall in the heavily red district. CNN's Peter Hamby, Steve Brusk, Rachel Streitfeld, Jeff Simon and Mark Preston contributed to this report.", "\"Do the Republican and Democratic parties do an adequate job of representing the American people, or do they do such a poor job that a third major party is required?\" A record 60% of Americans now yearn for a third major party, according to Gallup. Independents, unsurprisingly, are most likely to favor a third party, but a majority of self-described Republicans say yes, too. But what do they mean by that \"yes\"? Obviously, they mean many different things. Some yearn for a third party representing the Michael Bloomberg center: fiscally conservative and socially liberal like the New York City mayor. But here's a caution about third parties in American history: They are much more likely to arise on the fringes of the political system, not the center. America has seen third-party efforts by socialists and segregationists; by right-to-lifers and libertarians. This is why you now hear so much \"third party\" talk coming from tea party Republicans rather than (as you might expect) the party's subordinated pragmatists. The sensible center is much more likely to exert itself inside existing parties, as Dwight Eisenhower did for Republicans in the 1950s and as Bill Clinton did for the Democrats in the 1990s. Pragmatists want to change the GOP so that it can win elections and govern effectively. Tea party Republicans prefer to express their principles regardless of consequences, which is why the Pew survey in September found that 71% of them favored a government shutdown even though nearly 40% of them expected that shutdown to have a \"major\" impact on the economy. Third-party threats frighten Republican leaders. They remember that Ross Perot's independent challenge badly hurt George H.W. Bush's re-election campaign in 1992. Canadian conservatives were locked out of power for nearly 15 years by a party split in the 1990s. British Conservatives fear that a rise in support for the United Kingdom Independence Party could drain support from Britain's Conservative-Liberal governing coalition. Yet politics is a complicated business, and it's not always true that a party is weakened by the departure of its most extreme supporters. Consider, for example, the case of the Democratic Party in the election of 1948. That year, the Democrats faced two groups that bolted. To protest President Harry Truman's turn to support civil rights, southern Democrats coalesced as a \"States' Rights\" party and nominated South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond for president. Left-liberal Democrats angered by Truman's tough Cold War foreign policy created an \"American Labor\" party and nominated former vice president Henry Wallace. Together, Thurmond and Wallace took almost 5% of the vote in 1948. Thurmond carried four Deep South states and 7% of the Electoral College. Yet Truman survived. In fact, there's a reasonable argument that Truman was actually helped by these third- and fourth-party challenges. In 1948, African-Americans remained very much a swing constituency. Hundreds of thousands of black Americans had moved north and gained voting rights in the 30 years between 1917 and 1948. As a group, they tended to prefer the New Deal policies of the Democratic Party, but they deeply distrusted that party's Southern white supremacist wing. Truman was a card-carrying member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans who had adopted the civil rights cause late in his career. Could he really be trusted? Truman's willingness to face down Thurmond convinced many Northern blacks that he could be. He carried an estimated 77% of the black vote in the North, and those votes provided the margin of victory in the three crucial states of California, Illinois and Ohio. Those three states provided 73 electoral votes in total, and they were each won by Truman with a margin of less than 1%. Meanwhile, the Wallace challenge helped Truman with more conservative voters. Truman had initiated the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Airlift, yet some questioned whether the Democrats were tough enough on communism -- an important question among voters of eastern European origin in states like Wisconsin and Michigan. With Wallace vehemently denouncing Truman as too tough on the Soviet Union -- sometimes in speeches that echoed the editorials of the newspaper of the American Communist Party -- Truman gained the same kind of political cover on his right flank that Thurmond had provided him on his left. The result, everybody knows. Right now, tea party extremism contaminates the whole Republican brand. It's a very interesting question whether a tea party bolt from the GOP might not just liberate the party to slide back to the political center -- and liberate Republicans from identification with the Sarah Palins and the Ted Cruzes who have done so much harm to their hopes over the past three election cycles. It's worth repeating over and over again. Add Todd Akin in Missouri and Richard Mourdock in Indiana, Sharron Angle in Nevada and Ken Buck in Colorado, Christine O'Donnell in Delaware and Joe Miller in Alaska -- and you have half a dozen Senate races lost to the GOP by extremist nominations. Maybe the right answer to the threat, \"Shut down the government or we quit\" is: \"So sad you feel that way. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.\"", "By . Mark Duell . Last updated at 6:59 AM on 2nd September 2011 . Republican primary voters have sent a big message to their presidential candidates - they want Rick Perry, but Sarah Palin can forget running. Former Texas governor Mr Perry has moved into the lead with the backing of 26 per cent of GOP primary voters, according to a Fox News poll. But 74 per cent of voters think former Alaska governor Mrs Palin should stay out of the race to take on President Barack Obama in 2012. Candidates: Rick Perry, left, has the backing of 26 per cent of GOP primary voters - but 74 per cent of voters think Sarah Palin, right, should stay out of the race . Mr Perry has gained 13 points in three weeks to grab first place ahead of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who is on 18 per cent. Mrs Palin and Texas Rep. Ron Paul are on eight and seven per cent, while Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann is down at only four per cent. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, ex-Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and businessman Herman Cain are also all at four per cent. But between announced runners, Mr Perry gets 29 per cent, Mr Romney receives 22 per cent and Mr Paul and Mrs Bachmann have eight per cent. Struggling: Minnesota's Michele Bachmann is down at only four per cent, below four other candidates running for the Republican presidential nomination . Mr Romney and Mrs Bachmann have lost much support since the last Fox News poll, taken before Mr Perry had announced he would run. Rick Perry - 26 per cent . Mitt Romney - 18 per cent . Sarah Palin - 8 per cent . Ron Paul - 7 per cent . Mrs Bachmann tops the ‘too extreme to be seriously considered’ among all voters with 18 per cent, followed by Mr Perry at 14 per cent. Meanwhile just 20 per cent of voters say Mrs Palin should run for President, in a clear signal that she should stay out of the race. Mrs Palin will soon end the will-she-won't-she speculation that has trailed the former Republican vice presidential candidate for two years. Less backing: Rick Perry has gained 13 points to move into first place among GOP voters ahead of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, pictured . The Tea Party darling’s consideration period has been about as unconventional as her presidential campaign seemingly would be. 'After a while you get a little tired of . the tease. In this case, I . think the voters have found another girlfriend' Republican strategist Chip Felkel on Sarah Palin . She is likely to announce plans later this month and has been boosting her profile by writing books and appearing as a paid analyst on Fox News. But Mr Perry and Mrs Bachmann have generating strong tea party support over the last few month, which could be to Mrs Palin’s detriment. 'After a while you get a little tired of the tease,' Republican strategist Chip Felkel said. 'In this case, I think the voters have found another girlfriend.' Adult entertainment: Owners are getting their clubs ready in Tampa, Florida, for August 2012's event (file picture) Next summer’s Republican National Convention appears to be not all about politics. Adult entertainment owners are getting clubs ready for the 50,000 visitors expected to descend on Tampa, Florida, in August 2012. The Penthouse Club operator DeWayne Levesque has installed two new secluded VIP rooms, carpets and furniture to add a bit of privacy to after-hours, reported the Huffington Post. Mons Venus strip club owner Joe Redner said he is expecting to make five times more than he would normally on each night. ‘Republicans (have) got plenty of money,’ he told the Huffington Post. ‘They take it all from poor people.’ One adult star who may wish to attend is Lisa Ann of the ‘Nailin' Palin’ adult film series, who might be a big hit with the Tea Party crowd.", "Is the tea party changing the Republican Party from the inside -- or selling out to the GOP? As Republicans prepare to officially roll out Mitt Romney as their party's presidential nominee at the Republican National Convention this week, major tea party groups and figures have descended on Tampa, Florida, to schmooze with party bigwigs and rally for Romney. But Romney's conservative credentials have long been viewed with suspicion by the movement. So it came as a surprise when, before at least one event, tea party organizers committed what some activists would consider heresy: seeking approval from establishment Republicans to rally. How much of a damper will Isaac be to convention? All of it has opened up a once unthinkable charge: the movement that's rabble-roused and rocked the GOP establishment since 2009 is now too cozy with it. \"The top national groups have already sold out,\" said Judd Saul, a prominent Iowa activist associated with the Cedar Valley Tea Party. \"They don't truly represent the grassroots.\" \"Even before the caucuses, these guys were all pushing for Romney even when the primaries were going on,\" Saul added. \"It's a pretty widespread (sentiment). A lot of activists have noticed that.\" But presidential historian Douglas Brinkley doesn't see this phenomenon as anything new. \"I think it happens all the time in politics,\" said Brinkley, a political analyst and professor at Rice University. \"The grassroots people are the people who are hypermotivated. They are people willing to go to rallies and hold bake sales and ... and they're always later kind of seen as auxiliary players once it gets to the main game when the elections come in the fall.\" Get the latest political news at CNN's Election Center . \"I think selling out is too strong,\" added Brinkley. \"But you can say something to the effect of they've tricked the tea party movement into believing they were going to have a meaningful role in the 2012 election.\" Others are taking their groans to social media. \"I think it is time not only to clean up Washington but we as well need to clean up or clean out the top dogs in the RNC that are turn coats,\" tea party supporter Margaret Robinson posted on the Facebook page for theteaparty.net. \"Not only TAKE BACK AMERICA but also need to TAKE BACK OUR REPUBLICAN PARTY. \" Saska Mare, who describes herself as a \"tea party Republican\" and Newt Gingrich supporter, wrote: \"Now is the time for All Good Patriots to come to the aid of their Country and QUIT MITT & RECRUIT NEWT!!\" The president and CEO of one of the largest tea party sponsors knows that not everyone is happy with the commingling between the two groups. \"There's always purists in any movement who think that anything less than perfect is a sellout,\" said Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks, based in Washington. \"But that's not how the American system works. \" The head of another group was more blunt. \"Anyone at this point who is trying to disrupt the convention or protest the nomination of Romney is blinded by irrational enthusiasm,\" said Dustin Stockton, chief strategist for theteaparty.net. There is one problem with such rationalities: They contradict the movement's belief that to change the system, it must be blown up. Since its birth three years ago, tea party activists have railed against compromise, leaned on lawmakers, launched RINO hunts against moderates deemed \"Republicans in Name Only\" and sought swift action on their ideas of reduced government spending, lower taxes and increased adherence to the constitution. For them, political patience was not a virtue. But since then, the tea party has gradually moved from anger and impatience toward acceptance and embrace. Several leaders say they understand the slow pace of change and stress the need to change the political system from the inside. Stockton's group sponsored a rally on Sunday in Tampa, a few miles away from the GOP convention site, featuring prominent tea partiers Herman Cain and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, both former presidential candidates. The 30-year-old tea party leader is adamant that the event's goal is to continue advocating for the tea party. \"We wanted to make sure that when (activists) tune in to the convention and the convention starts, they know that the tea party is still here -- still fighting for the values they believe in,\" Stockton said. \"Because that's really uniting more than Republicans, actually the American people in general. And we wanted to do it right before the conventions to try and set the tone for the entire convention.\" Yet Stockton also revealed something that will surely cause some activists to fume. \"In order to get the venue and everything, we did get the blessings of the Romney camp and the RNC to hold the event months ago,\" Stockton said. \"And the Romney camp is sending (Utah) Congressman Jason Chaffetz as a surrogate for Romney. So they're on board with it. \" Many tea partiers support efforts to unify the movement with the GOP. Kibbe's group is also holding GOP-friendly events during the convention week. But he, too, beats back any notion that the tea party is toeing the Republican line. \"I would describe us as having a foot in the door and a seat at the table,\" the FreedomWorks chief said. \"Things are definitely trending in our direction.\" Kibbe also noted another achievement: the GOP embrace of core tea party proposals. FreedomWorks had pushed the RNC's platform committee to adopt 12 items. \"We had a whole delegation of tea partiers at the platform committee,\" Kibbe said. \"And we feel like we made a lot of progress. We feel like we had success on 11-and-a-half of them.\" Sal Russo, chief strategist for the Tea Party Express, also claimed that the Republican Party is coming around to the tea party -- not the other way around. \"We have a huge Tea Party Express rally (in Tampa). In fact, we already have 15,000 reporters sign up to be there. We've called it the '2012 Republican National Convention,' \" Russo joked. Though Stockton is promoting unity during convention week, he has a special gripe: one prominent tea partier is not on the speaking list. \"I'm incredibly frustrated at the speaker lineup -- it doesn't include Sarah Palin,\" Stockton said. \"And Palin should have definitely been invited. He also lamented that two former presidential hopefuls in 2012, Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, will not have a prominent presence. Palin on her lack of a speaking role at convention . Meanwhile, after long viewing Romney as a suspect conservative, how are activists feeling about him now? \"I say there's a solid 50-50 split within the movement\" for and against Romney, Saul said. He added: \"I will hold my nose and pull the lever for Romney. Legitimately, I think that President Obama is the worst of the two evils. And Romney has a shot. And with some backing and some pushing, he could do some better things for the economy and the country. \" But the FreedomWorks chief stressed political patience. \"The practical reality of presidential politics: it takes years to build your brand, and your machine, your ability to fundraise,\" Kibbe said. \"And the tea party class was very green; they weren't ready.\" In the face of some activist criticism, Russo said the movement should celebrate a milestone. \"I think (the tea party) has successfully yanked the Republican Party back to where it's sort of always been since Reagan yanked it back -- which is an opposition to an increasing size, cost and intrusiveness of the federal government,\" Russo said. Calling tea party opposition to Romney and the RNC \"silly,\" Russo said: \"I mean, sometimes people don't know when to declare victory.\"", "Revelation came the same day she said the media 'want to see her mud wrestle Sarah Palin' By . Daily Mail Reporter . Last updated at 5:27 PM on 30th June 2011 . Michele Bachmann has revealed she suffered a miscarriage after an unplanned pregnancy, and says the loss inspired her to become a foster parent to 23 children. The Minnesota Republican told a town hall crowd in South Carolina on Wednesday that the experience changed her and refocused her family's priorities. She says the miscarriage was 'devastating' and that it came after when she and her husband Marcus already had two children. Scroll down for video... Michele Bachmann revealed that she suffered a miscarriage between the births of her second and third child while speaking at a town hall in South Carolina . Bachmann, who describes herself as '100 percent pro-life,' now has five children of her own. She says the miscarriage led to the belief that 'no matter how many children were brought into our life, we would receive them because we are committed to life.' Fellow Republican candidate Mitt Romney has been criticized for taking too soft a stance on abortion. She said it was devastating, even though she and her husband, seen here, had not planned the pregnancy . Earlier Bachmann claimed that the media want to see her have a ‘mud wrestling fight’ with fellow Tea Party darling Sarah Palin, who is also staunchly pro-life. Palin also has five children, and has said the experience the of having a child with Down's Syndrome strengthened her anti-abortion stance. Bachmann, who is touring the U.S. for support for her White House bid, showed yet more signs that she is growing tired of comparisons with Mrs Palin. But Mrs Bachmann’s latest bizarre campaign trail outburst is unlikely to relieve of her being associated with the gaffe-prone former governor of Alaska. Outburst: Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, wearing her trademark pearls, on the campaign trail in South Carolina, where she told an audience that the media wished to see her 'mud wrestle' with rival Sarah Palin . Speaking at a meeting in Rock Hill, South Carolina, Mrs Bachmann, 55, said of the media: ‘They want to see two girls come together and have a mud wrestling fight. ‘And I’m not going to give it to ‘em. I have great respect and admiration for the Governor.’ The Minnesota representative is seen as arch-rival of Mrs Palin, who has yet to announce whether she will run in next year’s primary contest. This is because they appeal to the same stripe of deficit-hating, gun-loving social conservatives. Mrs Bachman has been keen to stress that she in an ally of the former vice presidential candidate – but there are increasing signs that she may be willing to go to war with her. A potential turning point in their relationship occurred earlier this month when the congresswoman strategist, Ed Rollins, launched into a harsh critique of Mrs Palin, describing her as ‘not serious’. Debate: Mrs Bachman at public meeting in Rock Hill, South Carolina, yesterday . There are even claims that Mrs Bachmann may have already taken many of Mrs Palin’s supporters and is her slightly softer stance may win over more people in the middle. Although both women’s tendency to make gaffes – Mrs Bachmann kicked off her campaign by inadvertently saying she would suggesting she would work in the 'spirit’ of an Iowa serial killer – are equally likely to put off many voters. Yesterday, while speaking of the U.S. currency’s loss of value in foreign exchange markets, she appeared to blame President Barack Obama for a century’s worth of inflation. ‘In the last two years of the Obama . administration ... you have lost 14 percent of the value of that . dollar,’ she told a crowd of 800 at an hour-long evening town hall . meeting in Rock Hill. Rival: Fellow Tea Party darling Sarah Palin, at a book signing in Minnesota, yesterday, has yet to announce whether or not she will run for the White House . ‘That means the federal government has stolen that money from you. You made it and they stole it from you because they've been printing essentially valueless money and flooding it into the money supply. ‘I don't stand for that. A dollar in 2011 should be the same as a dollar in 1911. A dollar should be worth a dollar.’ But despite her gaffes, Mrs Bachmann’s words seem to please an initially cautious South Carolina audience, whose state is one of the key early nominating contests. Afterwards many felt she had the right mix of being was exciting enough without being too extreme as to be unelectable. Of the other candidates, the former governors – Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, and Jon Huntsman of Utah – were seen as too boring. The Tea Party favourites – former senator Rick Santorum, pizza mogul Herman Cain, and Representative Ron Paul of Texas – are thought to be incapable of beating Mr Obama. But Democrats are not getting too worried by Mrs Bachmann. They claim her position in the middle of the Republican pool of candidates merely demonstrates how far to the Right the Tea Party movement has dragged the party. ‘She's talented. She definitely has an appeal and there's a sense on the Democratic side that it might be even more potent than Sarah Palin,’ Jennifer Palmieri, president of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, told the Huffington Post. ‘But, you know, she is gaffe prone and she's really conservative. ‘The idea that Barack Obama can't beat Michele Bachmann is laughable to me.’", "The onetime Republican vice presidential candidate who quit her job as Alaska's governor wrote on Tuesday that President Barack Obama should be forced out of his White House gig. 'Enough is enough of the years of abuse . from this president,' she wrote. 'His unsecured border crisis is the last straw that . makes the battered wife say, \"no mas\".' 'The many impeachable offenses of Barack Obama can no longer be ignored. If after all this he’s not impeachable, then no one is.' Her demand rocketed around the political world, attracting thousands of tweets and keeping the tea party darling in the public eye – which may be what she wants. SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO . Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has riled up the tea party troops by demanding the impeachment of President Barack Obama . Not fazed: Obama met with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in the Oval Office on Tuesday, and the White House hasn't commented on Palin's red-meat essay . Mocking Obama is nothing new for Palin – in March she compared the bear-wrestling Russian president Vladimir Putin to Obama 'who wears mom jeans' – but she is the highest-profile Republican yet to call for his ouster. Palin hosts a Sportsman Channel reality TV show called 'Amazing America,' a program that was renewed on Monday for a second season. She also planted a seed in Hollywood last week, throwing her hat into the ring as a potential future hire to replace one of the fired co-hosts on the talk show 'The View.' Rosie O'Donnell, the outspoken liberal former comedian, was signed on Tuesday to take one slot alongside actress Whoopi Goldberg, according to TMZ. But the show's producers are reportedly still looking to add a Hispanic woman and a conservative. Palin told The Hollywood Reporter on Monday that the show would benefit from her 'real-life groundedness [sic], candor and commonsense.' 'I hear everyone recently got canned from The View,' she said. '[M]aybe a show like that needs a punch of reality and a voice of reason from America's heartland to knock some humble sense into their scripts.' But a day later it's Palin's verbal punch in the nose to the commander-in-chief that has Washington, D.C. tongues wagging. 'Without borders, there is no nation. Obama knows this,' Palin wrote in her essay at Breitbart.com. 'Opening our borders to a flood of illegal immigrants is deliberate. This is his fundamental transformation of America. It’s the only promise he has kept.' Her jab came as national attention is focused on a flood of illegal immigrant children who have swarmed across America's southern border. Republicans claim Obama's own 2012 policy shift, delaying for years the deportation of illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children, encouraged tens of thousands of underage children to make the trip – without adults – from Central America. Tea party anger: Protesters outside a U.S. Border Patrol station in Murrieta, California clashed with federal agents on Independence Day as the agency was foiled in an attempt to bus in and process illegal immigrants who have flooded the U.S. -Mexico border . Preaching to the choir: Conservatives who identify with the tea party and usually rally around Palin have already decided to blame President Obama for the border crisis . Obama, according to Palin, has 'given false hope and taxpayer’s change to millions of foreign nationals who want to sneak into our country illegally.' 'Because of Obama’s purposeful dereliction of duty an untold number of illegal immigrants will kick off their shoes and come on in, competing against Americans for our jobs and limited public services.' 'We’re the ones getting screwed,' Palin claimed, 'as we’re forced to follow all our government’s rules while others are not required to do so.' Promos for Palin's 'Amazing America' show are aggressive and no-holds-barred, like her rhetorical style, and both are seemingly calculated to generate controversy . Impeachment proceedings in Congress, she wrote, can't wait because 'irreparable harm can be done in this lame-duck term as he continues to make up his own laws as he goes along.' A host of Republican lawmakers have said in the past that impeachment should be an option, but few have expended the political capital required to demand it publicly. Senators James Inhofe and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Tim Scott of South Carolina have jumped aboard the impeachment train. So have Reps. Jason Chaffetz  of Utah, Blake Farenthold and Michael Burgess of Texas, Kerry Bentivolio Tim Scott of South Carolina – who is now a senator – and (R-Mich.), and Tim Scott of Michigan and then-Rep. Tim Scott of South Carolina. Scott is now i the U.S. Senate. Allen West of Florida and Tom Tancredo of Colorado both gave the idea their approval before leaving Congress. The South Dakota Republican Party passed a resolution this weekend calling for impeachment as well. A host of scandals have plagued the president, mostly in his second term, including claims that his IRS targeted conservative groups for political punishment, that his NSA spied on millions of Americans without legal authority, and that his DOJ tapped journalists' phones and copied their emails. The 'Obamacare' medical insurance overhaul program has become more unpopular with each month. And the president has been dogged by Republicans' claims that his 2011 Iraq troop withdrawal – known in military circles as the 'Obama bug-out' – led to the current crisis there, where heavily armed Islamists have established what they call the world's first jihadi state.", "(CNN) -- A few weeks ago, Time Magazine ran its now-famous cover: \"The Republican Savior: How Marco Rubio became the new voice of the GOP.\" Only time will tell if the junior senator from Florida lives up to that billing, and it's entirely possible that Time will be proven wrong in the coming months and years. But there's one cover that the magazine could run now and be entirely confident in: \"The Republican Messenger: How Rand Paul became the real voice of the GOP.\" That's right. At least for the time being, tea party darling Sen. Rand Paul is the effective leader of the Republican Party. And that's a pretty big deal. The GOP's shellacking in 2012 has thrust a new generation of Republicans -- including leaders like Rubio, Rep. Paul Ryan, Sen. Ted Cruz, and Govs. Bobby Jindal and Chris Christie -- into the spotlight. But it's Paul who has become the clearest voice of the new guard in the Republican Party. And he is effectively driving the entire GOP message right now. Think about it. No one else in the GOP has been able to step into a real leadership position, no matter how hard they try. Paul Ryan? He's back in the halls of Congress trying to figure out how to repackage his failed fiscal approach. John Boehner and Eric Cantor? Congressional Republicans have an approval rating in the low teens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham? Each day they seem less like elder statesmen and more like Statler and Waldorf from the \"Muppet Show.\" Chris Christie? He may be the nation's most popular governor, but conservative groups find Sarah Palin and Donald Trump more compelling these days. Bob McDonnell? He's already got a conservative SuperPAC running ads against him in Iowa! Jeb Bush? His reentry to the national political dialogue this week was clumsy at best. Paul is the only guy who appears able at this point to step into the GOP leadership void. There are two reasons why. First, Paul has proven that he has the ability to punch his message through in a way that no one else in the Republican Party can. He's clear. Whether or not you agree with him (and I rarely do), you know where he stands. He articulates his message more clearly than most people in Washington. He's principled. He's more ideologically consistent than many people in Washington (though admittedly, that's not the highest of bars these days). He's willing to take on leaders of both parties to make a point. While many senators in his party have held up nominations for petty political reasons, Paul held up John Brennan's nomination over a principled stand that attracted attention from both progressives and conservatives. And as several commentators said after the fact, it's easy to believe that he would have done the same under a Republican president. Paul's also proven to be a master of both old and new media. Just look at this week. He had the entire traditional political press corps and mainstream media focused on him like a laser beam by utilizing one of the most old school tools available to a senator -- the filibuster. Yet he made it feel new. For weeks, the press had been reporting on the use of silent filibusters to hold up nominations and on the attempts at filibuster reform. So Paul, by forsaking a tool that so many of his colleagues seem to love, and understanding how to capitalize on an existing media narrative, came across looking courageous and principled and dominated the news cycle for 24 hours. But what made the move truly genius, was that he launched it through Twitter. And as fellow tea party Sen. Ted Cruz stated later on the Senate floor, the twitterverse blew up -- further driving the message in both old and new media. Compare that to Marco Rubio's response to the State of the Union Address. For all of the hype that led up to his speech, what will people truly remember? That he stopped in the middle to take a drink of water, and that he gave a version in Spanish. That's pretty much it. In the breathless rush to rebrand the GOP by party leaders, that second point was heralded as a major success. But as to the ability to punch through an actual message, Rand Paul is running circles around everyone else. The second reason why Paul has become the party's most effective messenger is that everyone across the entire ideological spectrum -- from John McCain, Rubio and The Wall Street Journal to Majority Leader Harry Reid and Attorney General Eric Holder -- is responding to him. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz rushed to floor to bask in the glory of Paul's \"filiblizzard.\" Attorney General Holder sent him a letter clarifying the administration's position on drones. Reid and Minority Leader McConnell took to the Senate floor to applaud Paul's conviction (and bladder control). It wasn't all love, however. Fellow Republican Sens. McCain and Graham took to the floor to blast him for his position. The problem is that they are decidedly old guard. The new faces in the party fell all over themselves to \"#standwithrand.\" Rand Paul has people listening and responding to him. He's dictating the conversation. And when you look at the ineptitude of the rest of the Republican message machine, it's pretty clear that he is one of the few people in his party that know how to do that. Van Jones: Rand Paul, a civil liberties hero and civil rights villain . Now, that doesn't mean Paul doesn't have serious problems. On most issues, he is seriously outside of the mainstream. He often gets his facts dangerously wrong -- like when he falsely argued that the number of government employees grew under President Obama, or when he alleged that the U.S. was smuggling weapons out of Libya to Turkey, without any proof. And at a time when most Americans are starving for leaders willing to cross party lines and find common ground, he is about as far from compromise as you can get. It's that last point that may be why Paul is so dangerous to the Republican Party moving forward. Paul said this week that he is seriously considering a run for President in 2016. The more he steps in to fill the GOP's gaping leadership vacuum, the more others -- and particularly other potential 2016 presidential candidates -- will chase him. That means Republican leaders run the risk of seeming even more strident, more intolerant, more uncompromising, and more outside the mainstream than they did in 2012. Those, like Christie, that buck this trend run the risk of being ostracized by the conservative grassroots -- something that not a lot of potential Republican 2016ers have shown much interest in doing. Even if Paul doesn't become the nominee, he has the potential to shape the GOP field in a way that few others can at this point. In short, for now, it's Rand Paul's party. And it seems like so many other Republicans are simply trying to figure out how to live in it. (Note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly said the number of federal employees had not grown under President Obama; in fact, the total number of government employees at all levels has not grown since he took office.) The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Mo Elleithee.", "There may yet be a presidential campaign in the future for former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. Palin said in an interview with Fox Business Network today that she is invigorated rather than discouraged by her critics, and they make her 'want to get out there and defend the innocent, want to work so hard for justice in this country.' 'So, hey the more they're pouring on, the more I'm going to bug the crap out of them by being out there with a voice, with the message, hopefully running for office in the future, too,' Palin added. Don't put dirt on her grave just yet: Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said today she hopes to run for office again . Palin built up goodwill among establishment Republicans when she joined Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts for a pancake breakfast last month at the Independence Historical Museum and Art Center. If Palin runs for president in 2016, she'll need the support of moderate Republicans like Roberts to win the GOP nomination . Palin decided not to seek the presidency in 2012 and she hasn't held elected office since she resigned as governor in 2009 during her first and only term. She remains a fixture of the Tea Party, however, and is generally billed as the keynote speaker at influential conservative conferences. In March Palin told Fox News that she did have a campaign apparatus set up for 2016, but 'I'll never say never.' If the GOP doesn't produce a candidate who is a 'fighter' and respects American exceptionalism, 'everything that makes America great, the promise of America then I would run,' Palin said. 'But I do think that there are so many Americans who feel like I feel, and they're capable. They're willing and able to serve. Public servants. They are willing and able to serve and to lead this country so it doesn't have to be me,' she said back then. In her interview today, Palin said Republican leaders 'need more guts' and have confidence in what the party stands for. She named Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah as 'good leaders' who don't back down. Cruz is a likely 2016 presidential candidate but he has not formally announced his intentions to form a presidential exploratory committee. Given that neither Cruz, nor any other presumed GOP candidates have announced yet, Palin still has time to decide if she wants to join the 2016 rodeo, as well. If she were to run she would surely have the backing Tea Partiers and hard right conservatives. She's also built up some good will among establishment types by campaigning for embattled Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts last month. If Roberts, who is disliked by many conservatives, loses his reelection bid, Republicans may not take over the Senate.", "By . Daily Mail Reporter . Last updated at 1:17 PM on 3rd July 2011 . A Republican Presidential hopeful who takes a heavily branded bus across the countryside, stopping off to meet the people, and even to admire a man's tattoo. Sound familiar? Only this time, it isn't Sarah Palin in the self-made spotlight, it's Michele Bachmann. Talking tattoos: Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, right, examines the arm of Sam Maynard of Iowa City, Iowa, during a breakfast chat at the Bluebird Diner on Saturday, July 2, 2011, in Iowa City . Seeing double? On Memorial Day, Sarah Palin checked out the tattoo of a biker during her much-publicized visit to the annual Rolling Thunder parade . The Republican Presidential candidate . spent Saturday shaking hands in Iowa diners and strolling through a . bustling farmers' market as she tried to capitalize on her early . popularity in the state that kicks off the campaign season. An Iowa native, the tea party . favourite ranked nearly even with GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney in a . recent poll of Republicans likely to participate in the state's lead off . caucuses next year. But just six weeks before the state's . closely watched straw poll, the Minnesota congresswoman has done little . to campaign or set up an organization here. Beginning her first sustained . campaign trip to Iowa as an announced candidate, Ms Bachmann introduced . herself to audiences from Iowa City to Des Moines in a new campaign bus . emblazoned with her name. She spent much of Saturday posing for pictures and signing autographs rather than in meetings with key GOP activists. Bus tour: Michele Bachmann speaks in front of her tour bus at a Tea Party Rally outside the Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines Saturday afternoon . Inspiration? Sarah Palin's tour bus was emblazoned with the words 'We The People' and 'One Nation' After meeting about 100 supporters . and politically curious Iowans at a stop in Marshalltown, Ms Bachmann . told The Associated Press: 'I have every confidence our team is going to . deliver. 'I am going to be here in Iowa campaigning all through July'. In Iowa City, Ms Bachmann met about . 100 weekend breakfast regulars and Republican activists at the Bluebird . Diner near the University of Iowa. Local resident Sheila Reiland told Ms . Bachmann's campaign chairman in the crowded diner that she signed up . last week on Bachmann's website to volunteer but had heard nothing from . any campaign staff. Ms Reiland, a registered nurse who . went to Washington, D.C., this year to attend a health care rally . Bachmann headlined, said: 'She is my candidate, and I want to do what I . can to help her. But I haven't heard anything back'. Ms Bachmann's Iowa campaign chairman, . state Sen. Kent Sorenson, acknowledged having a lot to do in a short . time since the Iowa Legislature was in session until Thursday. But he told Ms Reiland: 'You will be hearing from us'. Michele Bachmann talks with Dolores Krotz of Iowa City Saturday. The Presidential hopeful hopes to show well in an August 13 straw poll . Tea Party darling: Ms Bachmann dances on stage with her husband, Marcus, after speaking at a rally outside the Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines Saturday . Chatting it up: Ms Bachmann laughs as she talks with seven-year-old Augustine Connelly (not pictured) during a breakfast chat at the Bluebird Diner on Saturday . Ms Bachmann met privately aboard her . campaign bus with activists en route from Cedar Rapids, where she . strolled through the city's crowded downtown farmers' market, to . Marshalltown about 70 miles west. She also planned to meet with GOP activists Saturday evening in Des Moines after headlining a tea party rally. But her trip, which continues Sunday . in western Iowa, was more about raising her name identification around . the state, Mr Sorenson said. Ms Bachmann had been weighing a . presidential bid since January but only began raising money toward a . campaign in June. On Saturday, she dismissed claims that she was . scrambling to get organized in Iowa. Ms Bachmann said she had been laying . the groundwork for her Iowa campaign since last month, before she . officially announced her White House bid last week in her childhood home . of Waterloo, Iowa. In Marshalltown, campaign aides . handed out supporter cards outside Taylor's Maid-Rite, a popular . downtown lunch spot where about 100 people met Bachmann's bus. Standing . on a platform next to the bus in the afternoon sun, Ms Bachmann asked . residents for support. She said: 'We need your help at the . straw poll. Will you come out and help me? We'll bring around the buses. We'll pick you up, whatever you need. We'll get you down there'. 'We need your help because winning back the White House begins in Iowa'. Firing up the base: Ms Bachmann is emerging as a Tea Party favourite . Ms Bachmann addresses supporters in Iowa, an important state on the campaign trail . Ms Bachmann stopped short of saying . she expected to win the straw poll, an early organizational test of . support that draws thousands of Iowa Republican faithful - and a heavy . contingent of national political media - to Iowa State University in . Ames on August 13. But Ms Bachmann said she hopes her . close second-place showing to national GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney in . The Des Moines Register's recent poll of Iowa Republican caucusgoers . makes her the favourite for the event. Ms Bachmann plans to return to Iowa next week, aides said. David Harris of Marshalltown was . signing his supporter card and said he planned to go to Ames for the . straw poll. The Republican said he had not participated in the caucuses . for more than a decade, but said he was drawn to Ms Bachmann's . popularity with tea party supporters. Mr Harris said: 'She has an energy . that's stirring the grassroots, people like me who have not been part of . politics for a while'.", "(CNN) -- U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, a stalwart foe of government spending, won a blowout victory Saturday in the annual Conservative Political Action Conference presidential straw poll. With participants naming \"reducing the size of federal government\" as their top issue, the 74-year old libertarian hero captured 31 percent of the 2,400 votes cast in the annual contest, usually seen as a barometer of how the GOP's conservative wing regards their potential presidential candidates. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney finished second with 22 percent of the vote, ending a three-year winning streak at CPAC. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin finished third with 7 percent of the vote, followed by Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty at 6 percent and Indiana Rep. Mike Pence at 5 percent. They were followed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who tied at 4 percent. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, South Dakota Sen. John Thune and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour rounded out the results. Five percent of participants voted for \"Other\" and 6 percent was undecided. The announcement of Paul's win, a surprise victory unlikely to have a major impact on the 2012 presidential contest, drew a volley of loud boos from the CPAC audience. That discontent could be seen in the poll results: A majority of participants said they wished the Republican Party had a better field of candidates to choose from. But Paul's victory might be seen, in part, as a result of his support among anti-establishment Tea Party activists -- who turned out in force at this year's conference and expressed some frustration with the Republican Party. Reflecting the college atmosphere of the annual event, young people dominated the voting: 54 percent of participants were between the ages of 18 and 25. The poll also contained a bit of bad news for Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, who made an under-the-radar appearance at CPAC late Friday. Follow on Twitter: http://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/cpac . Participants were asked to rate their opinions of several top political figures, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader John Boehner, both of whom received a majority favorable rating. But Steele was the only Republican to garner an upside-down rating, with 44 percent giving him an unfavorable rating and 42 percent rating him favorably. The three-day meeting Saturday that has featured speeches by Republican leaders, training sessions for local political activists and a renewed purpose to stand firm behind their principles heading into the midterm elections.", "By . Mark Duell . Last updated at 4:18 PM on 8th February 2012 . Republicans are trying to boost women's support for the GOP presidential nominee by setting up a political action group to back female candidates. An adviser to Sarah Palin, a Tea Party leader and a Republican politician are together starting the innovative ‘ShePAC’ political action committee. Tim Crawford, who has advised 2008 vice presidential nominee Mrs Palin and former President Ronald Reagan, is one of the three founders. Founders: Original Tea Party activist Teri Christoph, left, and ex-Senate candidate Suzanne Haik Terrell, right, now an advocate for GOP women, are both involved . He is joined by original Tea Party activist Teri Christoph and ex-Senate candidate Suzanne Haik Terrell, now an advocate for GOP women. The group filed registration documents with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday to create the super PAC, its leaders said. ShePAC joins dozens of such outside groups that can now raise unlimited amounts of money as long as they don’t work with official campaigns. Thanks to a 2010 U.S. court decision, outside groups have already spent $54million on congressional and presidential races this campaign season. They are taking over most of the negative advertising and pumping up the cost of running campaigns in traditionally cheaper state races. Experience: Tim Crawford, who has advised 2008 vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, left, and former President Ronald Reagan, right, is the third founder . ShePAC hopes to raise $25million by tapping both grassroots and establishment donors to help GOP women win state and federal races. 'We firmly believe that women will make the difference in 2012 and beyond, not just at the ballot box but as candidates' Suzanne Haik Terrell, ShePAC founder . It will also help bring the women's vote to the GOP nominee opposing Democratic President Barack Obama in the November general election. ‘We firmly believe that women will make the difference in 2012 and beyond, not just at the ballot box but as candidates,’ Ms Terrell said. ‘We seek (to) increase the number of Republican women office holders on all levels with both financial and organisational support.’ The GOP needs four seats in the Senate to take control as the majority party. Only 5.5 per cent of Congress is held by conservative women. Challenge: ShePAC hopes to bring the women's vote to the GOP nominee opposing Democratic President Barack Obama in the November general election . One is Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Tea Party favourite who dropped her presidential bid last month after a poor finish in the Iowa GOP contest. 'We seek (to) increase the number of Republican women office holders on all levels with both financial and organisational support' Suzanne Haik Terrell . Republican women are in Senate races in Hawaii, New Mexico, Missouri, Nebraska, Virginia and Connecticut. ShePAC also may be a vehicle for Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, who has already joined the group's Facebook page. She is facing a recall election alongside Governor Scott Walker after they curtailed collective bargaining rights of unionised public workers.", "(CNN) -- A boiling primary battle in Texas headed to a runoff early Wednesday as two Republicans running for U.S. Senate failed to reach the 50% threshold to clinch the GOP nomination. Though Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst led the crowded field of candidates, he narrowly failed to cross the 50% mark required to secure the nomination and avoid a July 31 runoff. Dewhurst's challenger in the runoff will be tea party favorite Ted Cruz, a former solicitor general with strong support from national groups and high-profile conservative leaders. With 99.6% of precincts counted, Dewhurst held 48% of the vote to 30% for Cruz. Other contenders in Tuesday's primary included former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert and ESPN Broadcaster Craig James. Neither candidate will forge ahead to compete in the runoff. The Texas race is particularly important because the balance of power in the U.S. Senate could shift in 2012. It is also another test in the staying power and influence of tea party groups and their political strategy to focus more on congressional races than on the presidential campaign. The race, held to replace retiring Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, has seen a Texas-sized level of spending, as well. According to Federal Election Commission reports, more than $31.6 million had been dumped in the GOP primary as of May 9, with more than half coming from Dewhurst's team. While Cruz's campaign has spent more than $4 million, the underdog has been boosted by a surge of outside spending. The fiscal conservative organization Club for Growth has spent more than $2 million, and the tea party oriented FreedomWorks has also been heavy on the ground in get-out-the-vote efforts on behalf of Cruz. Members of the Tea Party Express, a leading arm of the grass-roots movement, have traversed the state by bus in support of Cruz. Adding to his rising star power, the former solicitor general landed endorsements from former GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum and tea party stalwart Sarah Palin, two big voices in the conservative movement. Dewhurst, meanwhile, touts his support from 2008 presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Texas Gov. Rick Perry has also been vocal for his No. 2. In a recent commercial, Perry urged voters to turn out for Dewhurst, insisting he was the true conservative in the race. Given that Perry and Dewhurst have worked together for almost a decade, some political observers characterize the race as a possible referendum on Perry, the state's longest-serving governor in history. But Perry brushed off the idea on Friday, telling CNN Chief National Correspondent John King that while national conservatives may be making noise in the race against Dewhurst, the local movement will stand for the lieutenant governor. \"There's, you know, people who come from out of state and make their endorsements known,\" Perry said. \"But Texas conservatives are lining up behind David Dewhurst.\" Dewhurst opponents criticize the candidate as being part of the Republican establishment and having too many years in government under his belt. Before becoming lieutenant governor, Dewhurst served as Texas Land Commissioner in the late '90s. Hitting back, Dewhurst points to his private sector experience as the co-founder of Falcon Seaboard, an energy company based in Houston. He also boasts his role in pushing for socially conservative legislation in the state, including a recent bill that requires women to see a sonogram and go through a 24-hour waiting period before having an abortion. Dewhurst has attacked Cruz, who is of Cuban descent, as a supporter of amnesty and a member of the Hispanic Leadership Fund and the Hispanic Alliance for Prosperity Institute. Cruz has also been on the defense over criticism that he works for a firm representing a Chinese company being sued for patent violations. The candidate has repeatedly shot down both claims, arguing he has long been an opponent of illegal immigration and saying he is not the lead lawyer in the patent lawsuit. The Hispanic Leadership Fund also fired back against Dewhurst's latest ad, saying Cruz has never had any position with the group and faulted the ad as dishonest. \"The Hispanic Leadership Fund support using free market and limited government principles to strengthen border security, restore a functional legal immigration system, and promote patriotic assimilation. If David Dewhurst wants to deceitfully lump us in with leftist organizations that actually do promote amnesty, then all he is accomplishing is demonstrating to Texas voters how intellectually shallow he is,\" Mario H. Lopez, the organization's president, said in a statement. On the Democratic side, former state Rep. Paul Sadler and political operative Sean Hubbard are competing for their party's nomination. Texas has not elected a Democrat to the Senate in more than two decades. Political handicappers Stuart Rothenberg and Charlie Cook both rate the open seat as safe for Republicans.", "Washington (CNN) -- The NAACP has passed a resolution that condemns what it feels is rampant racism in the Tea Party movement. Members passed the measure on Tuesday at the organization's 101st annual convention in Kansas City, Missouri. Tea Party activists have swiftly denounced the action as unfounded and unfair. The resolution pits the nation's oldest civil rights organization, with its storied history of wins on behalf of racial justice, against a grassroots conservative movement that has won some recent political races and is flexing its muscle in Republican circles. \"We take no issue with the Tea Party. We believe in freedom of assembly and people raising their voices in a democracy,\" Ben Jealous, president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said in a statement. \"We take issue with the Tea Party's continued tolerance for bigotry and bigoted statements. The time has come for them to accept the responsibility that comes with influence and make clear there is no space for racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in their movement,\" Jealous said. Tea Party leaders reacted to the NAACP action with swift and angry derision. \"I am disinclined to take lectures on racial sensitivity from a group that insists on calling black people, 'Colored,' \" Mark Williams, national spokesman of the Tea Party Express, told CNN. \"The Tea Party [movement] is about the constitution of this country...[and] ensuring equality for each and every individual human being.\" Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a Tea Party favorite, said the charge from the NAACP is \"false, appalling, and is a regressive and diversionary tactic to change the subject at hand.\" \"To be unjustly accused of association with what Reagan so aptly called that 'legacy of evil' is a traumatizing experience, and one of which the honest, freedom-loving patriots of the Tea Party movement are truly undeserving,\" she wrote in a posting on her Facebook page Tuesday night. Palin responds to allegations of Tea Party racism . Palin said the only purpose of such an accusation is to dissuade Americans from joining the Tea Party, a movement she said is \"motivated by love of country and all that is good and honest about our proud and diverse nation.\" But NAACP leaders feel there is ample evidence to prove Palin and others who deny there is racism in Tea Party are wrong. Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington bureau and senior vice president for advocacy and policy, laid out what the group feels is the proof during an interview with CNN. \"After observing Tea Party activities throughout the country -- which culminated with the outrageous and racist behavior of Tea Party activists during the historic congressional vote to pass into law comprehensive health care legislation -- the NAACP began more closely investigating the Tea Party. Specifically as it was reported to us that Tea Party activists spat on [Congressman] John Lewis, a veteran civil rights activist and associate to Dr. Martin Luther King, and called Congressman Emanuel Cleaver the 'N-word' and called [Congressman] Barney Frank ... one of the first openly gay members of Congress, the 'F-word,' \" Shelton said. The NAACP also claims that Tea Party activists have engaged in racist behavior, for example, by waving signs that degrade African Americans and President Obama, in particular. Also, the NAACP says, a number of Tea Party members think that issues of importance to African Americans get too much attention. \"Rather than talking about the real issues of these incidents that have happened ... [activists] wind up blaming the messenger,\" Shelton said. \"It seems like its denial ... that allows them to focus on themselves.\" iReporter says Tea Party must address issue of racism . Many Tea Party leaders have publicly denounced elements of prejudice. During a May 6 interview on ABC's \"The View,\" Amy Kremer, chairman of the Tea Party Express, pointedly looked into the camera and told any prejudiced followers, \"This is not a racist movement. We don't want you here. Go away if that's what you're about. We're about the fiscal issues and about being American.\" Williams, the Tea Party Express spokesman, said, \"We've had these people show up on the fringes of our group ... because we attract TV cameras. What these people all universally learn, the racist groups included, is that they're not welcome.\" Other Tea Party leaders also have publicly spoken out against racism in their movement. While Shelton acknowledged the effort from \"a few\" leaders, she said the level of repudiation is not stopping displays of racism from many Tea Party followers. \"Not only are some elements of the Tea Party movement being resistant to that [message of repudiation], but we've seen some elements acting out, in some cases in a violently racist behavior. And that is what we want to see stop,\" Shelton said. Shelton cited the movement's loose-knit patchwork of small, local groups that might not toe the line of Tea Party leaders.", "(CNN) -- President Barack Obama told a Labor Day crowd in Detroit that he's prepared to fight for a new job growth plan, defend organized labor and take steps to \"restore the middle class in America,\" while five Republican candidates hoping to defeat him next year all called for repealing the major legislation passed so far in Obama's presidency. The Republican presidential candidates participating in the Palmetto Freedom Forum in Columbia, South Carolina, which was televised on CNN, were unified in advocating the end of the health care reform law and the Wall Street reform measure passed by a Democratic-led Congress. They also all expressed strong anti-abortion views and their belief in marriage being between a man and a woman at the event set up by Sen. Jim DeMint, a leading tea party conservative. Meanwhile, in the early primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina, other Republican presidential contenders ripped Obama's handling of the economy and pledged to take an economically battered America in a new direction marked by less spending and fewer regulations. The sharply differing visions raised new questions about the ability of top Democrats and Republicans to tackle pressing budgetary and other issues while positioning themselves for what promises to be a bitterly contested campaign next year. In a speech that likely previewed his scheduled address Thursday to a joint session of Congress to present a jobs plan, Obama directly challenged Republicans, whom he has accused of obstructing progress in order to score political points. \"These are tough times for working Americans,\" Obama told the union-dominated crowd at a rally that included a warm-up from Aretha Franklin. \"The time for Washington games is over. The time for action is now.\" Saying American workers were ready to move ahead, he said, \"We just need Congress to get on board\" and later added: \"We will see if congressional members will put country before party.\" \"We will give them a plan and then we will see if they want to create jobs,\" the president said. Obama took credit for a series of controversial measures, including the health care overhaul, financial regulatory reform, the 2009 economic stimulus plan and the auto industry bailout. \"I've seen Detroit prove the cynics and the naysayers wrong,\" he said, referring to the U.S. auto industry. \"We're fighting for good jobs with good wages ... (and) an economy where hard work pays off and gaming the system doesn't work.\" The president quoted a 1948 Labor Day speech delivered by President Harry Truman in Detroit. Like Obama, Truman ran for re-election that year against a largely hostile Republican-dominated Congress. \"The gains of labor were not accomplished at the expense of the rest of the nation,\" Obama said, quoting Truman. \"Labor's gains contributed to the rest of the nation's prosperity.\" Before Obama spoke, James Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, blasted congressional Republicans and urged the crowd to mobilize and help defeat the GOP at the polls in 2012. \"Everybody here has a vote,\" Hoffa said. \"Keep the eye on the prize. Let's take these sons of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong.\" As Obama rallied Democratic base voters in Michigan, Vice President Joe Biden headed to Cincinnati to attend an AFL-CIO Labor Day event. The AFL-CIO is a federation of 56 national and international labor unions. Obama carried Michigan and Ohio in 2008, but both states, hit hard by the economic downturn, could prove challenging to keep in the Democratic column in 2012. The Republican forum in DeMint's home state of South Carolina, meanwhile, gave five of the top GOP candidates a chance to explain their stances on key issues to conservatives. DeMint's endorsement is one of the most sought after among 2012 GOP White House hopefuls, and his support would be a major boost for any Republican candidate in his home state's pivotal early primary. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney initially declined DeMint's invitation, saying he was concentrating on campaigning in New Hampshire, which holds an even earlier primary. But after falling behind newcomer Texas Gov. Rick Perry in some polls, Romney apparently changed his mind, opting to wrap up a pancake breakfast event in New Hampshire before traveling to Columbia for DeMint's forum. \"The tea party is a powerful movement saying government's too big, and I couldn't agree more,\" Romney told a crowd of roughly 450 people at the breakfast. In addition to Romney, Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, businessman Herman Cain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas attended the DeMint forum. All cited the Declaration of Independence and its determination of God-given rights for citizens as the foundation of American government in a recitation of core conservative principles championed by the tea party movement. Perry was also slated to take part in DeMint's forum but backed out Monday morning to return to Texas as it battles growing wildfires. Perry did, however, participate in GOP Rep. Tim Scott's town hall series in Conway, South Carolina, before returning home. While in Conway, Perry sharply criticized Romney's job growth record in Massachusetts. \"There's one (GOP candidate) ... that's created jobs all over the world,\" Perry said, referring to Romney's oft-mentioned record in the private sector. \"But while he was the governor of Massachusetts, he didn't create very many jobs. \"We cannot choose a nominee ... that is going to blur the lines,\" Perry added. The GOP needs \"someone who has a very stark difference (with) the president of the United States ... and I would suggest to you I'm that person.\" Two other candidates not appearing at the event were also on the campaign trail Monday. Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, drawing new attention after announcing his economic plan last week, wrapped up five days of events in New Hampshire with a parade and a picnic, and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania held three events in South Carolina. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who has not announced whether she will run for president, was in New Hampshire on Labor Day after three days in Iowa. \"We're up against ... Barack Obama's very strange fundamental transformation of the country that we so love,\" Palin said. \"We don't need a transformation. As you know, we need a fundamental restoration of all that is good and strong and free in America.\" CNN's Alan Silverleib, Shawna Shepherd, Tom Cohen and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.", "Princeton, New Jersey (CNN) -- As he stood before the delegates of the 1964 Republican Convention in San Francisco, California, Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, the party's presidential nominee, said, \"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.\" The delegates, who had booed New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller when he called for the party to respect moderation, were thrilled. Many of Goldwater's supporters were determined to push their party toward the right wing of the political spectrum. They felt that their party leaders, including President Eisenhower, had simply offered a watered-down version of the New Deal. Yet Goldwater soon learned that extremism could quickly become a political vice, particularly to a party seeking to regain control of the White House. The right wing of the Republican Party in the early 1960s inhabited a world that included extremist organizations, such as the John Birch Society, that railed against communism. The Birchers developed a huge network of local activists, reaching more than 100,000 members. They published pamphlets and books and threw their support behind local candidates. Some mainstream conservative outlets depended on supporters who were in these groups. Many right-wing organizations in the South were opponents of civil rights and advocates of racial segregation. During the fall campaign of 1964, President Johnson devastated Goldwater and his running mate, William Miller, by painting them as an extremist duo with close ties to military hawks and racist demagogues. Since Miller, a New York congressman, was known for his close ties to the right, Democrats could charge that Republicans had not balanced their ticket. The \"Daisy\" advertisement had Americans look into the eyeball of a young girl as it reflected the image of a nuclear explosion. Another advertisement showed images of the Ku Klux Klan decked out in their garb and carrying burning crosses. The ads played on statements by the candidates and extremist organizations. The narrator of the KKK ad reminded viewers that Robert Creel, grand dragon of the Alabama KKK, had said: \"I like Barry Goldwater. He needs our help.\" Democrats certainly had their extremists as well in the 1960s, as all the discussions about Bill Ayers and the Weathermen in the 2008 campaign reminded us. Yet in the 1960s, the Democratic leadership was removed from these elements of the liberal spectrum. Indeed, radical left-wing activists were primarily revolting against what they saw as the bankrupt leadership of the Democratic Party. They hated Lyndon Johnson even more than they hated Richard Nixon. Always nervous about being tagged by Republicans in a conservative era as too close to socialism, Democrats in Congress and in the White House since the 1960s have tended to distance themselves from fringe elements of the left. Now Republicans are facing the danger of being associated with extremism once again. Last week, following the vote on health care, members of Congress have were the targets of death threats and vandalism. In the final hours of the health care debate, there were reports about how health care opponents uttered racial slurs at Georgia Democratic Rep. John Lewis, a hero of the civil rights movement, and sexual epithets against Rep. Barney Frank, who is openly gay. Sarah Palin sent out a statement on Twitter that urged followers, \"Don't Retreat, Instead-Reload!\" Palin explained later that her use of those words was not about \"inciting violence,\" but rather about inspiring people to get involved in the political process. Some ugly elements of the Tea Party movement, which have been held in check since the original Washington protest in September, have returned to the political debate. In the short-term, the Tea Party movement has helped to revitalize the Republican Party. Without question, the kind of energy that has been fostered by the activists associated with these groups has helped Republicans mobilize their supporters and can clearly be helpful at bringing out the vote in the midterm elections. By generating interest in the libertarian and anti-government arguments of conservatism, the movement will help keep conservatives motivated after their loss on health care. It is fair to say that many Americans who support this cause are simply expressing legitimate and deeply held antipathies toward Washington. But extremism is there, and it has flared in the past few weeks. This kind of rhetoric will not produce long-term gains for the Republican Party. Realizing the threat, Republican leaders have begun to disassociate themselves from these elements of the movement. There have been a few voices of condemnation, such as House Minority Leader John Boehner who said \"violence and threats are unacceptable.\" Local Tea Party organizers have also stepped forward with words of condemnation. Leaders from the Florida Tea Party said in a letter to President Obama that they stood in \"stark opposition to any person using derogatory characterizations, threats of violence, or disparaging terms toward members of Congress or the president.\" These statements are encouraging and strike the right note. Yet Republicans need to follow through by continuing to exert pressure on local organizational leaders to stamp out this kind of activity. They must also avoid contradictory messages, such as the statement of House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, who accused Democrats of \"fanning the flames\" by using the incidents as a \"political weapon.\" Cantor had a bullet fired at his campaign office after receiving anti-Semitic threats, but local police described the bullet as random gunfire not directed at his office. The leadership statements must be unambiguous and firm, leaving no question in voters' minds that this is not what conservatism is about. When Ronald Reagan ran for the presidency in 1980, he worked hard to weaken the connections that existed between Republicans and the fringes. He learned the lessons of 1964 and sought to remake a Republican Party that could appeal to mainstream America. Reagan realized that if he did not, the perception of extremism would pose a long-term threat to the party's future. Now Republicans are facing the Goldwater threat once again. At the same time that conservatives have every right to oppose and challenge President Obama's agenda, they must make clear that there are limits and that the kinds of actions that we have seen in recent days are not something that either party will be willing to tolerate in the year ahead. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Julian Zelizer.", "Nigel Farage is set to appear alongside some to the United States' most high-profile conservative politicians at a conference in Washington tomorrow. The Ukip leader will address activists immediately after the darling of the Tea Party movement Sarah Palin. The annual Conservative Political Action Conference is attended by leading Republican politicians as well as gun activists, anti-abortion campaigners and evangelical Christians. Nigel Farage, who has developed a cult following in the States after regular TV appearances on Fox News, will address the annual Conservative Political Action Conference tonight . Visitors to the summit are sometimes handed plastic foetuses by activists to show their opposition to abortion. Tea Party supporters – who favour a dramatic reduction in the size of the State – also walk the halls in uniforms from the 18th-century American Revolutionary War. But the Ukip leader, who has developed a cult following in the States after regular TV appearances on Fox News, defended his decision to appear at the conference. He said: 'There are parts of the American Conservative movement that I get on well with and other parts not so well with. 'We have learned quite a lot from some of them in terms of campaigning techniques, many of which we put into use in Rochester. 'Some of the very hard-line religious stuff is not where I'm going with politics and I often find myself disagreeing about interventionist foreign policies.' Mr Farage is expected to tell the gathered activists that unless they reclaim the Republican Party they 'might have to do a Ukip' and break off. The Ukip leader will share a stage with the darling of the Tea Party movement Sarah Palin and a host of gun activists and anti-abortion campaigners . Former Vice President Dick Cheney, centre, accepts a rifle from National Rifle Association chiefs Kayne Robinson (right) and Wayne LaPierre (left). Mr LaPierre will attend the conference alongside Mr Farage . The Ukip leader has been given a super-star build-up for the annual gathering at the Gaylord National Resort in Maryland, near Washington DC. PR agents promoting the event have described him as a 'political tour de force' who has 'emerged as a serious and viable candidate who can run England in the near future'. Mr Farage will appear after Mrs Palin, the former Alaska governor who rose to prominence after being chosen as Senator John McCain's running mate in the 2008 Presidential race against Barack Obama. The Ukip leader will also rub shoulders with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker - a frontrunner for the Republican Presidential nomination next year - who wants to 'prioritise' the end of universal healthcare introduce by President Obama. Mr Farage will also be joined by Wayne LaPierre, the head of the pro-gun National Rifle Association. Speaking after one of the recent multiple killings in the US, Mr LaPierre said: 'The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.'", "By . Rachel Quigley . UPDATED: . 05:02 EST, 29 June 2011 . Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has said that she still has not made up her mind whether or not to run for President ahead of next year's elections. The 47-year-old spoke with reporters last night in . the small Iowa town of Pella, where she and her husband attended . the first public screening of a film about her rise in politics, called The Undefeated, and she dismissed comments from her daughter that she's made up her mind about running. Her daughter, Bristol, had said in an earlier television interview that her mother had made up her mind - but Mrs Palin, who lost to Barack Obama three years ago, says that's inaccurate. Scroll down for video . Meet-and-greet: Sarah Palin says hello to supporters during a BBQ after the screening of The Undefeated . The 47-year-old waves to the crowd in Pella, Iowa, while one fan shows his affection with pen and paper . Promotional poster: The Undefeated charts Palin's rise from Wasilla mayor to Alaska governor in what is described as a 'zero-warts' version of her progress through the political ranks . Praising: Stephen K. Bannon's documentary The Undefeated will premiere tonight and is known to paint the former governor in a very favourable light . Despite the airing of the film, which . has prompted speculation that she will run again in 2012, she says . deciding to run for President . is a 'tough decision' and she's not ready to announce her intentions. A throng of supporters chanted her . name and urged her to run for President outside the Pella Opera House, . where roughly 350 people packed the theatre. Stephen K. Bannon's documentary chronicles Palin's life and her progress through the ranks of government. It is said to be a flattering portrait of her time on the McCain campaign and her rise as a national heroine to the tea party. The Former Alaska Governor signs autographs at the screening, while one elderly fan proudly holds her ticket . Former colleague: John Bitney is interviewed for Broomfield's documentary in which he describes Palin as being 'frustrating' and 'engaged' Reports have already been circulating . that the former Alaska governor and her aides were inviting prominent . Republicans from the state to meet with her after the screening. But Palin's political action committee already denied the reports as well as Republican operatives in Iowa. One told ABC news: 'Not only have I . not heard from Governor Palin regarding meetings, I am unaware of anyone . who has been contacted regarding private meetings.' Scathing: English director Nick Broomfield will be showing his as-yet-untitled documentary to buyers this weekend . It was on a Politico blog with the . headline 'Sarah Palin team reaching out to Iowa activists for meetings' that former Iowa GOP executive director and prominent conservative Chuck . Laudner told Politico that a 'Palin backer' contacted him about . attending a mingling session after the film. Several other prominent GOP activists also told Real Clear Politics that they had not been contacted regarding potential sit-downs with Palin while she is visiting the important early nominating state. The majority of the documentary details Palin's early political career using old news archives and interviews with conservatives and Palin allies such as Thomas Van Flein, now a Capitol Hill staffer. The movie opens with a photo montage and home videos showing Palin as a young girl and in her early teens. The million-dollar project is set for national release in July. Palin is said to have already seen a rough cut of the movie. In a statement released by the movie's distributor, the 47-year-old said she looks 'forward to seeing the finished film for the first time with fellow Americans from the heartland'. The Undefeated is not the only documentary about the possible presidential candidate. British filmmaker Nick Broomfield is shopping a documentary that examines Palin's life and rise to prominence through interviews with her parents, friends, and colleagues. It is thought that the filmmaker has painted a scathing portrait of Palin. American filmmaker Stephen Bannon has put together a flattering portrait of Palin which is said to present her as a Joan of Arc-like figure. He relies on interviews with her allies in Alaska and sympathetic conservative commentators in an unapologetic defence of Palin. It charts her rise from Wasilla mayor to Alaska governor in what is described as a 'zero-warts' version of her rise through the political ranks and borrows heavily from her autobiography Going Rogue. Palin is portrayed as a national heroine, beset by vicious left-wing enemies seeking to thwart her heroic attempts to revive Reagan's conservative legacy. It incorporates previously unseen footage from her childhood and early years as an elected official with the end focusing on her as a tea party hero who is 'the type of leader this country needs'. The Undefeated shows her as a Republican operating outside the party's traditional men's club power structure and questions the manhood of GOP leaders for not defending her after the 2008 election. It will be premiered in Iowa tonight and open nationwide on July 15. English filmmaker Nick Broomfield has vowed to unveil the 'real' Sarah Palin in his as-yet-untitled film about her. It is said to examine her life and rise to prominence through interviews with her parents, friends and colleagues. In a preview from the clip ex-legislative director John Bitney and ex-Senate president Lyda Green complain about her habit of using her Blackberry during meetings. Bitney said that it was 'frustrating' to set up a meeting with her saying she was 'just very unengaged in the conversation' and often 'just wasn't listening'. Green also reiterates this saying: 'I never felt that Sarah was ever connected to the business in the building. She generally had her two Blackberries and was texting most of the time.' The influential U.S. independent film producer Cassian Elwes last week tweeted: 'Just saw Nick Broomfield's film on Sarah Palin. Wow. Its going to change the presidential race.' It is due to be screened in Los Angeles next week for potential buyers . Palin has yet to give any definitive indication as to whether or not she intends to enter the 2012 presidential race but appearing in Iowa will undoubtedly excite her supporters. Michelle Bachmann launched her campaign in the state yesterday and President Obama is also speaking to voters in the first in the nation caucus state. Last week, in response to rumours that she shut down her One Nation bus tour and ditched plans of a presidential bid, Palin took to Facebook to assert that she plans to get back on the road this summer. She revealed that her plans had been delayed by her being called for jury duty. According to her website, after Iowa she is helping her daughter Bristol sign copies of her memoir Not Afriad of Life: My Journey So Far, before going back to Alaska for duty.", "Nigel Farage flew half way round the world to address America's leading conservative conference last night - but hardly anyone turned up to listen. The Ukip leader flew to Washington to address the gathering of hardcore activists before catching a ‘red eye’ flight home overnight to get back in time for this afternoon's Ukip conference in Margate. But Mr Farage was handed the 'graveyard' speaking slot at the end of the day and was forced to address an audience of just 250 in a convention centre with a capacity for over 5,000. Nigel Farage flew to Washington to address America's leading conservative conference - but hardly anyone showed up to listen . Mr Farage delivered his speech to row after row of empty chairs just an hour after the hall had been packed for a speech by Sarah Palin, the darling of Tea Party conservatives. The Conservative Political Action Conference is an annual three-day mecca for Tea Party campaigners, anti-abortion opponents and gun rights activists. Mr Farage warned the Republican gathering that they risked becoming dinosaurs like the Conservatives in the UK if they continued to embrace the political centre. Mr Farage slammed David Cameron over his failure to identify the infamous ISIS executioner 'Jihadi John.' 'Of course they should have told us his name,' he said. 'We should have heard it weeks ago. This information's been known for a long time.' He also claimed the name was leaked to cover yesterday's immigration figures. 'By sheer coincidence,' he said, Emwazi's name was published 'on the day when the government has to announce the worst immigration figures ever seen in the history of the United Kingdom.' 'WE'RE NOT THE TEA PARTY': Nigel Farage, whose UK Independence Party is challenging both Tories and Liberals, said his is a real political force, not just an influence group trying to reform a wayward party . He also hit out against CAGE, the British NGO that often advocates on behalf of radicalized Muslims and brands their detractors 'Islamophobes.' 'Yes, yes, yes!' Farage exploded when asked if the group was an embarrassment to most Britons. 'It's politcal correctness! 'I mean, we see protests on a regular basis with these groups on the streets of London saying and shouting things that – if you and I did them, we'd find ourselves behind bars in very short order.' 'We actually have a Judeo-Christian culture,' he added. 'It's actually in our Constitution, so let's stand up for it.' Is that xenophobic? Farage doesn't think so. 'The thing about us,' he said of the UK, 'is that we have been, of all the European countries, the most tolerant of all different religions and all different groups who have come to Britain.' While 'private observance' of any religion 'is fine,' he insisted, 'unless we live under one law we're in trouble.' The Conservative Political Action Conference brings all manner of right-wingers to a hotel in Maryland each year . Mr Farage said the Republican Party was 'going through the same crisis of identity as the Conservative Party in Britain'. Ukip, he boasted, was 'an insurgent political force that has taken on the political establishment and rocked them to the backs of their heels.' But he said: 'We're not the tea party. Our job is not to influence one political party. We're not an outlier from the Tories.' And unlike the tea party phenomenon, which peels off disaffected Republicans who believe their traditional party has moved too far left, he said, his group 'is not just retired half-colonels who've always voted Conservative and now they're UKIP. We're dragging them from across the spectrum.' Mr Farage also attacked Mr Obama - claiming he sees 'an American president who doesn't have the courage' to fight against Islamist terror. Mr Obama, he claimed, lacks the vision to see 'what has gone wrong, and why those three people were arrested on the streets of the USA yesterday.' That was a reference to the trio of Muslim men who were detained by the FBI after they began the process of traveling to Syria for training with the ISIS terror army – with the intention of bringing death and destruction back to America. 'We must stand firm and defend our Judeo-Christian culture,' Farage said, earnign his first boisterous applause. 'We must make it clear that we believe in common law and not Shariah law.' He called radical Islam 'an enemy within' both the US and the UK. Farage said 'the Republican Party is going through the same crisis of identity as the Conservative Party in Britain' 'If you discuss immigration, it means you're a bad person,' he complained to a thousand convention-goers – 'that you harbor dislike or hatred or prejudice of somebody else' CPAC's lineup includes Sarah Palin, whose teleprompter played tricks on her last month in Iowa, leaving her rambling for minutes . The CPAC conference draws conservatives from all over the US, but they share the same message . Like any political force testing its boundaries by casting a wide net, it would be recognizable to American conservatives who have had to contend with their own brand of bad publicity. Todd Akin, a Republican U.S. Senate candidate, famously self-imploded after musing on whether abortions should be allowed in cases of 'legitimate rape.' Sarah Palin just last month lost track of her teleprompter during a key Iowa speech and rambled aimlessly for what seemed like hours, causing some to wonder if she was intoxicated. An ocean away, UKIP councillor Rozanne Duncan was kicked out this month after she was filmed saying she has 'a problem with people with negroid features.' And social media accounts belonging to UKIP activist Richard Crouch were plastered recently with claims that his home town of Leicester is a 'sh*thole' and 'full of P***s.' His Facebook account called Asians 'The Taliban' and labeled Romanians 'pick pocketing criminals.' Crouch insisted that his account was hacked, but the damage was done. Farage threw up his hands and suggested that idiots will be idiots. 'Well, look,' he told Daily Mail Online, 'people like Rozanne Duncan are local councillors. They are very low-level people in UKIP. They're not major players.' 'Yes, we get people who say stupid things in UKIP. I don't approve or condone any of it.'", "Washington (CNN) -- The planned large rally by Fox News Channel and radio talk show host Glenn Beck on Saturday on the National Mall is causing controversy because of its location and timing. Saturday is the 47th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s \"I Have a Dream\" speech, and Beck's rally will be in front of the Lincoln Memorial, where the civil rights leader delivered his historic address. Beck, a hero to many conservative voters across the country, says that the mission of the rally is to honor American troops and that the event is nonpolitical. A news release for the \"Restoring Honor\" rally says \"this non-political event benefits the Special Operations Warrior Foundation and pays tribute to America's service personnel and other upstanding citizens who embody our nation's founding principles of integrity, truth and honor.\" Tea Party activists from across the country are expected to attend, and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a Fox News contributor, is expected to have a prominent speaking role. \"Tea Party Patriots, our national coordinators, are going because our supporters from around the country by the thousands are going to be there tomorrow for this event,\" Tea Party Patriots National Coordinator Jenny Beth Martin said Friday on \"CNN's American Morning.\" Beck has been heavily promoting the event on his Fox program and on his radio broadcasts, and he says that the timing of the event wasn't intentional. \"It was not my intention to select 8-28 because of the Martin Luther King tie. It is the day he made that speech. I had no idea until I announced it,\" Beck said on his radio show in June, soon after the announcement of the rally. \"Whites don't own Abraham Lincoln. Blacks don't own Martin Luther King. Those are American icons, American ideas, and we should just talk about character, and that's really what this event is about. It's about honoring character,\" Beck said Thursday on his Fox program. Also speaking at the event will be Alveda King, a niece of the late civil rights leader. While the NAACP put out a cautious statement regarding the rally, there has been plenty of criticism of the event. \"It's offensive because it's out of line with the fact. It's out of line with the truth. The reality is that the conservative movement in America historically has always opposed expansion of civil rights for all kinds of people,\" Michael Fauntroy, an assistant professor of public policy at George Mason University, said Friday on CNN's American Morning. \"From my perspective, there's no real evidence that Glenn Beck is serious about trying to bring people together and to reclaim the civil rights movement, in my opinion; it's really about trying to confuse the civil rights movement and to delegitimize it and in fact dishonor it,\" Fauntroy said. Expect a lot of debate over the size of the crowd. While the National Park Service long ago stopped giving crowd estimates for events along the National Mall, organizers of the rally are putting out predictions. Brendan Steinhauser, director of state and federal campaigns for FreedomWorks, which has been helping to organize the event, predicts a crowd of 250,000 or more. He thinks the crowd will fill up the Lincoln Memorial area, the reflecting pool and reach the area by the National World War II Memorial. FreedomWorks is a nonprofit organization that helps train volunteer activists and provides some of the organization behind the Tea Party movement, including last year's 9/12 taxpayer march on Washington. \"FreedomWorks has been sharing our logistical notes from organizing the huge 9/12 Taxpayer March on Washington in 2009 with Glenn Beck's staff,\" Steinhauser said. \"They are doing the heavy lifting on the 8/28 event, and we've tried to be as supportive as possible in terms of promotion, sending volunteers their way, helping them navigate the bureaucratic obstacles to doing events in Washington, and most importantly, turning out FreedomWorks members for the weekend's events.\" One hour after the start of the Beck rally, NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous will join the Rev. Al Sharpton and his National Action Network and other civil rights leaders in a mass rally just a few miles away. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is also participating. Following an event at Washington's Dunbar High School, the participants will march to the site of the future Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial just a few blocks from the Lincoln Memorial. It's possible participants in both events could cross paths. Organizers of the Beck rally and FreedomWorks say they have not coordinated their efforts with Republican Party officials. And officials at the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee all say they are not involved in the event. But a top House Democrat charges that Beck's claim that the rally is nonpolitical is nonsense. \"It's blatantly political,\" Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said at an appearance Friday at the National Press Club. \"I mean, come on. You have seen Glenn Beck and a lot of the talk show hosts on Fox News out there talking about this election for the last 15 months since the day President Obama was elected president.\" \"You've had a constant tirade against the president, against Democratic efforts to get the economy turned around. Let's call it what it is. It's a blatant political effort.\"", "(CNN) -- As Tax Day approaches, Tea Party activists are uniting to voice the message they've been honing for more than a year: It's time to reduce the size of government, honor the Constitution and return to fiscal responsibility in Washington. The Tea Party Express' third cross-country tour brings activists to Boston, Massachusetts, on Wednesday, before culminating with an anti-tax rally at the nation's capital on Thursday. The \"Just Vote Them Out!\" tour has weaved through areas represented by vulnerable Democrats, bringing thousands to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's hometown in Nevada on its opening day. The tour's other top target -- Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan -- announced his retirement the same day the tour was in his turf. Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin was the top draw at the Boston event. Republican Sen. Scott Brown, whose winning Massachusetts campaign was infused by the Tea Party, turned down his invitation to the event, although his office said he wished the rally success. Are you at a Tea Party rally? Share your images . So far, the movement's success is in the eye of the beholder. Tea Party activists running for office have yet to make much impact in the Republican primaries, and Stupak rejected the notion that the Tea Party played a role in his decision to step down. Tea Party changes tone, not outcome of Texas primary . But House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer admitted Tuesday that the protests and rallies by the Tea Party across the country are having an impact on lawmakers' decisions about running for another term. \"Do I think that negative atmosphere that's been created by the Tea Party and by others certainly goes into the thinking of members? I think it does. I think you honestly have to point out that it does,\" Hoyer said. Hoyer: Tea Party having an impact . The Tea Party developed last year in protest to what its supporters saw as overspending in Washington -- by Republicans and Democrats -- following the stimulus bill, the bank bailouts and President Obama's budget. Fueled by anger at the government and fear of where the country was headed, it grew from dozens to hundreds of loosely linked groups. Until recently, there had been little movement toward coalescing as a formal party. Last week, a broad coalition of national and regional Tea Party groups announced the formation of the National Tea Party Federation. Tea Party movement attempts to unite? Tom De Luca, a professor of political science at Fordham University, said while Tea Party activists have affected the national agenda, the larger impact has been on the Republican Party. \"It's energized the hardcore base of Republicans who tend to share a lot of Tea Party ideas, but on the other hand, it's going to bring to the floor a split that has been in the Republican Party for quite a long time,\" De Luca said. That split pits the more conservative elements of the party against moderate Republicans. At the Southern Republican Leadership Conference last weekend, a Tea Party member voiced a concern to former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum that the moderate Republicans -- and not conservatives -- would end up on the ballot in November. \"Go beat them,\" he told the attendee. \"That's what elections are all about. I encourage candidates to run,\" Santorum said, adding the GOP must focus its energy on electing conservative candidates in the Republican primaries. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minnesota, said last week that the Republican Party and the Tea Party are in the process of merging. Bachmann: GOP and Tea Party movement are 'merging' If the Tea Party pushes Republicans further to the right, however, it could hurt them in November, De Luca noted. Centrist voters would likely favor a Democrat over a far-right Republican, he said. Republican Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour pleaded with conservatives at the conference to stick together as the elections near. \"The Democrats' fondest hope is to see Tea Party or other conservatives split off and have a third party to split the conservative vote,\" he said. \"We can't let that happen. We've got to stay unified.\" De Luca said the Republican Party now finds itself trying to navigate the movement. \"They want to incorporate it to the degree they can without hurting the party's chances,\" he said. As for Tea Party members, they want to hold lawmakers' feet to the fire without being swallowed up by a party some fear is trying to Astroturf their grassroots movement. \"I got more knife wounds in my back from Republican operatives than Democrats could ever do,\" said Mark Williams, chairman of the Tea Party Express III tour. \"The Democrats at least stand there and tell me they hate me, and tell me that they hate America. These Republicans smile at me, shake my hand and then stab me in the back.\" The Tea Party Express is run from the same building as a Republican political consulting firm. Joe Wierzbicki, who coordinates the Tea Party Express, told CNN earlier this year that the people who run the movement \"need a major political party.\" \"I think what you'll find is at Tea Party rallies, a lot of those people who are mad at the Republican Party, many of them are Republicans themselves. Us included,\" he said. A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll conducted earlier this year indicates Tea Party activists would vote overwhelmingly Republican in a two-party race for Congress. The poll also found that activists in the Tea Party movement tend to be male, upscale and overwhelmingly conservative. Roughly 11 percent of all Americans say they have actively supported the Tea Party movement. Of this core group of activists, half live in rural areas. \"It seems to have captured the attention of a certain, very large and important segment, but still -- a certain segment of society,\" De Luca said. \"Its lasting power is someone questionable.\" What remains to be seen is how closely the movement allies itself with the GOP, to what extent the various Tea Party groups come together as a formal organization and whether the activists solidify around a more coherent message removed from vitriolic embellishments and not grounded in fear, De Luca said. \"What will happen to them if the economy improves? What will happen to them if the health care plan starts to work? What happens to this extreme message if things turn in ways that no longer enflame all of these doubts many people have about who they are as Americans, but starts to reassure them that America is moving in a better direction?\" he asked. But at least for now, the movement's focus remains on cleaning house, Williams said. \"We're in a war for the soul of this country,\" he said. \"We need to purge both parties. We need to purge the Democrats of the Marxists and the Republicans of the weaklings.\" CNN's Jim Acosta, Paul Steinhauser, Shannon Travis and Deirdre Walsh contributed to this report.", "Washington (CNN) -- Depending on who is talking, the Tea Party movement is either an extremist force dividing Republicans or a group of disgruntled taxpayers setting the government on a proper course. The conservative political force has shaken up this year's congressional elections, backing candidates who defeated Republican incumbents and other mainstream GOP candidates in primaries across the country. Sal Russo, chief strategist for the Tea Party Express -- the most organized and visible of the movement's factions -- told the CBS program \"Face the Nation\" that his group is a political action committee comprising members limited to donations of up to $5,000 with no corporate contributions allowed. \"We're the purest form of democracy, I think, in the Tea Party movement, in the sense that when we want to do something, we don't have any money to start with, we have to send an e-mail out to our people and say, 'Hey, we think Sharron Angle is going to be a great candidate in Nevada, and do you want to get behind her?' \" Russo said Sunday. The end result, he said, would be the election of candidates \"willing to stand up for more responsible fiscal policy in Washington.\" \"We've turned the political system on its head,\" Russo said. \"And what's done that is that millions of Americans, who, many of them, had been sitting out the political process, have gotten involved in the campaigns.\" However, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in the chamber, told CNN's \"State of the Union\" program that candidates such as Angle showed the negative impact of the Tea Party movement on the political right. Republican primary victories by Tea Party-backed nominees over mainstream contenders such as Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and nine-term Delaware Rep. Mike Castle end up giving Democratic contenders a chance to win previously out-of-reach races in November, he said. \"When the Tea Party becomes the gatekeeper of a Republican primary, we end up with contests we never dreamed of,\" Durbin said. \"Who would have guessed that today we would be taking an honest look at Alaska, Delaware, and Kentucky, where we clearly have races where the Democrats can win?\" Durbin also cited Florida, where Republican Marco Rubio's Senate candidacy with Tea Party support caused Gov. Charlie Crist to wage an independent campaign, throwing the race into what Durbin called \"turmoil.\" \"I think that shows the Tea Party position is too extreme for most voters, and I think we're going to do well in those states,\" Durbin said. \"People have to ask themselves, is this what we really want in the United States Senate?\" Rubio, interviewed on the CBS program, said he and the Tea Party movement reflected the \"sentiment in mainstream America that Washington is broken.\" \"We don't want to change America,\" he said in reference to President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign theme and agenda. \"We want to fix things that are wrong in America.\" He advocated bedrock conservative positions, including a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, banning congressional earmarks and imposing term limits on Congress members. However, his stance was more moderate on an issue important to the crucial senior citizen population in Florida -- reforming Social Security to ensure its future solvency. Rubio said benefits for current retirees or those close to retirement should remain fixed, and the system must survive for the younger and future generations without bankrupting the country. \"We're going to have to accept there are going to be some changes,\" he said, mentioning a possible future increase in the retirement age for eligibility. Also on the program, another Tea Party-backed nominee -- Colorado Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck -- expressed similar conservative credentials. \"I see myself as part of a group of candidates who have been elected in this country because of frustration with what's happening in Washington, D.C.,\" Buck said. \"We're going there not to be part of the establishment, not to be part of what we consider the problem in Washington, D.C., but to get there and to reduce spending, to promote ideas like a balanced-budget amendment and term limits and ideas that have been talked about for a while,\" he said. The Tea Party-backed candidates interviewed Sunday made no mention of the \"Pledge to America\" document released last week by House Republicans as a proposal for how they would govern if in power. Democrats criticized the economic-focused program that includes reduced spending, lower taxes and other bedrock GOP positions as a rehash of failed past policies. In an editorial Saturday, the New York Times called the document \"a bid to co-opt the Tea Party by a Republican leadership that wants to sound insurrectionist but is the same old Washington elite.\" \"Not only are the players the same, the policies are the same,\" the editorial said. \"Just more tax cuts for the rich and more deficit spending. We find it hard to believe that even the most disaffected voters will be taken in.\" Conservative Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana told the NBC program \"Meet the Press\" that the \"Pledge to America\" represented a return to Republican roots. \"Republicans didn't just lose our majority in 2006, we lost our way,\" Pence said. \"We walked away from the principles of fiscal discipline and reform that minted our governing majority back in 1980 and again in 1994. And the American people walked away from us.\" Conceding that the proposals in the document are \"not necessarily new,\" Pence said it represented a commitment to \"important first steps in this Congress to steer our national government back to\" basic principles and practices.", "(CNN) -- It's a grass-roots protest movement composed of the newly politicized and people distrustful of hierarchy. So how is it possible to be an illegitimate Tea Party member? Ask Republicans in Nevada. Some are accusing Jon Scott Ashjian, a new Tea Party candidate running for U.S. Senate, of being a fake. The allegation? He was put in the race by agents of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to siphon votes from the GOP. \"No doubt about it,\" says Danny Tarkanian, one of the many Republican Senate candidates hoping to challenge Reid in November. \"Nobody in the Tea Party knows who he is. He didn't know any of the principles of the Tea Party,\" Tarkanian tells CNN. Tarkanian even accuses \"Harry Reid's staff, campaign, whatever\" of picking Ashjian because he's Armenian, as is Tarkanian. He explains, \"They know the Armenians are very close, they'll vote for each other.\" As for Reid, an aide dismisses the accusations. As does Reid, who says he's never met Ashjian or \"anyone in his family.\" Reid tells CNN, \"I think there are too many conspiratorialists in the world today. This is a free country.\" Sue Lowden, the Republican front-runner in the Senate primary, according to recent polls, is the former Nevada Republican Party chair and seems to be the Republicans' best hope of unseating Reid in November. Or at least she did, until Ashjian got into the race. Lowden says she's been very active with Tea Party groups in Nevada. \"I am a Tea Party voter, absolutely.\" Which is why she says she finds it \"a little strange\" that Ashjian is emerging now. \"I don't know who this person is. He's never been involved with anything that I'm aware of in this state.\" She doesn't know if he's a spoiler. \"We'll find out for sure,\" she promises, adding, \"I've never seen him at one of our Tea Parties, by the way.\" It's clear why Lowden and Tarkanian would be concerned. A recent poll conducted for the Las Vegas Review-Journal indicates Lowden and Tarkanian each beating Reid in one-on-one hypothetical general election matchups. But add a Tea Party candidate to the ballot, and that siphons off enough conservative votes to give Reid a narrow victory. According to the survey, Reid would grab 36 percent of the vote, the Republican candidate 32 percent and the Tea Party candidate 18 percent in a possible three-way showdown. So the conspiracy theories abound from Tea Party activists and worried Republicans: Ashjian's never attended Tea Party rallies; he hasn't coordinated with local organizers; the secretary of his Tea Party of Nevada, Barry Levinson, is a registered Democrat. Levinson said, \"I vote the person, not the party\" and calls the accusations \"political garbage.\" But to critics, it's all proof that Ashjian is, in the words of Nevada Tea Party activist and blogger Ned Barrett, running a \"false flag operation.\" Jon Scott Ashjian seems to find the fuss amusing. New to the political scene, he personally gave CNN directions to his house for an interview that his wife, daughter and bulldog attended. He said it was the first time he'd spoken with the national media. Ashjian, who helped form the Tea Party of Nevada just to run for this seat, said that he'd never take marching orders from the Democrats or Reid. \"I have never met Harry Reid, do not agree at all with any of his political values,\" Ashjian said, adding that he's not the kind of guy \"who would follow or be told what to do.\" He says he's fielded endless calls from Republicans trying to strong-arm him to leave the race, and he resents it: \"I don't think Republicans own the Tea Party,\" Ashjian said. \"In fact, I know they don't in Nevada, because I do. That's what's really got them in an uproar.\" He said he's been told that he's not welcome on the bus when the Tea Party rolls into Nevada. Ashjian says he got into the race because \"we are patriots that want change. We're normal people that want to make a difference.\" First, he plans to make a campaign Web site. A spokesman for Tea Party Express, a national Tea Party group that is encouraging efforts to defeat Reid at the ballot box in November, says it does not view Ashjian as a serious candidate. They say he's not speaking at either of their two rallies in Nevada on March 27, when they kick off their third Tea Party cross-country caravan with events in Searchlight (Reid's hometown) and Las Vegas, but they say he's welcome to attend. Tea Party Express also says it is not endorsing any candidate in the Nevada GOP Senate primary.", "(CNN) -- After a night rife with primaries in the far-flung four corners of the United States, plus one in the nation's breadbasket, one race in the far Northwest is still up for grabs. In Alaska, incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski is trailing a political unknown. Joe Miller, who has the support of the Tea Party and former Gov. Sarah Palin, is leading by 51 percent to 49 percent, according to election tabulations. The numbers, which show Miller clinging to a less-than-2,000-vote lead, are based on a count of roughly 86 percent of the total expected vote. With as many as 16,000 absentee ballots expected to be received over the next couple of weeks, the contest is not likely to be resolved quickly. Among Tuesday's big winners was Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain, who fought off former congressman J.D. Hayworth. Down in Florida, Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek's organizational support trumped political newcomer Jeff Greene's billion-dollar bank account in a hard-fought Senate primary. Miller -- on the cusp of one of the biggest upsets of the year so far -- said on CNN's \"American Morning\" Wednesday that high-profile endorsements helped his campaign, which reflects \"one central concern, and that is the out-of-control nature of D.C.\" \"Bankruptcy is crashing down on this country,\" Miller said. \"Unless we end that entitlement mentality, no level of seniority is going to save us from that.\" Miller added the problem is a result of a bipartisan \"crisis of leadership.\" Alaska voters also went to the polls Tuesday to pick their gubernatorial nominees. Gov. Sean Parnell, who replaced Palin when she resigned last year, faced two challengers in the GOP primary. With 86 percent of the expected vote in, Parnell had almost 50 percent of the vote, according to the unofficial election count. His nearest challenger, Bill Walker, had 34 percent. On the Democratic side, Ethan Berkowitz led with 49 percent of the vote, while Hollis French had 39 percent. In the southeastern corner of the country, two wealthy candidates in Florida spent a lot of their own money on campaigns. Rick Scott's investment paid off. Greene's didn't. Scott, a millionaire political newcomer, defeated state Attorney General Bill McCollum in the Republican primary for governor, CNN projected. Scott spent $50 million of his fortune since joining the race in April. He claimed victory in front of supporters and alluded to the divisive nature of his fight against McCollum, the party-establishment favorite and former congressman. \"Some of you may have noticed this was a hard-fought race. We talked a lot about our differences, but tonight it's time to remember those things that bring us together -- to recall our core beliefs and recommit ourselves to fighting for our principles,\" Scott said. \"The Republican Party will come together, and the reason we will come together is our shared devotion to the values that make America great.\" Scott was ahead of McCollum, 47 percent to 43 percent, with 92 percent of precincts reporting, according to election tabulations. Scott will face a November general election against Alex Sink, Florida's chief financial officer, who CNN projected will win the state's Democratic primary for governor. In a different race featuring a political veteran against a self-funded candidate with deep pockets, Meek declared victory over Greene in Florida's Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. Meek led Greene 56 percent to 32 percent, with 78 percent of precincts reporting, according to election tabulations. Meek will take on Marco Rubio -- who CNN projected will win the Republican primary for Senate -- and Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican turned independent, in the general election. Rubio has cast himself as the outsider in the race, painting Crist and Meek as \"two people who support the direction that Washington is taking our country.\" He said on CNN's \"American Morning\" on Wednesday that \"Washington's agenda is destructive for America's future.\" \"I'm very proud of my association with the Tea Party,\" Rubio said. \"But people misunderstand what the Tea Party movement is in America. It is not a centralized organization or a political party. It's the sentiment of everyday Americans who think that Washington has it wrong -- they're taking our country in the wrong direction. And they are looking for voices in American politics that will stand up to that and offer a clear alternative.\" In northern Florida's 2nd Congressional District, Blue Dog Democrat Allen Boyd faced a tough challenge from his left from Al Lawson. The Associated Press projects that Boyd won that race by a slim margin. Meanwhile, in the Southwest, Hayworth conceded the GOP Senate primary Tuesday night in Arizona after a bitter campaign against McCain. McCain -- seeking a fifth term as senator -- was ahead, 59 percent to 30 percent, with 50 percent of precincts reporting, according to election tabulations. The race between McCain -- the 2008 GOP presidential nominee -- and conservative talk show host Hayworth started off nasty and didn't get any friendlier down the home stretch. McCain spent $20 million to fight off the intraparty challenge, unusual for a four-term incumbent. McCain is expected to easily beat any of the four Democratic primary candidates in the solidly red state. A 10-way Republican primary in the Arizona 3rd Congressional District race to replace retiring Rep. John Shadegg has attracted national attention because Ben Quayle, son of former Vice President Dan Quayle, is one of the candidates. The Associated Press projected that Quayle has won the primary. Quayle would face Democrat Jon Hulburd in the fall in the heavily red district. In the Northeast, longtime Republican Gov. Jim Douglas is retiring in Vermont, giving Democrats hope of competing for the seat. Five Democrats are running in what is considered a tight race. With 89 percent of the precincts reporting, four of those candidates each have more than 20 percent of the vote. The winner will face GOP Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie. In Oklahoma, two U.S. House Republican nominations were decided in runoff elections. Charles Thompson and James Lankford trounced their opponents Tuesday night. In Thompson's 2nd District, Republicans think they have a chance for a pickup this fall against conservative Democrat Dan Boren. Lankford will likely replace Rep. Mary Fallin, who's running for governor. CNN's Peter Hamby, Steve Brusk, Rachel Streitfeld, Jeff Simon and Mark Preston contributed to this report.", "Miami (CNN) -- For politicians seeking public office, a stop at the iconic Cafe Versailles is a must. This Little Havana institution has become a symbol of the strength of the Hispanic vote. Here, Cuban exiles have turned their conservative stance against the Castro regime into a political force to be reckoned with in U.S. politics. \"It forces politicians to learn Spanish,\" said journalist Julio Cesar Camacho, \"even if it's a few words.\" During a Republican debate last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann mentioned her visit to Versailles as she tried to establish a rapport with Hispanic voters. It was one of the first references to Versailles in the nascent presidential campaign season, but it likely won't be the last. According to the 2010 census, the Latino community is the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population. The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials estimates that, out of more than 50 million Hispanics in the United States, 24 million will be eligible to vote next year. In South Florida, many of those voters are Latinos who are longtime residents of the region, but have been hoping to return to their countries of origin once the political and economic situation of the region changed, Florida International University Professor Daniel Alvarez said. As time goes on, those families are becoming increasingly active in politics -- taking a page from the Cuban-American political playbook, though not necessarily following their political views. In Miami, Alvarez said, 60% of non-Cuban Hispanics are Democrats. Republican activist Fabio Andrade agrees. The Colombian-American, who chaired John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign in Miami, said new voters of Colombian descent are registering Democrats at a 2-to-1 ratio. The tea party is part of the reason, he said. \"Some of the tea party views are too radical for Hispanics,\" he said. That sentiment is echoed by Oswaldo Munoz, the publisher of El Venezolano newspaper. \"The tea party message is not one Hispanics want to hear, nor do we want to be the target of some of the ideas they propose,\" Munoz said. According to Alvarez, those ideas revolve around one issue that crosses country loyalties: immigration. \"Argentines, Colombians, Nicaraguans ... they all still identify themselves as immigrants, and the status of the immigrant is in peril right now due to the right-leaning tendencies in the country,\" he said. But conservative Hispanic politicians fared very well in the last election -- some of them buoyed by the support of tea party loyalists. Raul Labrador, now a congressman from Idaho, was a voice for the tea party during the debt ceiling debate. In New Mexico, Susana Martinez became the first Latina governor in the U.S. with the support of Sarah Palin and tea party activists. In a recent interview, Martinez told CNN the tea party has fiscal policies that are good for the country. \"I think the tea party makes us think different and gives us more options from where to choose when it comes to electing candidates,\" Martinez said. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio also rode the tea party wave that swept Republicans into Congress last year. But he has been criticized for his stance against illegal immigration, and Alvarez said he's seen Rubio trying to distance himself from the tea party. Next year's elections will be a key indicator of whether tea party policies will drive Latino voters into Democrats' arms for years to come, Alvarez said. But Democrats in South Florida aren't claiming victory just yet. Joe Garcia, a Cuban-American Democrat who lost a congressional bid last year, said conservative Cubans are still the dominant force in South Florida, and they will continue to be for the foreseeable future." ]

[ "What was the significance of the battle of Somme, and how did this battle compare and contrast to the Battle of Eslands River?" ]

[ "What is the significance of the Battle of Vimy Ridge?", "What were the main causes of the Battle of the Somme?", "Why did the Battle of the Somme happen? What were the effects?", "What was the battle of hogawarts?", "What is the importance of the Battle of Gettysburg?", "How important was the battle of Gallipoli in WWI?", "How and why did the Vimy Ridge Battle begin?", "What was the bloodiest battle in history?", "What impact did Battle of Dunkirk make in WWII?", "What happened in the Battle of Gettysburg?", "What is the importance behind the battle at Vimy Ridge? How did this event affect the outcome of the war?", "What was the deadliest battle in history?", "What is the Battle of Verdun related to the World War 1?", "What triggered the Battle of Dunkirk?", "What were the causes that lead to the Battle of Vimy Ridge?", "Why is the Battle of Vimy Ridge important to the Canadian history?", "What made the Battle of Vimy Ridge important to Canada's identity?", "What was the most important battle in the U.S. Civil War?", "What were the most important battles of the Civil War?", "What is the significance of Vimy Ridge?", "How do the casualties from WW1 and WW2 compare and contrast?", "Why did the Marathas lose the third battle of Panipat?", "How long was the Battle of Gettysburg and how many casualties were suffered?", "What did the Romans soldiers wear in battle?", "How did Napoleon lose the Battle of Waterloo?", "Which army actually wins The Battle of the Five Armies?", "What was the battle of salamis?", "What is the Tet Offensive? Why was it important?", "What if the Japanese won the Battle of Midway?", "What is the reason why the Tet Offensive is significant?", "What would have happened if Hitler had won the Battle of Stalingrad?", "Did Lavender Brown die in the battle of hogwarts?" ]

[ "I wanted an extra Speedlight foot/stand as I might add an inexpensive unit to my bag. I have a Nikon SB-700 Speedlight and it comes with the Nikon AS-22 stand, which you can buy on Amazon for more than three times what this one costs. This one is very much like the Nikon version. Slightly larger -- maybe a half inch longer and the width is the same. Has the same little hole in the slot so that the locking pin on the Speedlight will lock onto the stand. Has a metal threaded nut in the bottom of the stand so that you can screw it onto a light stand. On the Nikon stand that's plastic! Nice product and, for the price, how could you possibly go wrong?" ]

[ "I bought the two pack because I had purchased a Nikon Camera. Unfortunately, I did not read the Nikon tested CF card carefully enough because, while the 400x, 600x, and 1000x version of the Lexar Pro line work with my camera, the 800x version did not even fit into the camera.", "I purchased this exact scope in 2001 for $900.00 + brand new and it is still the clearest scope, great exit pupil brightness and adjustments. If you are seeking an exceptional scope for under $300 today, you can still find these on the the market. UCC = ultra clear coating (optics). Nikon does have new versions of the Monarch, this is definitely a benchmark for the rest of Nikon to match.", "buen flash tiene casi lo mismo que un nikon flashy cuesta menos .a good flash cost less than a nikon flash.itworrks realy good.", "This lens doesn't focus well with my Nikon D 2-X and D 2-H camera bodies. I called Nikon and was told I need to send the lens to Nikon with one of the cameras to have the camera adjusted to work with the lens. That's probably going to cost about $325 or so. It's not good to sell this lens without telling people it won't work out of the box with all Nikon SLRs.<a data-hook=\"product-link-linked\" class=\"a-link-normal\" href=\"/Nikon-135mm-f-2-0D-AF-DC-Nikkor-Lens-for-Nikon-Digital-SLR-Cameras/dp/B00006I5J4/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8\">Nikon 135mm f/2.0D AF DC-Nikkor Lens for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras</a>", "The Nikon 18-200mm is a very good prosumer lens. It should not be confused with a professional lens because it is not great in low light and sharpness is just above average. It is incredibly versatile and is good enough to stay on my camera 85% of the time as my walk-around lens.", "An abbreviated version of David Busch's Nikon D800/800E Guide to Digital SLR Photography, which is far too bulky to carry in the field. Both are easy to read and understand. Both are highly recommended, especially before buying these very expensive cameras.", "Some lens brands come with caps having springs that are very weak. In my case, Fujifilm comes to mind.\n\nI've replaced some with Nikon brand caps which have tighter springs but found that Sensei caps are just as good as those from Nikon but at a much lower price. I'm ordering another for my most recent Fujifilm lens purchase.", "It's a good lens, if you understand the limitations. In good light, you will get good photos, in poor lighting you will get \"ok\" photos.\nIt's just a bit soft on the far end, but can be adjusted if you shoot in RAW mode. This was a recent photo I took using this lens,\non a Nikon D-7200", "I buy a lot of stuff from Amazon Prime and needed a new Nikon given that my old Nikon of 10 years ago gave excellent service in the pursuit of better golf scores. I even won the club senior championship three years ago using my precious Nikon. Thus I ordered another one listed by Amazon on its site as a 'golf rangefinder' after the old Nikon bit the dust.\nBut the problem is that , in fact the ProStaff 3 is not for golf, does not measure any short distance and simply is incapable of measuring even pins with a laser reflectors. It measures the far woods just fine. Yet Amazon sells these things for golfing. Of course ProStaff is a popular name for other golf stuff and thus the deception by Amazon is complete. I am returning it and look forward to receiving my Leupold golf range finder used by some buddies. Just be careful to NOT get the Nikon 3 for golf and Amazon should be much more careful about how it advertises the Nikon ProStaff 3 Rangefinder.", "Just a step above tasco. Nothing special. Glass was not as clear as the Nikon scopes. Definitely on the lower end of their product line.", "This works well with the first model Nikon 80-400 top of the line lens, the 24-120 Nikon, Tamron 70-200 2.8 and the Tamron 24-70 2.8 lenses for both AF and Stabilization. Unfortunately it does not work with my new 2nd model 80-400 Nikon with the stabilization turned on but does function well in AF mode. I was impressed with the sharpness with of my Nikon mount lenses.", "The battery holder fell out and I lost it. Nikon didn't cover it. Very delicate cheap plastic. Nikon has really disappointed me. They're not the quality they once were.", "It says Nikon on here but that is false. They don't have any kind of way to connect to your camera and are most definitely not Nikon.", "I am not a photographer, but I enjoy taking good pictures. I never had a digital SLR before; the camera I had before the D50 was a Nikon Coolpix (a compact one). I thought this would have been a good camera for someone who enjoys good pictures without being a pro. I realized that it was even better than what I expected (maybe because I was coming from a Nikon Coolpix). The colors are amazing and the quality of the picture is extremely good.\n\nThe D50 is among the cheapest digital SLR's, and, at the same time, it is a very serious product. I don't think the D50 is much inferior to the Canon Rebel, even if the Canon has 2 more megapixels of resolution. I used both the D50 (which I own) and the Rebel (at my school) and I think the D50 feels much more like a \"pro camera\" when you hold it in your hands, while the Rebel feels more like a toy.\n\nThe lenses provided in the package are good, but are basic. According to me the 18-55 is better than the 28-80, but I think I should have bought the 55-200 as well: 18 to 200 covers most of the pictures that you can take. Also the 18-135 that Nikon sells with the D80 looks good to me, but they don't make a kit with those lenses for the D50.\n\nThe last thing that really amazes me is the .NEF format (Nikon's RAW format). It is impressive how quickly you can improve a .NEF picture with your computer in just very few clicks of mouse.\n\nIf you want a good camera, and you don't want to spend too much money for it I think this is the best choice.", "This is the best camera in its class. Canon Digic III processors are made in Japan and are used in the EOS ID Mark III professional camera, while Nikon processors are made in China. Only the Nikon cameras that cost over $1,500 processors are made in Japan. Why do Nikon do this? Also the image stabilizer is built in the lens which is a better philosophy. This camera has 12 mp and a live view. WoW!!!!", "Excellent way to add Pentacon 6/Kiev 60 lenses to a Nikon F mount. Build quality feels sturdy & the ring function is smooth. I use this with a Red Scarlet & DSMC Canon EF mount, using a Nikon F to Canon EOS adapter ring.", "Gels are good but the band does not fit a Nikon sb800 and the description says it does. I would like to rate it higher because the gels are fine and come in a good variety of colors but because the band is to big for my sb800 I can't", "It is super slow focusing, loud and does not want to always shoot. I have tried every option and would say that the t3i rebel is better, but I have had issues with that one also. Next camera will be Nikon. I love taking pictures and with the canon it is not very easy to capture fast moments. Does not want to focus to shoot quickly. Nikon is my next in near future because I love to take breath taking pictures. Canon just does not cut it any more.", "I ordered 2 of these 8GB microsd cards and I put one in my Blackberry Bold and one in my Nikon D90. They work flawlessly in both units. My Nikon D90 needs a fast SD card and this SanDisk MicroSD is fast. It has no trouble handling either photos or HD movies from the Nikon. I highly recommend SanDisk for those who demand the highest of quality in memory cards.", "I want to give it zero stars!\n\nThe Tokina arrived damaged and torn. Inside there was no warranty card or manual. Nothing. The zoom ring was broken and only went up to 24 mm. Oh, and the lens contacts would not connect to my cameras; A Nikon 610 and a Nikon 810", "Case is soft, supple, lightweight, and fits perfectly with my new Nikon D3300 with its 18-55 mm lens attached. Great way to protect this camera and lens combo. Highly recommend to all of you Nikon D3300 DSLR camera owners.", "I use this lens with a Nikon D5000 body. There is a shadow in the lower middle if taking close up picture between 18mm to 35mm focal length using the built in flash on the camera. Otherwise, this is a good lens.", "I was a first adopter and bought my d600 in September 2012. I like to shoot long exposure which accentuates a dirty sensor After a month I finally noticed spots/oil and sent the camera to Nikon for repair and in a week they returned the camera. The spots--dust, oil, whatever were fainter but still there. I sent the camera back a second time. The second return from Nikon also had a dirty sensor. I sent it back for the third time (each time with images demonstrating the dust/oil). This time I was given a new camera. I took the second camera out, shot the sky at f22, ran it through some manipulations and found a dirty sensor--out of the box. I sent the camera back (now the fourth time). This time Nikon listed a bunch of repairs with it's return. I took the camera out of the box shot the sky at f22--dreaded dust and oil spots appeared. I sent the camera back (now the fifth time) in March 2013 and I just received a check for the amount paid for the camera. Now I am wanting a full frame sensor camera and simply don't trust Nikon. Just wondering if problems with early iterations of this camera have been repaired in later ones. People who don't shoot long exposure or at small apertures might not notice dust/oil. Those who do, will. BTW, Nikonusers.usa refused my review that pretty much said what I said above. No rant. Just facts. I bought this camera from Amazon but discovered dust problems past return date. I simply don't want to deal with Nikon again where reps appear to talk from talking points, saying you can't believe what you read on the internet. Well I had two cameras with dust/oil issue that Nikon service couldn't clean or repair. So much for internet as my evidence.", "It's a good phone, got a European version and has some weird messages in German, but it works. I just liked the S5 more.", "These scopes need no introduction! I have several of these scopes in both Black and Silver! 1 Silver the rest are Black. Other than looking good, they work very well. The optics are clear and carries on the Nikon reputation as far as quality and dependability!", "This is an OK product once you use it for a few minutes. It seems to me the \"generic\" versions are just as good too.", "I'm disappointed. I bought this Sigma Teleconverter to use with the 3 late model Nikon lenses that I have. This Sigma teleconverter DOES NOT work with any of my Nikon lenses. None of the Nikon lenses will attach to the teleconverter. I also own a new Sigma 18-250mm f3.5-6.3 DC MACRO OS HSM lens and, to my surprise, the Sigma teleconverter will not attach to this Sigma lens. The teleconverter does attach and it works well with my Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 AF APO DG OS HSM Telephoto Zoom Lens.\n\nThe Teleconverter Compatibility chart displayed with the Sigma Teleconverter ad on Amazon is bacially useless because it is confusing. None of my Nikon lenses listed on the Teleconverter Compatibility chart. I will keep this teleconverter because its fun to use with my Sigma 150-500 lens. Only one star is given because of the confusion regarding the Teleconverter Compatibility chart and the few lenses that are compatible. I'm going to bite the bullet and purchase a Nikon Teleconverter ($$$$$).", "Great fit for my 3x9x40 Nikon Prostaff BDC scope. Bought a size 11 for the eyepiece, size 28 objective cover for the objective. Both fit perfectly--snug but not too tight. I'd recommend measuring your scope first to ensure a good fit.", "This book has the English version on the left side of the page and the Spanish version on the right side with the picture over both pages. The Spanish is a good translation. The pictures have lots of things to talk about besides just reading the sentences. The pictures are bight and inviting.", "This is a totally counterfiet product from this seller - DO NOT BUY IT - you will not only be disappointed with it BUT Amazon will make you pay return postage even though the product is not as described...it is listed as NIKON (but it is totally NOT). Buyer beware, this item sucks and you will be ripped off.\n\nIt is so far from being genuine Nikon it will make you laugh (or cry). This seller needs to be blacklisted! They are a total fraud.", "best conditioner on the market. Really helps with fine or fragile hair. There's a color safe version too, just as good.", "This review is for the green version. I just received this so naturally this is about my first impressions, but I will update it as I use it. As I shoot more and more I may constantly looking for new bags to grow with me. I've tended to use \"traditional\" camera bags, this is my first backpack style bag.\n\nThe bag comes with the main camera compartment wide open. This seems to give you a lot of flexibility, but the included dividers come in only two sizes, small and 2/3rd the length of the bag which constrains you to the traditional three-column grid most bags use.\n\nThe bag is just a hair too shallow to stand up common longer lenses. My Nikon 18-140 at 97mm long will stand up comfortably, my 24-120 at 100mm by specification (127mm with caps) comes just to the top of the dividers, and my Sigma 105 at 127mm (145mm with caps) is too tall. So two of my lenses (105mm and 70-300) have to lay down in the bag, taking up precious real estate.\n\nThere are two laptop/tablet pockets; neither fits my 15 inch UltraBook. I'd hazard a guess that a 13 inch is the largest that will safely fit.\n\nAttached is a picture that shows the bag holding (clockwise from left) a Nikon D750 with attached 24-120 VR, a Nikon 70-300, Nikon 50mm (with room to stack another small prime above it), Sigma 105, Altura speedlight, Sigma 17-35, Nikon D7200 body, and in the middle a Nikon 85mm. This arrangement left me with one small divider left unused. Most other bags never seem to give you enough dividers, but this bag provides plenty.\n\nWhere the bag really shines is all the other storage space. there's a tripod strap on one side, with a hidden pull-out pocket for the bottom of longer tripods (look for it, when velcroed shut it is practically invisible) and a huge pocket in the front with a couple of little inner pouches and pockets inside (but see my update below).\n\nConstruction feels very solid. My previous Filemate bag holds more lenses standing up, but everytime I zip it shut and lift it I worry something is going to break. On this bag everything feels very solid, secure, well-sewn and well-padded. The straps are generous; I'm a big guy and had no problem adjusting the shoulder, chest and belly straps to fit my body.\n\nFrom the outside, there is no indication that it is a camera bag; it looks like any other daypack. The rain cover that came with mine was not light green with a logo like the one pictured, mine is black with no logo and a silver lining.\n\nSo far it seems like a winner; I just wish the main compartment was 3/4 of an inch deeper and the whole thing an inch and a half longer to accommodate my laptop.\n\nUPDATE: Although there is a lot of storage space, most of it is in four big unstructured pockets: the two tablet/laptop pockets, the big open front pocket, and a big zippered pocket in the inside of the front flap. While all four go all the way to the bottom, they're not good choices for small items. There are only two small pockets (one with a strap that appears to be for a smartphone) and two pen holders. I'm going to sew a mesh zippered pencil holder to the inside and possibly modify it with a couple of elastic-topped mesh pockets but I shouldn't have to." ]

[ "I like Thanksgiving more I'm not having the rights to celebrate cause the history and it actually pretty dark tho" ]

[ "Give Halloween and Thanksgiving their chance to be in the limelight", "After halloween. Nobody cares about thanksgiving", "That it starts after Halloween and before Thanksgiving", "Halloween!", "Why do you like the things you like?", "Thanksgiving food, idk why but the day after it’s always better", "I'm not an American. I always think thanksgiving looks kinda nice though. Like Xmas but more Autumn related.", "It’s like Halloween. You can karmawhore and no one will shame you for it", "\"You were such a happy child, why aren't you like that any more?\"", "Do you call Halloween pumpkin night?", "Why do you spell Chinese like that", "\"Why do you like cheese so much?\"", "Karens are still gathering for Thanksgiving. That’s why they’re Karens.", "\"Why can't you be more like X?\" \n\n\"X graduated twice before turning 22, why can't you graduate once?!\"\n\n \"Look how healthy and X looks.\" \n\n\"Why can't you be more like X?\"", "Why, do you miss that stranger?\n\nWhy do you miss that, stranger?", "Clean as you go. The more it piles, the less likely you are to do it", "Why do you eat meat? Do you also like watching dogs fight?", "Why do you gotta call me out like that?", "I do not celebrate Halloween as it does not belong to our latin culture. Only young and teenagers do things around that event like parties or else.", "If you mean like a zest for life, coffee and the anticipation of a Thanksgiving with a friend.", "To me the question is a bit more like \"Why not?\" And why just men?", "Do the sexy Halloween costume thing where you just wear lingerie and animal ears.", "Why do you not?", "Why do you know how your dead grandparents taste like??", "I really enjoyed it. This Thanksgiving was the first time that there weren't any little kids and the lack of chaos was refreshing.", "A chip that tastes like thanksgiving stuffing", "Why are you scared to do it?", "I like family and food and gifts and togetherness.\n\nNot my fault the pagan festival of light and family was hijacked by christianity", "Because I’m in Australia and Thanksgiving is an American thing.", "Halloween is real.", "Health, family, and friends. I'm also thankful for food. I love food", "Halloween or October 31" ]

[ "\"Jeopardy\" king Ken Jennings has landed a new gig." ]

[ "LONDON - A man described as an undercover reporter for British news outlets was convicted of murder Wednesday for torturing a man to death in front of his children.", "Technology News, A new front has been opened in the long-dormant browser war, with an open-source program called Firefox aiming to challenge Microsoft&#39;s dominant Internet Explorer.", "A NEW front has been opened in the long-dormant browser war, with the first full version on the open source Firefox browser aiming to challenge Microsoft&#39;s dominant Internet Explorer.", "Police arrest five people over the death of a man found collapsed in a front garden.", "A man waving a placard denouncing &#39;&#39;Evil China&#39;&#39; protested today in front of Cambodia&#39;s new king, who is expected to maintain his father&#39;s warm personal and diplomatic ties with Beijing.", "NEW YORK (Billboard) - British rock band Def Leppard is \"about 85, 90 percent finished\" with its next album, its first set of new material since 2002's \"X,\" front man Joe Elliott said.", "TORONTO: A police sharpshooter shot dead an armed man who held a woman hostage in front of Toronto&#39;s Union Station at the height of morning rush-hour yesterday.", "A man holding a knife to his own throat and screaming in Chinese in front of the entrance to the United Nations, was arrested by New York police Saturday, U.N. officials reported.", "A man pleads guilty to killing a Tube passenger by pushing him in front of a train.", "WASHINGTON -- A man scaled the fence at the White House on Monday hours after another man set himself on fire on the sidewalk in front of the executive mansion.", "The prosecution of a sheik accused of funneling millions of dollars to al-Qaida was roiled Tuesday by news that a man who set himself on fire in front of the White House was a key witness in the case.", "Sir Alex Ferguson is frustrated as Man Utd fail to close in on the Premiership front-runners.", "A man arrested in front of U.N. headquarters after slashing at his throat with a knife and screaming in Chinese was trying to kill himself and would not be charged with a crime, New York police said on Sunday.", "The rollout of London’s new logo for the 2012 Olympics, which has become front-page news, has not been an unalloyed triumph.", "Holy Royal cock-up, Batman! Yes, a man in tights managed to scale Buckingham Palace wall and spend five hours on a ledge next to the Queen&#39;s front balcony.", "A man set himself on fire on the sidewalk in front of the executive mansion. In the footage, you can hear the man repeatedly yelling &#39;&#39;Allah.", "Man Utd striker Alan Smith will partner Michael Owen up front for England against Ukraine.", "GOP front-runner John McCain is heading to Washington to try to convince a conservative-rich conference that he's their man.", "Three men are found guilty of murdering a man shot through the front door of his home in an Essex village.", "A man involved in the murder of a father shot dead in front of his two children is jailed for life.", "News of the US elections competed only with the death of the UAE&#39;s president for space on the front pages of Arab newspapers Wednesday.", "A man stabbed his lover to death with six knives in front of her 10-year-old daughter, a court hears.", "A man killed his estranged wife, then shot himself in the head in front of his three young daughters and sheriff's deputies.", "The new deal is broad-ranging, allowing nVidia to license Intel&#39;s front side bus technology so that it can build integrated chipsets for motherboards while also leaving the door open for cooperation on other fronts.", "A 56-year-old County Antrim man is recovering in hospital afer being assaulted in front of his wife.", "In Milan, Prada unveils a new man. He’s already housebroken.", "In a Framingham coffee shop yesterday morning, an elderly man softly asked a customer if he could see her newspaper. When the woman held up the front page, emblazoned with news of the Red Sox victory, the man stared in silence, touched his eyes, and began to cry.", "German man sentenced to three years for selling counterfeit Microsoft products.", "A man is jailed for 16 years for fatally stabbing his former lover more than 140 times in front of her daughter.", "A man was murdered in his bed in west Belfast in front of his pregnant wife, who later gave birth.", "Demanding information, Jack Bauer faces a terrified man tied to a chair in front of him. Through a window over Bauer's shoulder, the man sees his two children bound and gagged.", "Times Online tried Microsoft&#39;s new search engine, and it broke. Here&#39;s a selection of reader experiences with the new service." ]

[ "Alexa Havins" ]

[ "plays", "play", "Play On", "Serie A", "Who Made Who", "India TV", "TVS Group", "Chalkboard TV", "ChuChu TV", "Treehouse TV", "TV Globo", "Nippon TV", "Kids on TV", "R.O.D the TV", "Fuji TV", "SBS TV", "NBA TV", "Dish TV", "Skai TV", "TV Everywhere", "TVS Motors", "TV aerial", "Geo TV", "TV dinner", "Colors TV", "Vijay TV", "Rishtey TV", "4Kids TV", "Android TV", "Hungama TV", "Imagine TV" ]

[ "Horizontal merger is the important way to the growth of enterprise in present.Based on the level and value of information exchange in merger,the way and process of information exchange are researched in this paper.The rule and the platform of information exchange are constructed,that are sure of the reality of synergy in merger." ]

[ "Based on the Salop circular city model,the influence of enterprises' horizontal merger on the price competition behavior was discussed on the condition of heterogeneous distribution of consumer.Under the network externality character circumstance,the motive of enterprises' horizontal merger and the change of social welfare before and after the merger were analyzed.The results show that most enterprises have the motive to merge in order to gain more profit.Their merger is unfavorable to those enterprises which are not engaged in merger.The policy decision of price for enterprises and the change of social welfare depend on the level of the network effect.", "Vertical merger is a way to gain market monopoly power. It was traditionally thought to reduce transaction cost risks. From the industrial chain perspective, however, vertical mergers affect the benefits of different parts on the chains. Upstream and downstream companies without mergers suffer loss from vertical mergers while the welfare of the consumers improves. Besides the profit changes of mergered firms are dependent of the number of firms in the chain.", "This article examines how capacity constraints affect horizontal mergers. Binding capacity constraints for merging firms may mitigate merger price effects, but capacity constraints for nonmerging f...", "This paper addresses the vertical information sharing problem in a supply chain which consists of a manufacturer and a retailer.Both of them possess partial information about market.First the manufacturer sets the wholesale price based on his information and then the retailer sets the retail price based on her information and the wholesale price.This problem can be modeled as a three-stage leader-follower game.It is shown that the unique equilibrium of the game is to share no information.Moreover,the supply chain profit in the uncertain environment is larger than that in the certain case.This implies that information sharing cannot improve the efficiency and effectiveness of supply chain if there is no coordinative mechanism on the member's decisions.", "Currently, there are still a lot problems in the supply chain dominated by the third-party logistics like the over storing, long producing, and slow reacting problems. The current researches mainly focus on the integration of information flow and logistics flow or the integration of information flow and capital follow. This paper tries to establish a systematic integration system by integrating the information flow, the logictics flow and the capital flow. Firstly, this paper made integrated analysis on the supply chain, then identified the basis, key and assurance for the supply chain integration, and put forward the integration management operation pattern of supply chain dominated by the third party. Finally, this paper analyzed the priority of this operation pattern and its meanings in the supply chain management.", "Using a standard differentiated goods quantity competition setting, we show three facts about horizontal two-firm mergers that are not true for a homogeneous goods Cournot market. First, merger of two firms is profitable for the merging firms provided that goods are sufficiently distant substitutes. Second, merging of two firms can lead to more two-firm mergers. Third, an initially non-profitable two-firm merger can occur in anticipation of subsequent mergers. These facts imply that mergers are more likely to occur in differentiated goods markets than in homogeneous goods markets.", "We predict the change in equity value due to corporate coinsurance in mergers and test whether conglomerate mergers produce higher coinsurance gains to shareholders than horizontal mergers. Conglomerate mergers have higher bidder, target, and size-weighted average marginal tax rates than horizontal mergers. The higher marginal tax rates in conglomerate mergers provide extra returns to combined shareholders around merger announcement. Investigating the change in leverage and cash holdings after merger completion, we find higher marginal tax rates of diversifying mergers help the consolidated firm to reduce cash holdings more than horizontal mergers, but they have no impact on the change in leverage.", "In a cooperative 2-echelon lot-for-lot supply chain system under constant demand, the supply chain partners including a supplier and a retailer, are all selfish profit-maximizing firms. So the cooperative coordination mechanism, to realize the whole optimization of members in supply chain, is proposed. Under the environment of asymmetric storage cost information, this mechanism is invalid and a new information revelation mechanism is proposed by use of principle/agency theory which results in the optimization of supply chain system.", "Abstract This paper studies a model of product variety with flexible manufacturers when, contrary to prior work, atomistic entry occurs prior to horizontal integration. In this model, more lax antitrust laws that allow for fewer and more concentrated merged firms lead to a greater extent of excess entry. Optimal policy permits no horizontal mergers when demand is perfectly inelastic, but may permit some horizontal integration when demand is price responsive.", "Based on the concept of supply chain management and the key factor of integration and information sharing, it analyzes some feature of traditional distributed technology, puts forward framework of information integration in supply chain management based on Web services.", "Over the decades, as organizations begin to move globally there has been a sporadic flow of information in their supply chain. Competition today is forcing companies to integrate tightly with their ...", "With the continuous economical development, the market competition of corporations tends to be that of supply chain. The quality management of supply chain is quite important for effective supply chain. This essay explores issues in supply chain quality management by 4MEX model and presents cases to study ‘Quality Bullwhip Effect’ which is caused by the information asymmetry in supply chain.", "This study deals with interorganisational Knowledge Management (KM) in the Italian food industry. Based on case studies, the paper defines the need for knowledge sharing amongst supply chain members in different collaborative activities. Then a framework is presented for investigating how Information Technology (IT)-based solutions for Supply Chain Management (SCM) fulfil the KM needs of the firms. Finally, the knowledge sharing and management enabled by the IT-based solutions for SCM are evaluated in terms of supply chain performance.", "Under dynamic complicated supply chain environment, negotiation efficiency among supply chain members exerts direct influence on the whole performance and competiveness of supply chain. This document combing multi-agent and CBR, puts forward a new supply chain auto-negotiation system model. It analyzes retrieve, reuse, revise and retain of supply chain negotiation case, and establishes supply chain auto-negotiation model based on multi-agent. This system model is helpful for making full use of supply chain historic negotiation experience and experts’ knowledge. It is highly intelligentized which is propitious to promote supply chain negotiation efficiency.", "This study investigates the market liquidity and efficiency of the merger between the Surabaya Stock Exchange and the Jakarta Stock Exchange into the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). Efficiency theory and scale economies are applied to identify the liquidity and efficiency levels of firms. Results indicate that large market capitalization companies and the non-financial sector achieved greater market efficiency than their counterparts. Despite foreign ownership reduces market efficiency for large market capitalization firms, small market capitalization firms increase market efficiency via merger. The IDX composite index demonstrated weak-form efficiency, with LQ45 index returns explaining up to 29.3% of the price movements and up to 8.5% of the IDX returns.", "Bullwhip effect is a common phenomenon existing on supply chain. After studying the bullwhip effect in multi-echelon supply chains. This paper examines the beneficial impact of information sharing on supply chains. Finally, some effective IT supported platforms for the information sharing amongst supply chain are discussed.", "In an interconnected world, the need to exchange information across domain's boundaries is increasingly common, the concern is rapidly moving towards defining the content that needs to be consumed by numerous and different actors using different platforms and/or software solutions, since the internal processes have been consolidated and optimized. The transport logistics sector is no exception, the main issue in this domain is for ICT applications that allow to tag, monitor and transmit information about the freight along the whole transport chain, thus guaranteeing an efficient communication among the supply chain actors for a prompt intervention and resolution in case of problems and in general to increase the transport efficiency. The paper will present the technical aspects of the solutions developed within the EURIDICE project and will link them to the concrete in-field applications that make the platform a great innovation and a step towards the realization of the Future Internet.", "Abstract Horizontal Cooperation is emerging as a way to increase competitiveness in logistics and transportation. Its implementation, however, may be hindered by conflicts and opportunist behavior among the members of the coalition. This paper develops an agent-based simulation model studying the evolution of a coalition over time taking into account various trust-related issues. Different degrees of cooperation, rules for enlarging the coalition with new members as well as a Shapley-based methodology for allocating savings are implemented. To calculate such savings, vehicle routing solution procedures are further integrated. This enables an extensive investigation of the effects of Horizontal Cooperation from both an economic and environmental perspective. Experimental results highlight that significant savings can be achieved with the degree of cooperation and trust-related issues indicating the highest importance.", "The purpose of this paper is to explicitly include a contract between the vendor and retailer in a two-layer supply chain under VMI initiative. Two models are developed, one for a decentralised supply chain where the vendor and retailer determine their operating policies independently. The other model, however, is for centralised supply chain under VMI contract. The saving realised by implementing VMI initiative is distributed between vendor and retailer according to some weight such that no party incurs more cost than that generated by the decentralised supply chain. Also, solution procedures are devised based on Kuhn-Tucker conditions.", "Effective supply chain management is built on the basis of the high quality of information transmission and sharing, This will rely heavily on information technology to provide reliable support. In this paper, against the characteristics of the supply chain information flow, discuss the impact of information technology on supply chain management and support system which information technology form in the supply chain management.", "With the market competition increasing of power enterprises, strengthen the supply chain management become more and more important. It has an important guiding significance to enhance the level and effect of supply chain management that study the issue of supply chain management and evaluation by using supply chain management maturity (SCMM). This paper makes a combination of supply chain management methods and the particularity of power enterprises, and using the theory of SCMM, to build a SCMM level evaluation system from three aspects of logistics, information flow and capital flow. On this basis, we use a method that combines set-valued statistics with triangular fuzzy number Lo evaluate. Finally, it proves that the SCMM level evaluation system is scientific and rational through examples study.", "The paper describes the background that internet-enabled supply chain has been developed at first, and then states the internet-enabled supply chain's three competitive changes compared with the traditional supply chain: E-design, E-exchange and web-based collaborative planning.", "Forecasting in complex supply chain management is studied in this paper. At first, the forecasting system architecture including suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and consumers is designed based on multi-agent system(MAS)technique. Then several agent objects and information exchange formats are defined. Finally the software system is developed. The forecasting system provides good support to supply chain management of pulp and paper mills in planning, agility improving and cost reducing.", "Cluster supply chain has the characters both of cluster and supply chain. Enterprises in cluster supply chain are located in the same industrial district, with close-knit and high degree of confidence features. This paper applies the concept of “ social network analysis” to network structure of cluster supply chain. The combination of both supply chain and social network analysis can generate an enhanced general framework to assess exchange relations and social relations in cluster supply chain. After comparing the cluster supply chain and the general cluster, we believe that these features of cluster supply chain are helpful to knowledge transfer in cluster supply chain. This paper concludes with the knowledge transfer mechanism and a model of knowledge transfer in cluster supply chain is proposed.", "The objective of this paper is to investigate the impact of horizontal RD Kamien et al., 1992), we analyze a two-stage game with two firms as players. In the first stage, firms simultaneously decide on R&D expenditures and, in the second stage, they meet in the final product market. It is assumed that without successful cartel formation in the industry, firms compete in the product market in Stackelberg fashion. The analysis was made for two variants: 1) linear functions of total costs of production and 2) quadratic functions of total costs of production. For both variants, the numerical analysis revealed that a closer cooperation at the R&D stage strengthens the incentives to create a cartel in the product market. As a consequence it should be supposed that the horizontal R&D cooperation brings the relatively high risk of industry cartelization. This fact raises serious antitrust issues. Industry cartelization translates thus into unbeneficial economic outcomes for customers on the given product market.", "With lots of hot money focusing on the field of fresh product, the fresh product e-commerce enterpraises developed rapidly, but quickly declined later. The aim of this paper is to explain the problem form view of supply chain by setting up the model of fresh produce supply chain. The decision model can be obtained including optimal retail price, sales volume and profit of supply chain whether in the condition of centralized decision-making or disperse policy decision. It can draw the conclusion that, in the condition of asymmetric information, price subsidy of the fresh produce O2O supply chain could promote the profit when online sales volume stay lower. Also, the increase of online sales volume results in the decrease of optimal retail price and subsidy price, and modified Wholesale Price Contract can coordinate the supply chain in disperse policy decision. Finally, the advice for enterpraises and supply chain has been listed.", "When bringing the enterprises competitive and beneficial advantages,the supply chain also brings them lots of risks,and supply chain risk management is becoming an important direction of supply chain research.By studying the risk intension,the risk identification,and the risk assessment in supply chain,this paper divides the supply chain risks into system risks,supply risks,logistics risks,information risks,financial risks,management risks,demand risks,environment risks.And some challenging prospects are proposed in future research on the supply chain risk management,including data based on the development of knowledge system about supply chain risk management,establishing the measurement target system of supply chain risk,quantitative supply chain risk assessment,and substantial evidence study on supply chain risk assessment.", "According to the equilibrium problem among a dynamic closed-loop supply chain network with product remanufacturing,this paper establishes a dynamic closed-loop supply chain network using the game theory,in which the network is consisted of multi-manufacturers(remanufacturers) and multiretailers(recyclers).In the model,the manufacturers(remanufacturers) and retailers(recyclers) engage in differential Nash games.Then the equilibrium conditions of manufacturers(remanufacturers) and retailers(recyclers) as well as the closed-loop supply chain network are formulated as differential variational inequalities.Furthermore,the existence of solution to the dynamic closed-loop supply chain network is analyzed under the regular conditions.Finally,the rationality of the model is illustrated by a numerical example.", "The use of screening contracts is a common approach to solve supply chain coordination problems under asymmetric information. One major assumption in this context is that subjects will rather use their private information strategically than to reveal them truthfully, if they do not get any incentives to do this. This harms supply chain performance. This paper investigates the influence of costless pre-game communication (i.e. communication without any direct incentives) between a supplier and a buyer in a lotsizing framework. A laboratory experiment was conducted to test, whether this costless pre-game communication has (in contradiction to standard game-theory) an influence on supply chain coordination.", "Purpose – Supply chains are embedded in a larger network of enterprises where firms exchange offerings, often compete for the same customers, and constantly innovate to improve their performance. In these dynamic environments, firms are increasingly dependent on the knowledge and expertise in external organizations to innovate, problem-solve, and improve performance. Firms are increasingly collaborating to exchange and pool skills and knowledge and deploy resources and capabilities not found in their own firm. This research using both structured interviews and survey data seeks to determine what are the direct benefits and the ancillary benefits of collaboration. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – A mixed methodology approach was utilized, using qualitative structured interviews leading to developing a research model and then an empirical survey of 473 participants who are involved in their respective organization's collaboration projects. The data were analyzed using st...", "Multi-fuel solutions are an increasingly common set-up in CHP (Combined Heat and Power) plants. Many use also different types of biofuels, such as wood or agricultural products. In Finland, the most prominent type of biofuel in CHP are forestry products, with agricultural biofuel playing only a marginal part. This work investigates the use of the papiNet standard, originally designed for the forestry supply chain, as a possible data exchange format for a multi-fuel supply chain where forestry products are the dominant type of fuel. In the work a model for the data exchange between different actors in the supply chain is described, and the application of papiNet in it is explored. As a result, the papiNet standard is found to be suitable for use with some provisions.", "The concept of supply chain encompasses all the activities and processes associated with the flows of merchandises, services, information and capital from origin to the end customer. A vast body of supply chain management literature deals with identifying optimum performance measurement system in a supply chain. After presenting the metrics and sub-metrics used to measure the performances in a supply chain using the balanced scorecards methodology, we propose an empirical study based on a supply chain research conducted in 2011 on a representative sample of Romanian firms from various industries. We have conducted a principal component analysis to assess the validity of scales used to collect the data. Then we have conducted OLS analysis of the impact of customers’ orientation, operational excellence and innovation/leadership on organizational performances. Results bring evidence of a positive and statistically significant impact of performances in supply chains on organizational performances." ]

[ "Pixel Dungeon is a simple yet fun game. It has levels, items, enemies, potions, cursed weapons, cursed rings, and cursed armor, magic scrolls, normal weapons, normal rings, normal armor, and more, all in one epic game!" ]

[ " Amazing and simple pixel art on a Mac? Who knew! If you download the Pixelmator app, you can be making pixel art in no time. ", "Pixel Gun 3D is a mobile game similar to Minecraft, only it is a first person shooter game. There are several maps to enjoy, although it can be confusing.", "The term Dungeon Master (DM for short) was coined by Dungeons &amp; Dragons© in the early 70s, but has now become a catch-all term for anyone who runs a role-playing game (RPG).", "Counter-Strike, being a highly-competitive multiplayer game, requires pixel perfect precision. You don't play Counter-Strike to play a good looking game; you play Counter-Strike to dominate your opponents.", " A livejournal icon is a 100 pixel by 100 pixel image that is often used to personalize a livejournal. ", "Temple Run is a single player app available for tablets, smartphones and iPods. It involves being chased by monkeys while trying not to fall or trip to your death off the hair-raising paths and bridges.", "Want to play the word game that is all the rage on iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches? It’s called Ruzzle, and this guide will have you playing like a pro in no time.", "Dungeons &amp; Dragons is an awesome game... if you play it right. Assuming that you are the Dungeon Master (DM), it rests on your shoulders to ensure what happens for everyone.", "Doodle Jump is an addictive game that can be played on the iPhone, iPod and other mobile devices. There are a couple cheat codes and techniques to help you improve.", "Pokemon isn’t currently available for iOS from the Apple App Store, but can be installed on your device using an emulator app called GBA4iOS. GBA4iOS is only available for iPhones running iOS 8.0.3 and earlier, and does not require you to jailbreak your device.", "Dragonvale is a game app available for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android, and Amazon. The game allows you to create and foster dragons within your own dragon park.", "Have you just downloaded Felix's latest game and had to gaze in awe and horror at the astonishing rooms of the levels above you? Fear no more, because this will show you how to mess with your phone's time settings and make game time go quicker, enabling you to receive items faster, finish your videos and eventually level up in no time!", "Have you ever wanted to go like a pro-gamer by racing through a level in a video game? The infamous first dungeon of the original Legend of Zelda is a great place to do this.", "Odds are that you have heard about this app for Android and iPhone, loved and loathed by many. Achieving a high score in this notoriously tricky game is somewhat of a notable achievement....but you can do it!", " HeliosPaint is a free pixel and graphic editor. With it, you can create icons and pixel drawings . ", "Before you can start playing any Dungeons and Dragons (D&amp;D) character you have to buy starting equipment. As the name suggests, these are the possessions that your character begins play with.", "In 2015, Zeptolab, the creator of Cut The Rope, released a new game for iOS and Android. It is King of Thieves! This article shows how to play the game!", " Make the simplest but best pixels in the simplest program! Microsoft Paint! Now you can be a pixel artist, too! ", "The iPhone and Android game, Flappy Bird, creates a modern combination of Mario Bros. and Angry Birds into one. All one has to do is fly a bird between pipes of different heights.", "Dungeons and Dragons, also known as D&amp;D, is a table top role-playing game. You and your friends create unique, fantastical characters to play this game.", " Some dungeons in The Legend of Zelda are just plain hard to get through! This will teach you how to beat them. ", "Mighty Monsters is an app game for iOS and Android that requires you to collect monsters and train them to become fighters with special abilities. There are two main ways to restart the game, depending on whether you want to resolve freezing problems, or reset your character and all game progress.", "Druids are one of the more difficult classes to play in Dungeons &amp; Dragons (D&amp;D) 3.5. This article will help you get started with your first druid.", "Pixel art dolls are pixelated figures, usually humans, which are often seen around the internet in dress-up games and such. This article will help you make your own pixel art dolls using MS Paint.", "Dungeons and Dragons is a really good game to play while you are bored, or if you want to expand the realms of your imagination. After all, a game with a depth such as this really needs a lot of work to be played right.", "If you play Candy Crush on your mobile devices, such as iOS and Android, you may encounter situations when the game hangs or freezes. It can be quite irritating to be in a middle of a level and have the game freeze on you.", "\"Pou\" is a fun game downloadable on Android phones and Apple iPhones. In this article you'll learn how to care for it to move up levels and unlock new things!", "Tired of jailbreaking your iOS device just to get a Game Boy Advance simulator? Well, break up the hatred! There's now a solution to play GBA games without jailbreaking!", "This article will teach you how to create and play a barbarian in Dungeons and Dragons (D&amp;D) V3.5. The barbarian is a warrior class similar to a fighter, but more wild and savage.", "My Horse is a game that can be downloaded from an iPad, iPhone, tablet, or Kindle. You can earn gems and coins to buy things, and basically care for a horse by feeding it, cleaning its stall, and grooming it.", "Everyone will end up being a DM (in dungeons and dragons) sooner or later. Therefore, you should know how to create a good dungeon. You also might have just started being a DM and your previous dungeons might not have worked well.", "The most common issues of Android screens are dead and stuck pixels. Dead pixels occurs when small color pigments of your screen gets busted, resulting to a black spot on your screen, while stuck pixels are color pigments of the display that are frozen, unable to change to other colors like it normally should." ]

[ "DETROIT (AP) -- Andre Drummond had 23 points and 20 rebounds, and Blake Griffin made a key 3-pointer in the final minute to lift the Detroit Pistons to a 111-107 victory over the Miami Heat on Saturday night.\nIsh Smith added 25 points for the Pistons, including a late 3-pointer of his own. Detroit has won three in a row, the last two with Griffin in the lineup after acquiring him in a trade.\nGriffin's 3-pointer with 44 seconds to play put the Pistons ahead 108-101, but Goran Dragic responded with a four-point play, making a 3-pointer while being fouled with 32 seconds left. Detroit ran the clock down on the next possession, and Smith sank his only 3-point attempt of the game, from the right corner with 14 seconds to play.\nDragic scored 33 points for the Heat, who have lost three in a row. Miami was without center Hassan Whiteside, who was out with an illness.\nSmith, who has struggled at times while trying to replace injured point guard Reggie Jackson, went 11 of 14 from the field and finished three points shy of his career high. His previous season high was 19 points.\nGriffin had 16 points, nine rebounds and seven assists.\nTIP-INS\nHeat: Kelly Olynyk and Josh Richardson scored 19 points for the Heat, and James Johnson added 18.\nPistons: Langston Galloway scored 13 points, surpassing 2,000 for his career. ... Detroit was without G Luke Kennard (foot) and G Dwight Buycks (illness).\nBIG NIGHT\nDrummond had at least 20 points and 20 rebounds for the sixth time this season. He has 19 20-20 games since 2012-13.\nHe also had four steals, four blocks and six turnovers.\nCopyright Associated Press 2018. All rights reserved." ]

[ "SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Blake Griffin had 26 points, nine rebounds and seven assists and the Detroit Pistons pulled away in the third quarter to beat the Sacramento Kings 106-90 on Monday night.\nIsh Smith had 18 points, Reggie Bullock added 17 and Anthony Tolliver scored 12 points behind three 3-pointers - one of three Pistons with a trio of 3s. Andre Drummond had just four points but pulled down 16 rebounds to help Detroit end its three-game losing streak.\nThe Pistons won on the road for only the 10th time this season.\nSacramento Kings guard Buddy Hield, center, tries to fight through the screen set by Detroit Pistons forward Blake Griffin, left, as he guards Pistons forward Reggie Bullock, right during the first half of an NBA basketball game Monday, March 19, 2018, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)\nOn a night when the Kings' Vince Carter had seven points to move past Patrick Ewing into 22nd place on the NBA's career scoring list, Griffin led Detroit to the lopsided win with another in a string of big games this month.\nGriffin scored on a spinning layup, a 3-pointer and a drive from the top of the key to spark a 13-4 run in the third quarter. He later drove around a pair of defenders for a two-handed dunk then added two free throws to put Detroit up 70-61.\nIt's the seventh time in 10 games that Griffin has scored 24 points or more.\nBullock made a pair of 3s in the fourth quarter to extend the Pistons lead to 98-76.\nDetroit won in Sacramento for the first time since Dec. 13, 2014.\nWillie Cauley-Stein scored 20 points for the Kings. De'Aaron Fox added 16 points and four assists while Justin Jackson had 15 points.\nCarter, the 41-year-old former dunk champion, had a thunderous one-handed jam to spark a 9-2 run early in the second quarter then added a 12-foot fadeaway later to put the Kings up 35-33. Carter later made a 3-pointer in the third quarter to pass Ewing.\nSacramento was still ahead when Griffin six of his 15 first-half points over the final 4 minutes to help tie the game at 44.\nThe two teams were still tied midway through the third when Griffin took over during a 13-4 run by Detroit.\nTIP-INS\nPistons: Reggie Jackson continues to make steady progress and could resume playing this week after missing more than two months with a severely sprained right ankle.\nKings: Sacramento missed eight of its first nine shots but still shot 40 percent in the first quarter. ... Bogdan Bogdanovic (sore left hamstring) did not play for the first time since missing the first three games of the season because of a sore ankle.\nUP NEXT\nPistons: Play at Phoenix on Tuesday.\nKings: Host Atlanta on Thursday.\n___\nMore AP basketball: https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball\nDetroit Pistons forward Blake Griffin goes to the basket during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Sacramento Kings, Monday, March 19, 2018, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)\nDetroit Pistons center Andre Drummond (0) and Sacramento Kings guard De'Aaron Fox, right, go for the rebound during the first half of an NBA basketball game Monday, March 19, 2018, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)\nDetroit Pistons guard Ish Smith, center right, tries to stop the drive of Sacramento Kings guard De'Aaron Fox during the first half of an NBA basketball game Monday, March 19, 2018, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)", "CLOSE Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy speaks to the media after practice on Friday, Feb. 2, 2018, in Auburn Hills. Video by Vince Ellis/DFP\nDetroit Pistons forward Blake Griffin, left, talks with guard Dwight Buycks during the second half against the Memphis Grizzlies on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018 in Detroit. (Photo: Duane Burleson, AP)\nStan Van Gundy knows he needs to expand his playbook with the addition of Blake Griffin. The Detroit Pistons coach figures the best way to do that is to ask Griffin for some advice.\nVan Gundy met with Griffin before practice on Friday to solicit the power forward's opinion on what sets to implement.\n\"He has some input into that for sure,\" Van Gundy said. \"You've got a guy like him, you need him to be productive. For them to be productive, they have to be in situations where they're comfortable. I certainly listen to him.\"\nGriffin did just fine on Thursday without the benefit of a full practice with his new team. Griffin had a team-high 24 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in his Pistons debut, a 104-102 victory over Memphis at Little Caesars Arena.\nGriffin, acquired in Monday's blockbuster deal with the Los Angeles Clippers, should feel a little less awkward when the Pistons face Miami on Saturday. He might even remember to keep his jersey on, something he failed to do when he came out of the locker room for the second half.\nHe missed the first 14 seconds of the third quarter while his No. 23 was retrieved from the locker room.\nThe Pistons ran five basic plays with Griffin on the court against the Grizzlies.\nAfter spending some time on pick-and-roll defense, the Pistons worked on a handful of different sets during practice on Friday.\n\"We put in a bunch more today, four or five more,\" Van Gundy said. \"We'll just keeping adding a little bit day-by-day. Don't want to go (over) too much but there were some things we didn't have in to run for him (Thursday) that we wanted to add.\"\nMore from Griffin's Pistons debut:\nBlake Griffin highlights from his Pistons debut\nBlake Griffin's Pistons debut worth the price, at least for one night\nVan Gundy and his staff decided to run fewer pick-and-rolls before the start of the season in favor of a motion offense. They also put the ball in the hands of Andre Drummond with greater frequency, utilizing him as a playmaker. Now, the staff has to ensure that Griffin gets enough touches without running too many isolation plays for him and having the half court offense grind to a halt.\nThe Pistons still shot 46.1 percent from the field against Memphis despite the feeling-out process.\n\"Hopefully, we'll be smoother tomorrow than we were last night,\" Van Gundy said. \"Our spacing was a mess last night and he was still able to make plays to people.\"\nBlake Griffin, left, and Stanley Johnson talk late in the fourth quarter of the Detroit Pistons' 104-102 win over the Memphis Grizzlies at Little Caesars Arena on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018. (Photo: Leon Halip, Getty Images)\nJohnson fires away with expanded role\nOut of necessity, Stanley Johnson has become a bigger part of the Pistons offense. With the Pistons now down to Johnson, Reggie Bullock, rookie Luke Kennard and undersized Langston Galloway at the wing positions, Johnson finds himself with more scoring opportunities.\nThe third-year forward is averaging 18.0 points and 3.3 assists over the past three games. He's also averaged 16 shots per game during that span. He's been assertive in taking the ball to the basket and running the break but his 3-point shooting still leaves much to be desired.\nHe's made just nine of his last 43 long-range attempts (20.9 percent). He was 2-for-8 beyond the arc on Thursday.\n\"I don't think he took any bad 3s,\" Van Gundy said. \"I want to see him make them, obviously, but I thought they were good shots.\"\nJohnson made a key defensive play with the Pistons down two points in the fourth quarter, stealing the ball from Wayne Selden and feeding Drummond for a dunk.\n\"The last three games, he's played well,\" Van Gundy said. \"His mistakes have been minimal and he's played really, really hard with great energy.\"\nVan Gundy's lifestyle keeps flu at bay\nThe Pistons coaching staff remained depleted during practice. Assistant head coach Bob Beyer and fellow assistants Malik Allen, Rex Walters and Charles Klask missed Thursday's game while recovering from the flu. They were all absent once again on Friday. Another assistant, Tim Hardaway Sr., was out of town attending a funeral.\nVan Gundy has managed to avoid getting sick, which he attributed jokingly to his \"lifestyle choices.\"\n\"I've put so much bad stuff in my body that the flu would come and not notice the difference,\" he said. \"I think that's the key.\"\nCLOSE Free Press sports writer Vince Ellis and columnist Shawn Windsor analyze Blake Griffin's winning debut with the Pistons on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018, at Little Caesars Arena. Vince Ellis/Shawn Windsor/Detroit Free Press\nGriffin draws a lot more eyeballs\nGriffin's debut made an immediate impact on the team's viewership\nFox Sports Detroit drew a 5.5 household rating for Thursday's game. The last time FSD exceeded that rating for a Pistons game was Nov. 19, 2008, against Cleveland, which drew a 6.4 rating. It was also the highest-streamed game in franchise history.\nESPN announced on Friday that the Feb. 9 game against the Clippers, Griffin's first game against his former team, will be shown on ESPN, beginning at 7 p.m. at Little Caesars Arena.\nDownload our Pistons Xtra app on iTunes or Android!", "CLOSE Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy speaks to the media after practice on Friday, Feb. 2, 2018, in Auburn Hills. Video by Vince Ellis/DFP\nDetroit Pistons center Andre Drummond, right, and guard Reggie Jackson celebrate the 104-102 win over the Memphis Grizzlies by dousing new forward Blake Griffin with water at Little Caesars Arena on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018. (Photo: Junfu Han, Detroit Free Press)\nThe Detroit Pistons hope the scene becomes commonplace.\nBlake Griffin was the hero in his Pistons debut – Thursday night’s 104-102 victory over the Memphis Grizzlies.\nGriffin was brought over for Fox Sports Detroit cameras for a postgame interview.\nAndre Drummond and Reggie Jackson laid in wait.\nArmed with squirt bottles in both hands, his two new teammates ran up and blasted Griffin with a water attack.\nPistons LIVE 2.1.18: Blake Griffin, the man of the night, talks with Shep after his Pistons debut. pic.twitter.com/aje1pQimvE — FOX Sports Detroit (@FOXSportsDet) February 2, 2018\nAfter carrying the Pistons with 24 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in the tight game, it was a sign that Griffin will be accepted.\nA scout from an opposing team watched the joy.\nWhen he first heard the news – the Pistons had acquired Griffin and two other players for Tobias Harris, Avery Bradley and two future draft picks from the Los Angeles Clippers, he admits he was skeptical.\nBut after watching Griffin’s performance – the Pistons were plus-23 in his 35 minutes – and seeing Drummond and Jackson embrace Griffin’s presence, showing an acceptance of the new pecking order, the scout thinks it might work.\nHe put a specific focus on Jackson, who has become a lightning rod to the Pistons fan base, although he still a few weeks away from returning to the lineup from the severe right ankle sprain he suffered the night after Christmas.\nJackson wanted the spotlight, but after four seasons as the focus, he might be ready to share it.\nMore: Detroit Pistons top 5 all-time trades: Landing Bill Laimbeer tops list\nHe has the experience of his formative years in the NBA with the Oklahoma City Thunder when he was clearly behind stars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook.\n“Reggie has seen what it’s like to be the guy for the last few years,” the scout said Friday morning. “With his experience in OKC, he probably better understands that he needs that guy.”\nThe process of accepting roles has begun.\nAdd Griffin’s talent and the Pistons’ gambit could work.\nBlake Griffin high fives kids as he heads to the court before his Detroit Pistons debut against the Memphis Grizzlies at Little Caesars Arena on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018. (Photo: Junfu Han, Detroit Free Press)\nSharing is caring\nGriffin was groomed to be the face of a franchise the moment he came to prominence for the Oklahoma Sooners.\nThe No. 1 overall pick in 2009, he has developed into a dominant scorer with few holes in his offensive game.\nAnd that includes passing.\nHe found Drummond for an alley-oop dunk early in the game.\nAnd late in the game, his penetration and then pass to Anthony Tolliver for a 3-pointer was the decisive shot.\nMore: Blake Griffin highlights from his Pistons debut\nImpressive when you consider the Pistons only had time to install a handful of plays for the star.\n“I wanted to just come out and play hard, being very limited in my knowledge of our offense,” Griffin said. “I thought Coach (Stan) Van Gundy did a great job of just putting in five things that we could go to, and we ran them to death, but they worked and everybody just played hard.”\nGriffin had five assists and could have had more. Players missed easy opportunities he provided.\n“He’s a willing passer,” Van Gundy said. “If you want to come and bring people at him, he’ll create shots for people. We just got to get to the right spots.”\nMore: SVG asks Blake Griffin how to best use him in offense\nVan Gundy spent a good portion of Friday’s practice working on spacing so shooters can be in optimal position to create room for Griffin and be prepared to fire.\nAnd Griffin helps one Pistons weakness.\nTeammates would routinely miss Drummond when he would run the floor and get an early seal around the basket.\nDetroit Pistons forward Blake Griffin hugs center Andre Drummond during a timeout in the second half against the Memphis Grizzlies at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018. (Photo: Junfu Han, Detroit Free Press)\nGriffin was adept on Day 1.\nWhen Jackson returns, the Pistons have the option of putting the ball in Griffin’s hands and letting the point guard provide spacing on the perimeter.\n“It’s going to be fun,” Drummond said after scoring 14 points and grabbing 15 rebounds. “Playing with a guy who’s a willing passer and has the style of game he has, we complement each other very well. I’m looking forward to the rest of the season and getting better and better playing with him.”\nSharing makes accepting roles easier.\nCLOSE Pistons forward Blake Griffin excited after his debut, a 104-102 win over the Grizzlies. \"We got a high ceiling with this group.\" Recorded Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018 at Little Caesars Arena. Vince Ellis, Detroit Free Press\nAll-around threat\nGriffin’s passing ability will go over well with teammates, but he’s been brought here to score it.\nHe displayed the entire offensive repertoire.\nHe attempted 13 free throws, making 11.\nHe got to the rim on isolation plays.\nHe scored in the post.\nHe scored from the perimeter.\nHe was the pick-and-roll screener and ball-handler.\nYep, they're going to like Blake Griffin in Detroit pic.twitter.com/pavZC8EkXm — The Crossover (@TheCrossover) February 2, 2018\nAs the screener, he offers versatility because he’s a threat to roll to the basket or pop to the perimeter for a jumper.\nDrummond and centers Eric Moreland and Willie Reed usually roll to the basket.\nAnthony Tolliver (and previously Tobias Harris) almost always pop to the perimeter.\nGriffin’s ability will keep defenses guessing.\n“Blake’s capable of just about anything so that definitely makes us harder to guard,” Van Gundy said.\nCLOSE Free Press sports writer Vince Ellis and columnist Shawn Windsor analyze Blake Griffin's winning debut with the Pistons on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018, at Little Caesars Arena. Vince Ellis/Shawn Windsor/Detroit Free Press\nStorm clouds?\nThe Free Press spoke with an Eastern Conference executive for a frank assessment of Griffin’s presence with the Pistons.\nThe executive wondered about the fit with Van Gundy’s system. Van Gundy helped to popularize surrounding a dominant interior player with four shooters when he was coaching the Orlando Magic.\nGriffin really isn’t a 3-point threat, although he is a career 32-percent shooter.\n“Stan likes to play a certain way,” the executive said. “He likes to have a four-man capable of shooting the 3-ball.”\nMore: Blake Griffin's Pistons debut worth the price, at least for one night\nThe Pistons have a lot of money tied up in the power forward and center spots with nearly $223 million owed to Griffin and Drummond after this season.\nThe league is trending toward perimeter players, but Van Gundy, who is also team president, said talent wins out.\n“If you’re going to do what everybody else is doing, you have to get the best of those guys so sometimes I think the approach to go against the grain a little bit and say everybody else wants perimeters, we’ll take the big guys and build around that.\n“It makes more sense than saying it’s a perimeter league so let’s go out and get in the race to get the third-level perimeter guys. It doesn’t make sense.”\nThe executive wondered if Griffin would be happy with being forced to leave Los Angeles for Detroit.\nGriffin has said all the right things.\nAnd the executive wondered about how Drummond and Jackson would accept ceding the spotlight.\nThere were no such signs in the victorious locker room.\nDetroit Pistons owner Tom Gores celebrates with Blake Griffin after defeating the Memphis Grizzlies, 104-102, at Little Caesars Arena on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018 in Detroit. (Photo: Leon Halip, Getty Images)\nAs Griffin took questions from reporters, he noticed Drummond walking by wearing headphones.\n\"What you listening to?\" Griffin yelled.\n\"Myself,\" Drummond said and smiled.\n\"Nice,\" Griffin said.\nAll kidding aside, Van Gundy said that fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and Jackson and Drummond may realize that after their time on top of the Pistons' marquee.\nWith money and notoriety comes blame when things go wrong.\nThey might be willing to share.\n“They garner a lot more attention, but it’s not all fun and games. That’s a lot more criticism when things go wrong,” Van Gundy said. “There’s definitely a different psychology.\n“It’s a dual-edged sword. Everybody likes being the top dog, but there’s a lot that goes with that.”\nThe executive also noted the injury history and the size of his contract.\nUltimately, the Pistons think Griffin’s talent outweighs all risk and the possibilities are endless when you consider his performance only a few days after news of the trade broke.\n“I think that just sort of scratches the surface, I really do,” Van Gundy said of the performance after the game.\n“I don’t know if the numbers will always be that, but I didn’t really have a good framework for him to work out of. He was just sort of going on us. I think maybe we could help him a little bit more than we did tonight.”\nFollow Vince Ellis on Twitter @vincent_ellis56. Download our Pistons Xtra app on iTunes or Android!", "CLOSE Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy speaks to the media after practice on Friday, Feb. 2, 2018, in Auburn Hills. Video by Vince Ellis/DFP\nThe Pistons' Bill Laimbeer hugs Isiah Thomas. (Photo: Pauline Lubens)\nFree Press sports writer Vince Ellis ranks the five most impactful trades in Pistons history.\nBad Boys lay foundation\nThe date: Feb. 16, 1982.\nThe move: Acquired center Bill Laimbeer and Ken Carr from Cleveland in exchange for forward Phil Hubbard, forward Paul Mokeski and two draft picks.\nThe impact: Laimbeer joined forces with Isiah Thomas to form the heart and soul of the legendary Bad Boys team that won two straight NBA titles\nMore Detroit Pistons:\nGriffin's debut worth the price, at least for one night\nNo word on Rasheed Wallace, Tayshaun Prince jersey retirement -- yet\nBill Laimbeer settles LeBron James vs. Michael Jordan debate\nLanding ’Sheed\nDetroit Pistons forward Rasheed Wallace leaves the court with his daughter after defeating the Los Angeles Lakers, 100-87, in the NBA Finals on June 15, 2004 at the Palace of Auburn Hills. (Photo: David Gilkey, DFP)\nThe date: Feb. 9. 2004.\nThe move: The Pistons acquired big man Rasheed Wallace from the Atlanta Hawks and guard Mike James from the Boston Celtics as part of a three-way deal that sent guards Chucky Atkins and Lindsey Hunter to Boston and guard Bobby Sura, center Zeljko Rebraca and Celtics forward Chris Mills to Atlanta. The Celtics received Detroit’s first-round pick in the 2004 draft and cash. Atlanta received the rights to Milwaukee’s 2004 first-round draft choice.\nThe impact: The move helped propel the Pistons to the 2004 NBA title and was the final move to cement a great era of Pistons basketball that included six trips to the Eastern Conference finals.\nMoving on from A.D.\nBill Lambeer celebrates with forward Mark Aguirre after the Pistons won their first title in 1989. (Photo: AP)\nThe date: Feb. 15, 1989.\nThe move: The Pistons acquired small forward Mark Aguirre from the Dallas Mavericks for small forward Adrian Dantley and a 1991 first-round pick.\nThe impact: The Pistons moved a disgruntled Dantley and helped team chemistry with the addition of Aguirre – the last major move before the two titles from the Bad Boys.\nBlake to Motown\nBlake Griffin shakes hands with owner Tom Gores after defeating the Memphis Grizzlies, 104-102, in Griffin's debut with the Detroit Pistons at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018. At right is forward Anthony Tolliver. (Photo: Junfu Han, Detroit Free Press)\nThe date: Jan. 29, 2018.\nThe move: The Pistons land power forward Blake Griffin, Brice Johnson and center Willie Reed in exchange for Avery Bradley, Tobias Harris, Boban Marjanovic and a first- and second-round draft pick.\nThe impact: The franchise lacks buzz because it’s been close to a decade since the last playoff victory. Griffin’s arrival provides at least a momentary jolt to the franchise.\nA.I. wrecks run\nDetroit Pistons guard Allen Iverson, left, hugs Denver Nuggets guard Chauncey Billups before a game in Denver on Jan. 9, 2009. (Photo: David Zalubowski, Associated Press)\nThe date: Nov. 3, 2008.\nThe move: The Pistons acquired star guard Allen Iverson from the Denver Nuggets in exchange for franchise cornerstone guard Chauncey Billups, forward Antonio McDyess and center Cheikh Samb.\nThe impact: Pistons president Joe Dumars tossed a Molotov cocktail into the locker room, ruining the delicate chemistry formed during the run of six straight appearances in the Eastern Conference finals. The franchise has not won a playoff game since.\nContact Vince Ellis: vellis@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @vincent_ellis56. Download our Pistons Xtra app on iTunes or Android!", "CLOSE Blake Griffin says the Detroit Pistons took care of business in 106-90 victory over the Sacramento Kings on March 19. Griffin scored a game-high 26 points. Vince Ellis, Detroit Free Press\nBlake Griffin has found success behind the 3-point line recently, a vital skill for the Pistons' future success. (Photo: Sergio Estrada, USA TODAY Sports)\nSACRAMENTO, Calif — Some critics say the Blake Griffin-Andre Drummond pairing can’t work in today’s NBA.\nThe thought is playing with two traditional big men doesn’t provide enough shooting to keep up in this era of nightly 3-point barrages.\nBut in a process that started toward the end of last season, Griffin has expanded his game to include the 3-point shot — work that’s paying off.\nGriffin scored 26 points Monday and continued his recent hot streak with a 3-for-5 shooting night from 3-point range in a 106-90 victory over the Sacramento Kings at Golden 1 Center.\nMore: Pistons hope Reggie Jackson (ankle) can return this week\nThe victory snapped a three-game losing skid for the Pistons (31-39), who acquired Griffin on Jan. 29. It was also Griffin’s first road victory as a member of his new team.\nThe playoffs remain a longshot — they are six games back of Milwaukee with 12 to play — so the final games will feature observations of Griffin's play.\nBut shooting 47.8 percent (22-for-46) from 3-point range over the past eight games should calm fears that Griffin won’t be able to adjust to the current game.\nHe already has.\n“He’s just a really good player,” Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy said. “Whatever problems we’ve had, have not been because of him at all.\n“His attitude has been great. His play has been great. When we get healthy and get the right people around him, it’s going to be a good team.”\nGriffin said the 3-point expansion started last season with the Los Angeles Clippers.\n“I started shooting a little bit more 3s and started practicing on it more,” Griffin said. “In the offseason, I just spent more time trying to extend my range.\n“Not a ton, but I spent more time just making sure I wasn’t rushing my shot. The nice thing about being more of a driver is that you always have more time to shoot the ball from 3.\n“It’s just not rushing my shot and then eventually working on off the dribble – just working on all facets, I guess.”\nEllis: Success of Blake Griffin trade rests with Reggie Jackson\nGriffin added nine rebounds and seven assists against the Kings.\nCLOSE Stan Van Gundy says center Andre Drummond took over defensively for a key stretch in the second half of the Detroit Pistons’ 106-90 victory over the Sacramento Kings on March 19. Vince Ellis, Detroit Free Press\nGriffin scored all of his points through three quarters, keeping the Pistons afloat until a unit of reserves and Drummond took control early in the fourth quarter.\n“Blake brought a sense of urgency tonight for us,” Pistons rookie Luke Kennard said. “That’s what we needed. We just kind of fed off his energy and he led us into that run.”\nThe Pistons' mood was lighter afterward.\nThe team had lost 12 consecutive road games — three in a row to start the current six-game trip that began March 13 at the Utah Jazz.\n“This time of year, you’ll take it any way you can get it,” Griffin said. “But you get one on the road after being on the road for eight nights already, it’s always great. We took care of business and we have to go out and do it again.”\nThe Pistons will try to win their second straight when they visit the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday night.\nMore: Stanley Johnson growing in maturity, professionalism\nBlake Griffin (26 PTS, 9 REB, 7 AST) helped the @DetroitPistons earn the road victory in Sacramento! #DetroitBasketballpic.twitter.com/vtCpOmCiJZ — NBA (@NBA) March 20, 2018\nFollow Vince Ellis on Twitter @vincent_ellis56.\nDownload our Pistons Xtra app on iTunes or Android!", "Reuters/Jeff Swinger-USA TODAY Sports Utah Jazz guard Shelvin Mack (8) and guard Rodney Hood (5) reacts after Los Angeles Clippers guard Jamal Crawford (11) hit the go-ahead shot in overtime at Vivint Smart Home Arena, April 8, 2016.\nIt looks like the Detroit Pistons are looking to make one more move in the days leading up to the trade deadline next week.\nAccording to Basketball Insiders' Steve Kyler, the Pistons are interested in acquiring Utah Jazz guard Rodney Hood, and they are reportedly considering sending Stanley Johnson the other way. \"Word in NBA circles is the Pistons have ramped up efforts to move out Stanley Johnson, with an eye for Utah's Rodney Hood. It remains unclear if the Jazz engages in a deal built around Johnson, but the Pistons are being aggressive,\" Kyler said in his report.\n\"As things sit post-trade, the Pistons have $111.9 million guaranteed to just nine players, so adding a potential free agent like Hood looks to be exactly what Gores was suggesting. The Pistons are going all in on this roster,\" he continued.\nThe Ringer's Kevin O'Connor has also reported the same thing.\nThe Pistons seem to have decided to go all-in on a playoff push after they acquired Blake Griffin from the Los Angeles Clippers earlier this week, and acquiring Hood would be another step in the right direction. He is an excellent perimeter shooter who can help the Pistons in their area of need.\nHood is averaging 16.7 points, 2.9 rebounds and 1.7 assists in under 29 minutes a game this season. He is also shooting 41.3 percent from the field, 38.6 percent from beyond the arc, and 86.2 percent from the free-throw line.\nMeanwhile, Johnson has not quite developed into the two-way player that the Pistons envisioned when they made him the eighth overall pick in the 2015 draft, but those expectations were probably far too lofty, to begin with.\nThe former University of Arizona standout is seen as a liability on the offensive because of his inability to score efficiently, but he is actually a solid defensive player who has the size to defend multiple positions.", "Sacramento Kings guard Buddy Hield, center, tries to fight through the screen set by Detroit Pistons forward Blake Griffin, left, as he guards Pistons forward Reggie Bullock, right during the first half of an NBA basketball game Monday, March 19, 2018, in Sacramento, Calif. Rich Pedroncelli AP Photo", "DETROIT — Miami centre Hassan Whiteside is out for the Heat's game at Detroit with an illness.\nWhiteside is averaging 14.1 points and 11.7 rebounds this season. Kelly Olynyk started at centre Saturday night for the Heat.\nDetroit is not at full strength either, with rookie Luke Kennard (foot) and guard Dwight Buycks (illness) missing the game. The Pistons have been without point guard Reggie Jackson since late December because of an ankle injury.\nDetroit is playing its second game with newly acquired star Blake Griffin.", "At least the Miami Heat have a full week at home to attempt to figure it out.\nThat should provide plenty of time to search for answers. Any answers. The Heat played well enough again Saturday to shake their recent woes.\nIt just wasn’t enough.\nThey dropped their third consecutive game, falling 111-107 to the Detroit Pistons at Little Caesars Arena. They finished the four-game road trip 1-3, but the good news is they return home for three straight starting Monday against the Orlando Magic.\n“We’ve had some of these where we’ve won and done it our way,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We’ve had others done their way. It’s a painful lesson. We’ve got to keep on grinding. We know what road map is.”\nMaybe sleeping in their own beds will cure what has ailed them the last few weeks. Since winning seven games in a row in early January, they have gone just 4-7.\nGuard Goran Dragic led all scorers with a season-high 33 points on 13-of-23 shooting. Josh Richardson finished with 19 points, 6 assists and 3 steals and forward James Johnson added 18 points, 7 assists and 5 rebounds.\nThey were in Saturday’s game throughout despite playing without center Hassan Whiteside, who was battling an illness. His absence led to the Heat using their 16 different starting lineup this season. Shortly before tip-off, Whiteside was ruled out due to what he called a stomach virus.\nHe sat the fourth quarter of Friday’s to the Philadelphia 76ers after complaining about an upset stomach that led to pregame vomiting.\nHe was replaced in the lineup by Kelly Olynk. To better handle the Pistons’ frontcourt of Blake Griffin and Andre Drummond, Spoelstra went in favor of rookie Bam Adebayo and moved James Johnson to the bench.\nIt was just Griffin’s third game with the Pistons since being traded from the Los Angeles Clippers. A perennial All-Star, he finished with 16 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists. Drummond had 23 points and 20 rebounding, dominating without having to deal with Whiteside underneath.\n“He’s a big-time talent,” Spoelstra said of Griffin. “I think he’s one, he’s a multi-year All-Star. He’s somebody that you have to contend with and game because he’s going to bring his game to you.”\nWhile the Pistons’ frontline caused problems, it was guard Ish Smith who created the most damage. He scored 16 of his team-high 25 points in the first half, helping them withstand a second-quarter 13-0 run by the Heat and take a 54-50 lead into halftime.\nThe back-and-forth continued in the third quarter. Led by Dragic, the Heat regained control. He scored 15 points in the quarter on 6-of-9 shooting. He converted a three-point play after being fouled on a layup by Griffin to put the Heat ahead 73-71 with 2 minutes, 34 seconds remaining.\n\"I was struggling in the beginning of the game,” Dragic said. “I was 1 for 7 or something. I just tried to talk to myself, tried to get over that hump. I had a couple of good plays and my confidence went up, seeing the ball go in.\"\nThat set the stage for a similar fourth quarter. Just when it appeared the Pistons would run away with it, the Heat made yet another rally. Detroit opened by scoring the first eight points to take an 84-77 lead.\nAs they did the previous night against the Sixers, the Heat refused to fold. They regained the lead on Wayne Ellington’s 3-pointer that made it 99-96.\nThe Pistons responded with a 9-2 run that ended with a dunk by Drummond. A Dragic four-point play made it interesting during the closing seconds but Detroit clinched it on a corner 3-pointer by Smith with the shot-clock winding down.\n“We executed well, got some shots we wanted,” Olynk said. “We just needed to lock in and get some stops at the end.\"\nCAPTION Erik Spoelstra on the Heat's loss to the Detroit Pistons Erik Spoelstra on the Heat's loss to the Detroit Pistons CAPTION Erik Spoelstra on the Heat's loss to the Detroit Pistons Erik Spoelstra on the Heat's loss to the Detroit Pistons CAPTION Miami Heat Udonis Haslem trying to focus on basketball Miami Heat Udonis Haslem trying to focus on basketball CAPTION Heat coach Erik Spoelstra on Friday's loss to Sixers Heat coach Erik Spoelstra on Friday's loss to Sixers CAPTION Heat forward James Johnson on the team's stability this season Heat forward James Johnson on the team's stability this season CAPTION Heat guard Goran Dragic on being selected for his first NBA All-Star Game Heat guard Goran Dragic on being selected for his first NBA All-Star Game\nsrichardson@sun-sentinel.com; On Twitter @shandelrich", "The Detroit Pistons shook up their struggling roster in dramatic fashion, acquiring star forward Blake Griffin in a trade with the Los Angeles Clippers.\nThe Pistons announced the deal early Tuesday morning. Detroit sent forward Tobias Harris, guard Avery Bradley and center Boban Marjanovic to Los Angeles, with the Clippers also receiving draft picks. Detroit also acquired forward Brice Johnson and center Willie Reed in the deal.\n\"We are serious about winning, and this is a major move to improve our team,\" Pistons owner Tom Gores said in a statement. \"Blake Griffin is one of the NBA's elite players, and when you get an opportunity to add that kind of talent, you take it.\"\nGriffin is averaging 22.6 points, 7.9 rebounds and 5.4 assists in 33 games this season, but the Clippers have been plagued by injuries and are ninth in the Western Conference standings.\nDetroit is scuffling as well. The Pistons have lost eight straight heading into Tuesday night's game against Cleveland.\nThe 28-year-old Griffin has been the face of the Clippers, and last July, he agreed to a $171 million, five-year deal, ending a brief flirtation with free agency. He told his teammates, coach Doc Rivers and owner Steve Ballmer, \"I want my legacy to be a Clipper.\"\nThe deal didn't include a no-trade clause.\nThe addition of Griffin gives Detroit's frontcourt another standout alongside Andre Drummond, but it also represents a clear change in course from the roster the Pistons had assembled. Detroit acquired Bradley in a trade with Boston last offseason, but he's in the final season of his contract. Harris has been impressive for the Pistons this season, shooting a career-best 41 percent from 3-point range.\n\"The move is not without risk. We gave up a lot to get him, including Tobias Harris — one of the hardest-working, highest-character players I know — and two high-quality young men in Avery Bradley and Boban Marjanovic,\" Gores said. \"But we are very excited to bring Blake Griffin to Detroit. He is a great fit for our team and will bring a combination of toughness and athleticism that will elevate our team and excite our fans.\"\nDetroit's season was looking promising until a late-December injury to point guard Reggie Jackson. The Pistons have stumbled while he's been out with a sprained right ankle, and the team is facing the prospect of missing the playoffs in its first season at its new downtown arena.\nDetroit's next six games are at home, so the Pistons will have a chance to turn this season around — and an opportunity to build for a future with both Griffin and Drummond.\n\"His presence will help us offensively and his size gives us another rebounder and weapon in the paint,\" said Stan Van Gundy, Detroit's coach and team president. \"Willie Reed and Brice Johnson are two young players that give us size and depth.\"\nFor the Clippers, moving Griffin continues a makeover of a franchise that has never made it past the second round of the playoffs.\nThe Clippers traded All-Star point guard Chris Paul to Houston last summer. He had been credited with bringing respectability to the team that was once the laughingstock of the league. Without Paul, Los Angeles won its first four games to open the season, and then lost nine of its next 11. The team is one game above .500 going into Tuesday night's game against Portland.\nPaul's replacement, Patrick Beverley, has missed the entire season after right knee surgery. Also missing time have been DeAndre Jordan, Danilo Gallinari, Austin Rivers and Milos Teodosic.\nLos Angeles receives a protected first-round draft choice and a second-round pick from the Pistons.\nThe Clippers drafted Griffin first overall out of Oklahoma in 2009. However, he missed the 2009-10 season after surgery on his broken left kneecap, the first of several injuries that have marred his career.\nGriffin missed 21 games last season and 47 in 2015-16 because of injuries.\nAs a rookie, he was an All-Star, won the slam dunk contest and was named NBA Rookie of the Year.\nHe has averaged 21.6 points, 9.3 rebounds and 4.2 assists in his career.\nEven before the Pistons announced the deal, there was plenty of reaction on social media Monday night. Harris had a message on his accounts thanking Detroit for its support. Griffin's Twitter account had its own message with no words — just an image of actor Will Smith with a surprised expression on his face.\n___\nMore AP NBA: https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball\n___\nFollow Noah Trister at www.Twitter.com/noahtrister\n___\nAP Sports Writer Beth Harris contributed to this report.", "New Detroit Piston Blake Griffin is making his first appearance on the big screen in a movie called The Female Brain, which comes out on Friday.\nIt’s a romantic comedy about the science behind how men and women interpret the different elements of a relationship, and it’s written and directed by Whitney Cummings. In addition to starring Cummings, Griffin, Sofía Vergara and James Marsden, Cecily Strong is in it, and she joined Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show to talk about it. (They start around the 4:40-mark.)\nStrong — best known for Saturday Night Live — plays one of the couples the movie focuses on, and her husband is Griffin, who plays a basketball player. She told Fallon that Griffin is really very funny and joked she’s not just saying that because she’s promoting the movie.\nFallon and Strong start talking about The Female Brain toward the end of the interview, and they then watch a scene with Strong and Griffin. The former Clipper was in a brief clip in the movie trailer, but this is a longer version of the scene where Griffin hilariously refers to himself as “a physical marvel.”", "James Harden has been averaging 31 points a game this season for the Rockets, who won their fourth consecutive game and their 11th in their last 13\nChris Paul finished with 22 points and 11 assists as the Houston Rockets became the latest team to pummel LeBron James' struggling Cleveland Cavaliers with a 120-88 win on Saturday.\nThe Rockets did it without a big night from James Harden who finished with 16 points, while on the other side James had just 11 points and didn't play at all in the fourth quarter with the game out of reach.\nHarden has been averaging 31 points a game this season for the Rockets, who won their fourth consecutive game and their 11th in their last 13.\nSince losing at Golden State on Christmas Day, Cleveland have been humiliated in several matchups against top level NBA clubs. They lost by 28 at Minnesota, 34 in Toronto, 24 at home to Oklahoma City and now by 32 to the Rockets.\nThe Cavaliers looked nothing like the team that has made it to the last three NBA finals. The defending Eastern Conference champs played their second game without injured all-star forward Kevin Love, who suffered a broken left hand earlier this week and could be out for two months.\nIsaiah Thomas scored 12 for Cleveland, who have lost 12 of 18 and don't seem to have any answers on the floor for what ails them.\nIn Detroit, Andre Drummond had 23 points and 20 rebounds and Ish Smith tallied a season-high 25, including a clutch triple in the final minute, as the Detroit Pistons beat the Miami Heat 111-107.\nBlake Griffin helped offset a poor shooting night by making a key three pointer with 44 seconds remaining in the fourth.\nThe 28-year-old Griffin, who spent all eight NBA seasons with the Los Angeles Clippers before being traded to the Pistons on Monday, missed his first five shots from beyond the arc before making one in the final minute. He finished six-of-19 from the field with 16 total points.\n- Griffin makes three -\nThe Pistons won their third straight game since the trade and are 2-0 with Griffin in uniform as they pulled within a game of .500 with a 25-26 record on the season.\nBlake Griffin helped offset a poor shooting night by making a key three pointer with 44 seconds remaining in the fourth as the Detroit Pistons beat the Miami Heat 111-107\nGoran Dragic scored 33 points for the Heat, who have lost three in a row. Miami was missing centre Hassan Whiteside, who was sidelined with an illness.\nWith the Pistons ahead by four and 44 seconds to play, Griffin hit a triple to give Detroit a 108-101 lead.\nDragic responded with a four-point play, making a three-pointer while being fouled with 32 seconds left.\nDetroit ran the clock down and on the next possession Griffin found a wide-open Smith who sank his only three-point attempt of the game with 14 seconds left to restore the lead to six points.\nElsewhere, Tobias Harris scored 24 points in his Clippers debut, leading Los Angeles to a 113-103 victory over the Chicago Bulls.\nDanilo Gallinari also had 24 points, Lou Williams added 21 points and six assists, and Montrezl Harrell scored 14 as the Clippers won for the third time in four games.", "Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE TODAY'S TOP STORIES What can a meteor tell us about space? | 0:44 Matt Linke, planetarium manager at the Natural History Museum at the University of Michigan, explains the importance of discovering a meteor and what it tells us about the solar system. Wochit 1 of 7 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE TODAY'S TOP STORIES Should U-M save more or spend more from its endowment? | 1:55 Detroit Free Press reporter David Jesse asks University of Michigan students how they think the university should spend it's endowment fund. Wochit 2 of 7 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE TODAY'S TOP STORIES Tom Brady was a comeback king long before his NFL stardom | 1:31 SportsPulse: Tom Brady is known for his epic comebacks, but USA TODAY Sports' Dan Wolken says that the first glimpses of his knack for comebacks started in his days at Michigan. USA TODAY Sports 3 of 7 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE TODAY'S TOP STORIES SUV hits toddler in Dearborn | 0:04 Police are looking for a SUV that hit a toddler Sunday morning in Dearborn. Dearborn police 4 of 7 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE TODAY'S TOP STORIES Pistons' Blake Griffin: 'We got a high ceiling' | 6:03 Pistons forward Blake Griffin excited after his debut, a 104-102 win over the Grizzlies. \"We got a high ceiling with this group.\" Recorded Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018 at Little Caesars Arena. Vince Ellis, Detroit Free Press 5 of 7 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE TODAY'S TOP STORIES Grand Rapids teen found dead | 1:17 Body of Mujey Dumbuya, 16, found in Kalamazoo. WZZM 6 of 7 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE TODAY'S TOP STORIES Liquor sales hit record highs in U.S. | 1:14 Americans really like their cocktails. Time 7 of 7 Last VideoNext Video What can a meteor tell us about space?\nShould U-M save more or spend more from its endowment?\nTom Brady was a comeback king long before his NFL stardom\nSUV hits toddler in Dearborn\nPistons' Blake Griffin: 'We got a high ceiling'\nGrand Rapids teen found dead\nLiquor sales hit record highs in U.S.\nErin Bolton feeds her 9-month-old Parker during the Global Big Latch On breastfeeding awareness event on Friday, Aug. 1, 2014, in Auburn, Ala. A Brazilian study links breastfeeding to higher earnings and IQ. (Photo: Albert Cesare, Associated Press)\nNursing moms now have their own private place to pump at Third Circuit Court in Detroit.\nThe court opened new lactation rooms last month. Each one has chairs, tables and access to a sink, and are part of the court's effort to ensure accessibility to all visitors, said Zenell Brown, executive court administrator.\nBrown said the idea to create the rooms was sparked last fall during a Women Lawyers Association of Michigan event at Wayne State.\n\"It came to light that a lot of lawyers were in their cars expressing milk, driving between court houses,\" Brown said.\nThe new rooms are in the court's four locations: Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, Friend of the Court in the Penobscot Building and Lincoln Hall of Justice.\nThey are accessible to anyone: jurors, lawyers, staff and members of the public. Women who want to use them need to go to the administration office in each building and ask for a key.\nCourt officials said in a news release that the Women Lawyers Association of Michigan is reaching out to other courts in the state to request suitable accommodations for lawyers who are breastfeeding. The Washtenaw County Trial Court recently added a room for nursing mothers, the release said.\nThere are various apps and websites that can help women find places to breastfeed or pump, including www.momspumphere.com.\nContact staff writer Ann Zaniewski at 313-222-6594 or azaniewski@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @AnnZaniewski.\nRead or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/2s5QouK", "The Miami HEAT face the Detroit Pistons Saturday night at Little Caesars Arena. The HEAT defeated the Pistons 111-104 in their last meeting on Jan. 3. Tip-off is set for 7:00 PM. Television coverage on FOX Sports Sun begins at 6:30 PM. You can also listen to the action live on 790 The Ticket.\n1: Despite the HEAT falling behind by a sizeable margin, what did you like about their near-comeback in Philadelphia?\nCouper Moorhead: The game was seemingly over with Miami trailing by 28 points in the final period but with a lineup comprised mostly of bench players the HEAT rallied to close within four in the final minute. Yes, the 76ers stopped playing their regular lineups before re-inserting their starters and the comeback was so gradual, with the HEAT starting off hitting a number of tough looks, that it seemed to creep up on just about everyone in the building before it began to snowball. But even with that said it’s the type of late-game effort we’ve seen time and time again over the past two seasons as the HEAT, no matter the deficit, find a mix of players late in the game that keep playing hard to take advantage of exactly the type of circumstances we just mentioned.\nIn the end the HEAT fell short all the same, but the lasting memory will be of Bam Adebayo posting 15 points, 13 rebounds and six assists with no turnovers – making him the first under-21 player, ever, to post at least those numbers. Miami’s offense might help out those assists with all the handoffs they run but when Adebayo is putting out cutters with split-second reads you know it’s more about his talent than anything else. He’s still just scratching the surface.\nJoe Beguiristain: Two words: Bam Adebayo.\nAlthough Kelly Olynyk and Justise Winslow played a major role in Miami’s 30-7 run in the fourth quarter, Adebayo really stood out. Whether he was showing improved touch on hook shots, throwing down yet another jam or making good reads and spraying out passes to his teammates, the rookie did it all in the fourth. As such, the 20-year-old scored 10 points on 4-of-4 shooting, grabbed four rebounds and dished out three assists in the final period. Of course, Adebayo also played stout defense on Joel Embiid for most of the night. Simply put, it was one heck of an effort by the former Kentucky Wildcat.\nAll in all, it was great to see the HEAT fight back and never give up. While that’s nothing new at this point, cutting a 28-point deficit down to four in less than a quarter and giving yourself a chance to win after all that adversity is a whole different animal.\nOr maybe it’s just the culture.\n2: How has Detroit’s recent big trade changed the complexion of their team?\nCouper: The biggest trade of the season happened just last week when the Los Angeles Clippers moved Blake Griffin to the Pistons in exchange for Avery Bradley, Tobias Harris and Boban Marjanovic, giving Detroit one of the best frontcourts in the entire league in what could be a franchise-altering move. Many probably still think of Griffin as the dunk-heavy player he came into the league as but he’s incredibly skilled, capable of running offense, stepping out to three and scoring off the dribble, making him an ideal compliment to the power of Andre Drummond.\nDetroit had to give up a good amount of their depth to make the deal, however. Both Bradley and Harris were regular starters and among the best shooters on the team, so without them the Pistons are starting Reggie Bullock and Stanley Johnson. Bullock, along with Anthony Tolliver and Luke Kennard off the bench, still offer plenty of spacing but there’s no question that Detroit’s wings all have a major opportunity ahead of them.\nJoe: While the Pistons traded away their two leading scorers for Blake Griffin, sometimes you need to make tough decisions in order to acquire a superstar. As Coup alluded to above, Griffin can do so much with the ball in his hands that he should really bolster Detroit’s bottom-third ranked offense. Case in point: the Clippers scored 108.5 points per 100 possessions when the dynamic power forward was on the floor this season.\nThat kind of production carried over right away to Motown on Thursday night, as Griffin scored 24 points on 6-of-12 shooting, grabbed 10 boards and dished out five assists in his Pistons debut against the Grizzlies. Above all else, the 28-year-old initiated offense, attacked off the dribble and set up his teammates quite well.\nJust imagine what things will look like after he gets some more games under his belt.\n3: What have we learned about this matchup so far this season?\nCouper: We know Detroit is more than capable of defending as they’ve hovered around the Top 10 defenses all season long, but with the trade and Reggie Jackson still being out of the lineup there’s not a ton to glean from the last couple of games – each of which came down to which team happened to be shooting better that night.\nIt’s worth watching what sort of defense Stan Van Gundy asks Griffin to play. In Miami’s win on January 3 it was Tolliver, at times playing center (Drummond did not play), outright blitzing Miami’s ballhandlers in pick-and-roll which led to a number of open threes. Is Griffin going to be asked to be similarly aggressive, even if selectively to conserve his energy?\nJoe: We’ve learned that the Pistons are a tough team that will bring it no matter what. And with Stan Van Gundy at the helm, that really shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Otherwise though, it’s hard to apply anything from those previous two matchups this season since Tobias Harris and Avery Bradley are now with the Clippers.\nThat said, one thing I’ll be looking out for is the chemistry between Griffin and Andre Drummond. Griffin played with a similar player in DeAndre Jordan for years in Los Angeles, so it should continue to be a seamless transition like Thursday was.\nAs such, I’m excited to see how Hassan Whiteside (if he plays after exiting Friday night's game with an illness), Adebayo, James Johnson, Olynyk and Winslow approach the matchup. Whiteside has had some fun battles with Drummond in the past, while Adebayo is coming off one of his best games of the season. Johnson, Olynyk and Winslow, meanwhile, certainly have the toughness needed to hang with a guy that attacks the basket as much as Griffin does.\nWe’ll see how it all plays out.\nINJURY UPDATE: Whiteside (illness) has been ruled out of Saturday night's game.\nHighlights:\nJan. 3 – Pistons at HEAT\nNov. 12 – HEAT at Pistons\nGame Notes:\nThe HEAT have dropped two straight and are 29-23 on the year.\nThe Pistons have won two in a row and enter the contest at 24-26.\nJustise Winslow (6.8) and Bam Adebayo (6.0) have the highest net ratings on the team over the past three games.\nBlake Griffin scored 24 points on 6-of-12 shooting, grabbed 10 rebounds and dished out five assists in his Detroit debut on Thursday against the Grizzlies.\nEfficiencies (Rank):", "CLEVELAND — Chris Paul had 22 points and 11 assists, Ryan Anderson added 21 points and the Houston Rockets became the latest team to thump Cleveland on national TV, beating the disconnected Cavaliers 120-88 on Saturday night.\nJames Harden only scored 16 — 15 below his league-leading average — but Houston rolled to its fourth straight win and improved to 11-2 since Jan. 8.\nMeanwhile, the Cavs' downward spiral accelerated.\nSince losing at Golden State on Christmas, LeBron James and his teammates are 0-8 in network broadcasts and have been embarrassed in several matchups against quality teams. They lost by 28 at Minnesota, 34 in Toronto, 24 at home to Oklahoma City and 32 to the Rockets, who toyed with the defending Eastern Conference champs.\nJames finished with just 11 points and didn't play in the fourth quarter as the Rockets were too far ahead. Isaiah Thomas scored 12 for Cleveland.\nPISTONS 111, HEAT 107\nDETROIT (AP) — Andre Drummond had 23 points and 20 rebounds, and Blake Griffin made a key 3-pointer in the final minute to lift Detroit over Miami.\nIsh Smith added 25 points for the Pistons, including a late 3-pointer of his own. Detroit has won three in a row, the last two with Griffin in the lineup after acquiring him in a trade.\nGriffin's 3-pointer with 44 seconds to play put the Pistons ahead 108-101, but Goran Dragic responded with a four-point play, making a 3-pointer while being fouled with 32 seconds left. Detroit ran the clock down on the next possession, and Smith sank his only 3-point attempt of the game, from the right corner with 14 seconds to play.\nDragic scored 33 points for the Heat, who have lost three in a row. Miami was without centre Hassan Whiteside, who was out with an illness.\nPACERS 100, 76ERS 92\nINDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Victor Oladipo and Bojan Bogdanovic each scored 19 points and Indiana beat Philadelphia.\nOladipo added nine rebounds and four assists. Domantis Sabonis scored 10 points, grabbed eight rebounds and had six assists. Lance Stephenson finished with 14 points and nine rebounds off the bench for Indiana.\nJoel Embiid finished with 24 points and 10 rebounds while playing on both nights of the back-to-back. Ben Simmons scored 10 points and added 11 rebounds for Philadelphia.\nWIZARDS 115, MAGIC 98\nORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Otto Porter scored 20 points and Tomas Satoransky had a career-high 19 to lift Washington over Orlando.\nBradley Beal had 18 points, eight rebounds and eight assists as the Wizards won their fourth straight without injured All-Star point guard John Wall. Washington shot 54 per cent and had 35 assists, the fourth straight game with 30 or more.", "The Pistons were getting the Heat with the top three Miami starters missing the game due to various injuries. Nice.\nStart the conversation, or Read more at Detroit Bad Boys.", "JUST not good enough.\nThe Cleveland Cavaliers suffered an embarrassing 120-88 loss at the hands of the Houston Rockets, as things go from bad to worse for LeBron James’ side.\nTheir season on the whole has been inconceivably poor, but this result signals a new low, with James admitting post-game that he was “at a loss for words.”\nWestbrook pushes Denver fan 0:29\nThe star went on to say, “Going 0-8 on national television. They should take us off every nationally televised game for the rest of the season.”\nThe Cavs sit in the third seed, with a 30-21 record; only a game ahead of the Washington Wizards.\nAnd there are no real reasons for optimism, with their loss to their Rockets taking their record against top-5 Western Conference teams to 0-7 on the season.\nWith Kevin Love’s injury likely ruling them out of a number of potential trade discussions; Tyronn Lue will have to figure it all out quickly in order to salvage their season.\nAnd he will get that chance, with ESPN Insider Adrian Wojnarowski reporting that Lue will not be fired, as the Cavaliers keep working on improving their roster before the February 8 trade deadline.\n\"At a loss for words...\" @KingJames reacts to the Cavs now being 0-7 against the top 5 western conference teams this season after 120-88 loss to Rockets. #CrunchTime pic.twitter.com/FSMdw7FUMC — NBA TV (@NBATV) February 4, 2018\nMeanwhile, Isaiah Thomas told reporters: “I don’t know the last time we got on the floor for a loose ball.\n“I know that teams I’ve been on, defence is determined on deflections, steals, loose balls, who’s the hardest working team.”\nAll that and more in this edition of the NBA Wrap!\nAUSSIES IN ACTION\nBen Simmons had a double-double against the Indiana Pacers, but it wasn’t enough as they fell to a disappointing 100-92 loss on the second night of their back-to-back.\nSimmons finished with 10 points, 11 rebounds and six assists.\nIt was an Aussie vs. Aussie battle in San Antonio as Joe Ingles and the Utah Jazz visited Patty Mills and the Spurs.\nIngles had 10 points, three assists and a rebound in the Jazz’s 120-111 win, while Mills put up 11 points, two assists and a rebound in hiss 22 minutes off the bench.\nUtah Jazz' Joe Ingles drives past Kyle Anderson and Dejounte Murray. Source: AP\nAROUND THE LEAGUE\nHOUSTON ROCKETS 120 – 88 CLEVELAND CAVALIERS\nChris Paul had 22 points and 11 assists, Ryan Anderson added 21 points and the Houston Rockets became the latest team to thump Cleveland on national TV, beating the disconnected Cavaliers 120-88 on Saturday night. James Harden only scored 16 – 15 below his league-leading average – but Houston rolled to its fourth straight win and improved to 11-2 since Jan. 8. Meanwhile, the Cavs’ downward spiral accelerated.\nSince losing at Golden State on Christmas, LeBron James and his teammates are 0-8 in network broadcasts and have been embarrassed in several matchups against quality teams. They lost by 28 at Minnesota, 34 in Toronto, 24 at home to Oklahoma City and 32 to the Rockets, who toyed with the defending Eastern Conference champs.\nJames finished with just 11 points and didn’t play in the fourth quarter as the Rockets were too far ahead. Isaiah Thomas scored 12 for Cleveland.\nCHICAGO BULLS 103 – 113 LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS\nThere had been only one real practice, one small attempt at learning a couple plays with new teammates.\nBut when the game began Saturday, the new and the old melded like they’d been at it for some time, newcomer Tobias Harris blending with holdover Danilo Gallinari to lead the Clippers to a 113-103 victory over the struggling Chicago Bulls.\nHarris and Gallinari each scored 24 points in their first game together, and the Clippers stayed with a simple motion offense that led to a season-high 33 fast-break points.\nMIAMI HEAT 107 – 111 DETROIT PISTONS\nAndre Drummond had 23 points and 20 rebounds, and Blake Griffin made a key 3-pointer in the final minute to lift Detroit over Miami. Ish Smith added 25 points for the Pistons, including a late 3-pointer of his own. Detroit has won three in a row, the last two with Griffin in the lineup after acquiring him in a trade.\nGriffin’s 3-pointer with 44 seconds to play put the Pistons ahead 108-101, but Goran Dragic responded with a four-point play, making a 3-pointer while being fouled with 32 seconds left. Detroit ran the clock down on the next possession, and Smith sank his only 3-point attempt of the game, from the right corner with 14 seconds to play.\nDragic scored 33 points for the Heat, who have lost three in a row. Miami was without center Hassan Whiteside, who was out with an illness.\nThe Blake Griffin Pistons are off to a fun start: Now 2-0 after downing a good Miami team (111-107), and the big boys are fitting well together so far. Blake 16 points, 9 boards, 7 assists; Andre Drummond 23 points & 20 boards. — Sam Amick (@sam_amick) February 4, 2018\nPHILADELPHIA 76ERS 92 – 100 INDIANA PACERS\nVictor Oladipo and Bojan Bogdanovic each scored 19 points and Indiana beat Philadelphia.\nOladipo added nine rebounds and four assists. Domantis Sabonis scored 10 points, grabbed eight rebounds and had six assists. Lance Stephenson finished with 14 points and nine rebounds off the bench for Indiana.\nJoel Embiid finished with 24 points and 10 rebounds while playing on both nights of the back-to-back. Ben Simmons scored 10 points and added 11 rebounds for Philadelphia.\nWASHINGTON WIZARDS 115 – 98 ORLANDO MAGIC\nOtto Porter scored 20 points and Tomas Satoransky had a career-high 19 to lift Washington over Orlando.\nBradley Beal had 18 points, eight rebounds and eight assists as the Wizards won their fourth straight without injured All-Star point guard John Wall. Washington shot 54 per cent and had 35 assists, the fourth straight game with 30 or more. Mario Hezonja and Johnathon Simmons led Orlando with 15 points apiece. The Magic had seven players in double figures, including 14 points from Elfrid Payton, but couldn’t keep up with Washington’s unselfish play.\nNEW ORLEANS PELICANS 107 – 118 MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES\nJimmy Butler scored 30 points, Karl-Anthony Towns had 22 points and 16 rebounds for his league-leading 47th double-double, and the Minnesota Timberwolves beat the New Orleans Pelicans 118-107 on Saturday night. In front of a capacity crowd dotted with celebrities in town for Sunday’s Super Bowl, the Wolves dominated from the start en route to their 12th straight home win and a four-game season sweep of the Pelicans.\nAnthony Davis led New Orleans with 38 points and managed to keep the Pelicans from getting completely blown out in the first quarter, when the Wolves opened a 22-6 lead.\nMinnesota Timberwolves' Jimmy Butler. Source: AP\nUTAH JAZZ 120 – 111 SAN ANTONIO SPURS\nRicky Rubio scored a season-high 34 points and added nine assists, and the Utah Jazz up-ended the San Antonio Spurs 120-111 on Saturday night for their fifth straight victory.\nSan Antonio had possession trailing 112-109, but Jazz forward Derrick Favors batted down a pass near the 3-point line and raced down the court for a monstrous one-handed dunk to essentially seal the Jazz’s second win over the Spurs this season.\nFavors finished with 14 points.\nLaMarcus Aldridge had 31 points for San Antonio in their final home game before embarking on their annual monthlong rodeo road trip.\nGOLDEN STATE WARRIORS 108 – 115 DENVER NUGGETS\nNikola Jokic scored 19 points, including a go-ahead 3-pointer with 2:10 left, and added nine rebounds as the Denver Nuggets beat the Golden State Warriors 115-108 on Saturday night.\nWill Barton had 25 points and Gary Harris 16 for the Nuggets, who split the four games with Golden State this season. Denver rallied from 12 down in the second half to hand the Warriors their second loss in three games.\nKevin Durant scored 31 points and Stephen Curry had 24 for Golden State.\nDALLAS MAVERICKS 106 – 99 SACRAMENTO KINGS\nYogi Ferrell made consecutive 3-pointers to spark a big run at the start of the fourth quarter and the Dallas Mavericks beat the Sacramento Kings 106-99 on Saturday night to snap a five-game losing streak.\nDirk Nowitzki had 15 points and seven rebounds while inching closer to another milestone in his illustrious NBA career. Harrison Barnes scored 18 points and Dwight Powell added 17 points and nine rebounds to help Dallas win in Sacramento for the first time in nearly three years.", "Blake Griffin reacts after teammates pour water on his head after the Detroit Pistons won in his debut, 104-102, over the Memphis Grizzlies at Little Caesars Arena on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018. (Photo: Leon Halip, Getty Images)\nThe Pistons got a serious upgrade in star power on Monday when they acquired forward Blake Griffin from the Clippers. Free Press sports writer Ryan Ford takes a look at the superstar’s career to date (all stats entering Saturday):\nBlake Griffin scored 24 points in his debut with the Pistons on Thursday. (Photo: Leon Halip/Getty Images)\nThe big paycheck\nGriffin’s contract features the sixth-highest average annual salary in the NBA (including future extensions). The top 10:\nJames Harden: $42.336 million\nJohn Wall: $42.336 million\nRussell Westbrook: $41.006 million\nStephen Curry: $40.232 million\nAndrew Wiggins: $36.613 million\nBlake Griffin: $34.235 million\nKyle Lowry: $33.333 million\nLeBron James: $33.286 million\nGordon Hayward: $31.957 million\nMike Conley: $30.521 million\nBlake Griffin from the L.A. Clippers slam dunks over a car with teammate Baron Davis inside, before winning the All-Stars Slam Dunk contest at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on February 19, 2011. The event took place ahead of Sunday's 60th NBA All-Star Game showdown between Eastern and Western conference superstars at Los Angeles on February 20. AFP PHOTO/Mark RALSTON (Photo credit should read MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images) (Photo: MARK RALSTON, AFP/Getty Images)\nAward show\nGriffin has a fairly full trophy case through nine seasons in the NBA. His major honors:\n► 2010-11 Rookie of the Year\n► 2010-11 All-Rookie First Team\n► 2011 NBA All-Star\n► 2011 NBA Slam Dunk champion\n► 2011-12 All-NBA Second Team\n► 2012 NBA All-Star\n► 2012-13 All-NBA Second Team\n► 2013 NBA All-Star\n► 2013-14 All-NBA Second Team\n► 2014 NBA All-Star\n► 2014-15 All-NBA Third Team\n► 2015 NBA All-Star\nFILE- In this March 16, 2014, file photo, Los Angeles Clippers', from left, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan confer on the court during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Cleveland Cavaliers in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File) (Photo: Jae C. Hong, AP)\nBalanced attack\nGriffin is always a threat to score, but he’s also a strong rebounder and passer. He’s one of six players in NBA history to average at least 20 points, nine rebounds and four assists per game. The list with their averages:\n1959-72: Elgin Baylor\nPoints: 27.4.\nRebounds: 13.5.\nAssists: 4.3.\n1980-92: Larry Bird\nPoints: 24.3.\nRebounds: 10.0.\nAssists: 6.3.\n1960-73: Wilt Chamberlain\nPoints: 30.1.\nRebounds: 22.9.\nAssists: 4.4.\n1966-76: Billy Cunningham\nPoints: 20.8.\nRebounds: 10.1.\nAssists: 4.0.\n2011-18: Blake Griffin\nPoints: 21.6.\nRebounds: 9.3.\nAssists: 4.2.\n1994-2008: Chris Webber\nPoints: 20.7.\nRebounds: 9.8.\nAssists: 4.2.\nDetroit Pistons forward Blake Griffin makes a shot against Memphis Grizzlies center Marc Gasol, left, and forward JaMychal Green during the second half at Little Caesars Arena, Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018. (Photo: Junfu Han, Detroit Free Press)\nTriple-double threat\nGriffin has recorded seven regular season triple-doubles in his NBA career, good for 13th since the start of the 2010-11 season. The games:\nMarch 23, 2011\nClippers 127, Wizards 119: Griffin scored 33 points and dished out 10 assists, buthe dominated on the boards, pulling down 17 rebounds.\nApril 13, 2011\nClippers 110, Grizzlies 103: Griffin broke the 30-point mark again against the Griz, scoring 31, but he had just 10 rebounds and 10 assists.\nMarch 6, 2013\nClippers 117, Bucks 101: Griffin needed just 33 minutes – and 14 shot attempts – to put up 23 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists.\nApril 3, 2014\nMavericks 113, Clippers 107: Griffin shot just 39.1 percent from the field, but scored 25 poiints and added 10 rebounds and 11 assists.\nFeb. 6, 2017\nRaptors 118, Clippers 109: In his first road triple-double, Griffin scored 26 points in Toronto and had 11 rebounds and 11 assists.\nNov. 22, 2017\nClippers 116, Hawks 103: Griffin chucked up eight three-point attempts (making three) on his way to 26 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists.\nJan. 22, 2018\nTimberwolves 126, Clippers 118: Griffin hit 61.9 percent of his field-goal attempts to score 32 points, and add 11 rebounds and 12 assists.", "Milwaukee Bucks guard Malcolm Brogdon looks to drive the ball as Detroit Pistons guard Ish Smith defends during the second quarter of the game at The Palace of Auburn Hills. Mandatory Credit: Leon Halip-USA TODAY Sports All the talk around the Milwaukee Bucks has been centered mostly around the dynamic duo of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jabari Parker.\nStart the conversation, or Read more at Isportsweb.com.", "DETROIT — Kameron Chatman had 21 points with eight rebounds to lead all five Detroit Mercy starters in double-figure scoring in a 74-60 victory over IUPUI on Friday night.\nChatman, who had four assists and three steals, scored 12 points in the first half when Detroit took a 38-28 lead after shooting 52 per cent and leading by as many at 18.\nThe Titans led the entire game and made 8 of 19 3-point tries. Roschon Prince and Josh McFolley added 14 points with McFolley making four of the Titans' 11 steals. DeShawndre Black scored 13 points and Cole Long 12 with seven assists for the Titans (7-17, 3-8 Horizon).\nJaylen Minnett led the Jaguars (7-15, 4-7), who have lost four straight, with four 3-pointers for his 12 points. IUPUI didn't get closer than seven in the second half.", "DETROIT (AP) — With his team in a slump that threatened to derail a once-promising season, Stan Van Gundy boldly put the Detroit Pistons on a new path.\nWhere it will lead is anyone's guess.\nThe trade that brought Blake Griffin to the Pistons includes plenty of risk. The 6-foot-10 forward with an All-Star pedigree has a lengthy highlight reel and an injury history to match. But in his fourth season as Detroit's coach and team president, Van Gundy wasn't going to let this opportunity pass. If healthy, Griffin is the type of player who could lift this franchise significantly — and not just this season.\n\"The hardest thing to do in this league is to get a proven star,\" Van Gundy said Tuesday. \"You get very few opportunities to do it.\"\nDetroit has made the playoffs once under Van Gundy, but when the Pistons lost their eighth straight game Sunday, this season seemed to be slipping away. Detroit has looked lost without injured point guard Reggie Jackson, and although center Andre Drummond is signed long term, the future appeared murky at best.\nGuard Avery Bradley was on an expiring contract, and recent draft picks Luke Kennard and Stanley Johnson look more like role players than stars. The Pistons weren't in a clear rebuilding mode, but improving the roster wasn't going to be easy.\nSo Detroit took a gamble, sending Bradley and leading scorer Tobias Harris to Los Angeles for Griffin in a six-player trade announced Tuesday morning. The deal also cost the Pistons a first-round draft pick.\n\"It's a great addition,\" said Detroit forward Reggie Bullock, who once played with Griffin on the Clippers. \"We're getting an All-Star-caliber player coming to a team to add onto the one that we already have.\"\nThe upside is obvious. The Pistons have been mediocre for most of the past decade, but they've never picked higher than seventh in the draft during that period. Detroit isn't considered a major free agent destination, so if the Pistons were going to acquire a player like Griffin, this was one way to do it.\nGriffin agreed to a $171 million, five-year deal with the Clippers in July, so Detroit can keep him for a while, albeit at a prohibitive cost.\n\"Everybody can view that differently. 'Oh wow, you're locked into 140 million dollars-plus.' Yeah, but he's locked into us too, as one of the best players in the league,\" Van Gundy said.\nThe 28-year-old Griffin has averaged 21.6 points, 9.3 rebounds and 4.2 assists in his career, and he and the 24-year-old Drummond could be a formidable frontcourt tandem. Van Gundy acknowledged that the NBA has become more perimeter oriented, but he says there is value in trying to build a different type of team.\n\"Like the Tampa Bay Rays in baseball. Everybody wanted power hitting and on-base percentage. They couldn't get that. What did they go do? They went and built it on relief pitching and defense, and were very, very competitive for years,\" Van Gundy said. \"So we're not in a situation where we can be that choosy, and we can't necessarily go and try to do it the same way as everybody else.\"\nThe question is whether Griffin can stay healthy. The Clippers drafted him first overall in 2009, but he missed the 2009-10 season after surgery on his broken left kneecap. He also missed 21 games last season and 47 in 2015-16.\nIf Griffin isn't able to stay on the court, that big contract will become quite a burden for the Pistons — and even if he is healthy, Detroit may need to be creative to build a capable supporting cast around him and Drummond.\nVan Gundy already suggested that it will be hard for the Pistons to make another major move before this year's trade deadline next week.\n\"If you look at our roster, and the fact that we gave up a pick and the whole thing, we don't have a ton of assets now to really do anything major,\" he said. \"But it doesn't mean something couldn't come up.\"\nNo matter how this deal turns out, it feels like a tipping point for Van Gundy, the kind of trade that could define his tenure in Detroit. The Pistons will have a hard time withstanding any significant decline in Griffin's performance, but if he remains the star he's been for much of his career, his arrival could be a big step in the right direction.\n\"Since we've gotten here, all of our discussions have talked about, you know, how do you get that guy? How do you get the real superior talents in this league?\" Van Gundy said. \"You've got to have one of those guys.\"\n___\nMore AP NBA: https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball\n___\nFollow Noah Trister at www.Twitter.com/noahtrister", "DETROIT (AP) - Blake Griffin's first few days with the Detroit Pistons were a bit of a whirlwind.\nDetroit was able to win two close games with him, but coach Stan Van Gundy sees a lot of room for improvement.\n\"I've got to get it figured out offensively,\" Van Gundy said. \"I'm not helping him or us a lot. You could actually see today in the early fourth quarter, we were actually a lot smoother when he was out because we were just playing.\nDetroit Pistons center Andre Drummond (0) dunks the ball against the Miami Heat during the first half of an NBA basketball game Saturday, Feb. 3, 2018, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Duane Burleson)\n\"I've got this great player now, and so we're just sort of playing to him all the time, and the defense is all loaded up.\"\nAndre Drummond had 23 points and 20 rebounds, and Griffin made a key 3-pointer in the final minute to lift the Pistons to a 111-107 victory over the Miami Heat on Saturday night. Whatever Van Gundy's issues were with the offense, they didn't prevent Detroit from scoring 35 points in the final quarter.\nIsh Smith added 25 points for the Pistons, including a late 3-pointer of his own. Detroit has won three in a row, the last two with Griffin in the lineup after acquiring him in a trade .\nGriffin's 3-pointer with 44 seconds to play put the Pistons ahead 108-101, but Goran Dragic responded with a four-point play, making a 3-pointer while being fouled with 32 seconds left. Detroit ran the clock down on the next possession, and Smith sank his only 3-point attempt of the game, from the right corner with 14 seconds to play.\n\"We played that the way we wanted, but Griffin made the pass and Smith stepped up and hit the 3,\" Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. \"It doesn't matter if he's not known as a 3-point shooter, he made that one when they really needed it.\"\nDragic scored 33 points for the Heat, who have lost three in a row. Miami was without center Hassan Whiteside, who was out with an illness.\nSmith, who has struggled at times while trying to replace injured point guard Reggie Jackson, went 11 of 14 from the field and finished three points shy of his career high. His previous season high was 19 points.\nGriffin had 16 points, nine rebounds and seven assists.\n\"Just a little more tired today - the adrenaline wore off a little bit, just the toll of the week,\" Griffin said. \"It's amazing to see all these guys step up and play so well.\"\nTIP-INS\nHeat: Olynyk and Josh Richardson scored 19 points for the Heat, and James Johnson added 18.\nPistons: Langston Galloway scored 13 points, surpassing 2,000 for his career. ... Detroit was without G Luke Kennard (foot) and G Dwight Buycks (illness).\nBIG NIGHT\nDrummond had at least 20 points and 20 rebounds for the sixth time this season. He has 19 20-20 games since 2012-13.\nHe also had four steals, four blocks and six turnovers. He was the first player with at least 20 points, 20 rebounds, four steals and four blocks since Hakeem Olajuwon on Dec. 22, 1989.\nIMPORTANT EDGE\nDrummond and Griffin had nearly as many rebounds as the entire Miami team, and the Pistons finished with a 49-33 advantage in that category.\n\"They are really tough, because they've got two of the best rebounders in the league, especially Drummond,\" Olynyk said. \"You have to stop him, and then you've got to stop Griffin, who has all that strength and that vertical leap. You have to find a way, but it isn't easy.\"\nUP NEXT\nHeat: Host the Orlando Magic on Monday night.\nPistons: Host the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday night.\n___\nMore AP NBA: https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball\n___\nFollow Noah Trister at www.Twitter.com/noahtrister", "The trades in the NBA have already begun! Blake Griffin got traded off to the Pistons in a huge deal, and Rob and Nick discuss the impacts of that trade and all the other spicy rumors that are going around! What will the Clippers do with Lou Williams and DeAndre Jordan? Will the Cavaliers make a deal? Are the Kawhi Leonard rumors true? And a ton more topics for this trade special! Be sure to subscribe, rate, review the podcast, and to follow us on social media @talkintruehoops!", "Drummond delivered 23 points (11-15 FG, 1-3 FT), 20 rebounds, four steals, four blocks and one assist across 36 minutes during Saturday's 111-107 win over the Heat.\nDrummond had his way down low with Hassan Whiteside out sick, notching his second 20-20 game in the last three. The big man has also been exceptional at the defensive end of late, with averages of three blocks and 2.5 steals over his last six games. The acquisition of Blake Griffin seems to have had little to no impact on Drummond's fantasy value, which perhaps is at a high point at the present time.", "GAME INFORMATION\n* Who: Detroit Pistons (30-39) at Sacramento Kings (23-48)\n* Where: Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, Calif.\n* When: 10 p.m. tonight.\n* TV: Fox Sports Detroit\n* Radio: 97.1 WXYT-FM and Pistons radio network\n* Social media: Follow MLive sports on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram\n* Twitter: Follow Ansar Khan and Brendan Savage\nThe Pistons are 0-3 halfway through their six-game Western trip and are 3-13 in their past 16. They have allowed 100 or more points in each of those losses and less then 100 points in the three wins. They defeated the Kings 108-99 in the first meeting between the teams on Nov. 4 at Little Caesars Arena.\nZach Randolph leads the leads the Kings in scoring (14.7 points per game) and is averaging 6.8 rebounds.", "Please enable Javascript to watch this video\nGRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- The Hope men's basketball team defeated Calvin 76-59 on Saturday in part two of their regular season series.\nJason Beckman and Dante Hawkins combined for 45 points in the win as the team moved to 13-8 overall.", "Clippers forward Blake Griffin drives against Celtics center Al Horford during the first half of a game in Boston. Clippers forward Blake Griffin drives against Celtics center Al Horford during the first half of a game in Boston.\nStart the conversation, or Read more at Los Angeles Times.", "Miami Heat forward Josh Richardson, left, steals the ball from Detroit Pistons center Andre Drummond during the first half of an NBA basketball game Saturday, Feb. 3, 2018, in Detroit. Duane Burleson AP", "Williams scored 21 points (5-16 FG, 0-7 3Pt, 11-11 FT) while adding six assists and a rebound in 33 minutes off the bench during Saturday's 113-103 win over the Bulls.\nIt was the first time since mid-November -- a stretch of 35 games -- that Williams failed to sink at least one three-pointer, but his ability to get to the free-throw line kept his streak of games with 20 or more points alive at seven. The Blake Griffin trade gives the Clippers a more balanced offense that lacks a go-to superstar in the clutch, so don't be surprised if Williams takes on that role late in games and continues his surprising career-best campaign through the second half.", "SACRAMENTO, Calif. — After two months, Blake Griffin finally looks comfortable playing with Detroit, and it’s showing up across the board.\nHe’s even got the Pistons winning on the road again, something that hadn’t happened since the five-time All-Star arrived in late January after being traded from the Los Angeles Clippers.\nGriffin had 26 points, nine rebounds and seven assists, and Detroit pulled away in the third quarter to beat the Sacramento Kings 106-90 on Monday night.\n“I’m much more settled in now,” said Griffin, who has scored 20 or more points in 12 of his 21 games with the Pistons. “The team and the organization has been phenomenal in making me feel as at home as possible. It’s happening. It’s just a slow process for me.”\nIsh Smith had 18 points, Reggie Bullock added 17 and Anthony Tolliver scored 12 points behind three 3-pointers — one of three Pistons with a trio of 3s. Andre Drummond had just four points but pulled down 16 rebounds to help Detroit end its three-game losing streak.\nThe Pistons won on the road for only the 10th time this season and the first time since Jan. 10 — nearly three weeks before acquiring Griffin.\n“He’s just a really, really good player,” Detroit coach Stan Van Gundy said. “Whatever problems we have have not been because of him at all. His attitude has been great, his play has been great. When we get healthy and get the right people around him, it’s going to be a good team.”\nOn a night when the Kings’ Vince Carter had seven points to move past Patrick Ewing into 22nd place on the NBA’s career scoring list, Griffin led Detroit to the lopsided win with another in a string of big games this month.\nGriffin scored on a spinning layup, a 3-pointer and a drive from the top of the key to spark a 13-4 run in the third quarter. He later drove around a pair of defenders for a two-handed dunk then added two free throws to put Detroit up 70-61.\nIt’s the seventh time in the last 10 games that Griffin has scored 24 points or more.\n“I just tried to attack them on certain spots,” Griffin said. “I forced certain shots. Our offence was just pretty good.”\nBullock made a pair of 3s in the fourth quarter to extend the Pistons lead to 98-76.\nWillie Cauley-Stein scored 20 points for the Kings. De’Aaron Fox added 16 points and four assists while Justin Jackson had 15 points.\n“We were a step slow tonight,” Sacramento coach Dave Joerger said. “We talked about it this morning that it had a high probability of being a letdown game but it was a tough game for us. It’s that type of game we (have to) let roll off of us.”\nCarter, the 41-year-old former dunk champion, had a thunderous one-handed jam to spark a 9-2 run early in the second quarter then added a 12-foot fadeaway later to put the Kings up 35-33. Carter later made a 3-pointer in the third quarter to pass Ewing.\n“On one where we didn’t rotate properly,” Van Gundy said with a grin. “Vince can give us credit for that and Pat’s probably (ticked) at me right now.”\nTIP-INS\nPistons: Detroit won in Sacramento for the first time since Dec. 13, 2014. . Reggie Jackson continues to make steady progress and could resume playing this week after missing more than two months with a severely sprained right ankle.\nKings: Sacramento missed eight of its first nine shots but still shot 40 per cent in the first quarter. … Bogdan Bogdanovic (sore left hamstring) did not play for the first time since missing the first three games of the season because of a sore ankle.\nFRANCHISE LOW\nThe Kings made only four free throws, tying their franchise record for fewest in one game.\nQUOTABLE\n“Vince’s career has been amazing. He’s slowed down a little bit but he’s still playing at a pretty damn high level for a guy that’s been in the league this long. He’s not jumping over buildings now. He’s just playing the game on intelligence, toughness and everything else. One of my favourites.” – Van Gundy, who coached Carter for two seasons in Orlando.\nUP NEXT\nPistons: Play at Phoenix on Tuesday.\nKings: Host Atlanta on Thursday.\n——\nMore AP basketball: https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball", "DETROIT (Michigan) • Kyrie Irving and the Boston Celtics took some extra satisfaction from defeating the slumping Detroit Pistons on the road.\nThe Celtics had allowed a season-high 118 points in a National Basketball Association (NBA) home loss to the Pistons on Nov 27. By clogging the lane, Boston flipped the script on Sunday.\nThey held the Pistons to season lows in points and field-goal percentage in a 91-81 victory at Little Caesars Arena.\nEastern Conference leaders Boston (23-5), who have won five of their last six games, were coming off a three-point road loss at San Antonio on Friday.\n\"I wouldn't call it payback,\" said Irving, the Celtics' star point guard. \"It's just always good when you can respond the way you want to, especially on their home floor, just like they did on our home floor.\n\"We not only responded to that loss at home but also to a tough Spurs loss.\"\nHe scored 16 points while power forward Al Horford had 18 points, nine rebounds and six assists.\nAron Baynes snared a season-high 13 rebounds for the Celtics, who overcame a scoring drought of more than six minutes in the fourth quarter.\nBaynes was primarily responsible for holding Pistons centre Andre Drummond to a season-low six points, 20 fewer than he had in the first meeting.\n\"We were locked in,\" Baynes said. \"We were trying to pack the paint and make them make plays from the outside. Last time, they really had whatever they wanted inside the paint.\"\nDetroit shot 33.3 per cent (28-for-84) from the field in their sixth consecutive loss.\nREUTERS", "Oh no! Blake Griffin is having some trouble processing the new rumors that Kendall Jenner has moved on to another NBA star!\nKendall Jenner, 22, is all about those NBA cuties, and she has a new one in her back pocket! After rumors started that the leggy Jenner was hooking up with 76er Ben Simmons, her ex, Detroit Pistons player Blake Griffin, was reportedly heartbroken! “The trade to Detroit has really messed with Blake’s love game. Though Blake likes being on the team it really ruined his relationship with Kendall and now that she is rumored to be with fellow NBA star Ben Simmons it has made him think that it should still be him that is with her,” an insider told HollywoodLife.com exclusively. “He is a little heart broken because he left his baby mama for Kendall and now he doesn’t have either of them in his life.”\nStill, Ben, 21, is all the way on the east coast and that didn’t stop him from connecting with Kendall, so it almost seems like Blake is holding himself back! Well, the source added that Blake feels he doesn’t have an option other than to get over it. “He knows he lost her so he knows he has to move on and he will get over it but he is still in the grieving stages of the relationship being over,” the source continued. Boo-hoo. The exes also avoided each other at Coachella just weeks ago, so it was time for her to rebound from that break-up!\nBen and Kendall were first spotted together on a date at the Beverly Hills Hotel this week, and Page Six reported the duo have been casually seeing each other “for a few weeks.” The added that Kendall and Ben went clubbing in NYC and were “smiling the night away with their friends.” As long as Ben doesn’t have Tristan Thompson-tendencies, we approve of this new couple!" ]

[ "A woman eating something from a tiny bowl." ]

[ "An asian man eating something from a tiny bowl.", "The dog is eating from a bowl.", "Three dogs are eating from a bowl.", "The dogs are eating from a bowl.", "The group of Asians are bowling.", "A woman is making something to eat.", "A white dog eats from the bowl.", "A person with something in a bowl.", "The animals are eating from the big bowl.", "A young woman is eating something.", "A child is looking at something tiny.", "A woman is Asian.", "An Asian woman is sitting down eating food.", "A cat is eating from its bowl.", "The four asian people are bowling at the bowling alley.", "A dog eats kibble from a bowl.", "A dog eats from his bowl on the floor.", "A woman is eating some food", "A dog is eating food from a bowl in the garage.", "An Asian man and woman eat a meal from styrofoam plates.", "The dog is eating from his bowl in the kitchen.", "The woman is eating food.", "A woman is on top of a bowl.", "Two dogs are eating their food from a bowl.", "An Asian woman is eating meat on a stick.", "A lady is eating.", "The Asians are eating.", "The dog is hungrily eating from his bowl.", "A woman eats a meal.", "An asian woman holds something after a disaster.", "A person is eating something.", "a boy eats cereal from a bright colored bowl" ]

[ "When aging spirits, they're aged in wooden barrels. The wood and alcohol interact to change the flavor. Once you put them in glass bottles, they will stop aging (as long as the seal is good & it's protected from light & temperature extremes)." ]

[ "Yo ho ho! Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: Why do people hiccup when they are drunk? ](_URL_4_) 1. [ELI5: Why do you get hiccups when you drink too much? ](_URL_2_) 1. [ELI5: why are people more likely to get the hiccups when they're drunk? ](_URL_1_) 1. [Why is having the hiccups associated with being drunk in film and television? ](_URL_3_) 1. [ELI5 why do intoxicated characters in old cartoons get the hick ups? ](_URL_6_) 1. [ELI5: Cold weather alcohol = hiccups. Why? ](_URL_8_) 1. [ELI5: Why do people get the hiccups when drinking? ](_URL_0_) 1. [ELI5: Why does alcohol cause hiccups? ](_URL_5_) 1. [ELI5:Why do people hiccup when they've been drinking alcohol? ](_URL_7_)", "In the US very few places had drinking ages until prohibition, when no one was legally allowed to drink. Once prohibition was repealed every state set their own drinking ages. Some chose low ages like 16, some chose 21 and everywhere inbetween. Most had them around 18 or 19. During the 1980s there was a major movement called Mothers Against Drunk Drivers that lobbied very hard to establish a drinking age of 21. The US government wrote the law such that the States still have the right to set their drinking ages however they want but if it is lower than 21 they do not get federal funds for road maintenance. No longer having seniors and recently graduated friends able to get high schoolers alcohol greatly reduced the number alcohol related medical issues (both crashes and poisonings). Some studies show it to be a drop of up to 60%. It also helped people 19-25 and reduced their incidents by 40%.", "If you're trying to say that drinking certain types of alcohol puts you into a specific mood—like whiskey makes you a mean drunk, rum makes you a happy drunk. This isn't caused by the alcohol but rather the mood you're already in before drinking gets enhanced by being drunk. It's more likely that you just happen to lean towards certain drinks when your already in a particular mood and the alcohol enhances the feelings you already had. I think this article explains it better than i could: _URL_0_", "Could it be the situations you drink particular drinks? Alcohol is alcohol when it comes down to it, regardless of what type of beverage it is consumed in.", "Alcohol is a disinfectant, whether it's rubbing alcohol or whiskey (please don't drink rubbing alcohol, it's a different kind of alcohol so while it will get you drunk it may also get you blind and/or dead). Higher proof is better because it has a higher percentage of the germ-killing part. Other than that it doesn't matter much, it's all about the microbe killing the ethanol in liquor can do.", "You can drink a small amount of rubbing alcohol and it's not going to hurt you. You shouldn't get into the habit of drinking rubbing alcohol, but a small amount won't do much. Alternatively, if you were to dunk an open wound into a container of alcohol and let it absorb a bottle's worth of it, you might see some undesirable results.", "The cold dehydrates you. That's why the doctor always says, \"Get some rest and drink plenty of liquids.\" The problem with alcohol is that it also dehydrates you. That's what causes a hangover. So the alcohol intensifies the dehydrating effect of the cold.", "There are different types of alcohol. Primarily: - Isopropyl Alcohol (aka rubbing alcohol...what a nurse rubs on your arm before drawing blood) - Methyl Alcohol (aka methanol...usually used as a solvent) - Ethyl Alcohol (aka grain alcohol...what people drink) You *definitely* do not want to drink the first two. What they use in hygiene products is usually isopropyl alcohol.", "Congress passed a law requiring states to have 21 as the minimum drinking age or forfeit 10% of their federal highway funds. States could still determine their own drinking ages if they wanted, they just don't want to lose out on the federal money. Keep in mind that 21 is the minimum *purchase* age - there is nothing preventing states from having a lower drinking age. That's why historically in some states, it's been legal for someone under 21 to drink as long as they have a family member present or for someone under 21 to drink at home. As for why there isn't a similar law for driving age, I guess Congress has decided states are doing a good enough job that they don't need to regulate it.", "That is one part. Some of it is genetic, some of it is physical conditioning (a combination of developing more enzymes to digest alcohol and the CNS getting more resistant to the effects), but there is also a strong element of psychological conditioning: basically, people who drink alcohol more are more use to the sensations of being drunk and better able to deal with them. And that can lead to increasing dangerous blood-alcohol levels.", "Yes. It would get weaker. Alcohol has a higher vapour pressure and lower boiling point than water. This is why alcoholic drinks smell of alcohol rather than smelling of water, even if there's more water than alcohol in them. Distilled drinks are made by boiling off the alcohol *and then condensing it* into a different container, leaving most of the water behind. Edit: even if you start out with 100% alcohol this still applies, as water from the air will get sucked in (by osmotic pressure, I guess?), lowering the alcohol concentration. The only way to avoid this is by putting a bit of lithium or some other substance that reacts strongly with water in the alcohol.", "Hey, you shouldn't be drinking at age 5!! When alcohol is broken down in the body, you get that nice buzzed feeling, but your body can only break it down (and eventually get rid of it) at a constant rate. Thus, if you put alcohol into your body faster than your body can get rid of it, it's pretty bad (a lot of biological processes rely on having proper balance of chemicals in your body). So to stop you from literally drinking yourself to death, your body will do things like make you throw up to get alcohol out of your body (the fast way), or just pass out (can't drink if you're out cold).", "All types of alcohol have the same effect. The actual alcohol is chemically identical. Some drinks come with different social expectations, and are consumed in different social circumstances -- and at different rates, and with or without caffeine, sugar, or food.", "As you age you find that some taste sensations that you thought of as bad can actually be quite pleasant, if not also enjoyable. Beer is perhaps the best example. To young kids, it is pretty much disgusting because of how bitter it is. To teens and young adults, it isn't the taste they are after as much as it is the alcohol in the beverage; they might really not like beer, but are only drinking it to get drunk. As adults, middle-age, we've had enough beer and know what it tastes like; to the point that we accept it's bitterness and even come to enjoy it, rather than drinking beer simply due to the alcohol.", "The short answer is yes, as long as the whiskey's strong enough. The same alcohol in whiskey is the same type used as fuel, ethanol. In the US you can get a permit to make your own fuel alcohol which uses the same process as making moonshine. What separates moonshine from whiskey is whiskey is aged in oak barrels and dilluted to drinking strength. Now you're average whiskey is only 40% alcohol. In order to work in a car, it'd have to be upwards of 95% alcohol. So while its possible to run a car on high proof whiskey, your average whiskey wont be strong enough to get the job done.", "They are similar (but different) molecules. Drinking alcohol is ethyl alcohol, which is a molecule made up of 2 carbon atoms, 6 hydrogen, and 1 oxygen. Rubbing alcohol is isopropyl alcohol, which is another type of alcohol with three carbon atoms, 8 hydrogen, and one oxygen. These molecules may be similar, but the body digests them very differently. Ethanol is fairly safe to drink because it gets converted into acetaldehyde which is mostly safe, while isopropyl alcohol gets converted into acetone, which is toxic. Mouthwash contains 20-40% ethanol (the same stuff we drink) However, it also contains other stuff that is toxic if swallowed in large amounts, so don't drink it.", "There's also some withdrawal type of effects with a hangover, and more alcohol helps ease these. Than you hit it with some electrolytes and aspirin to replenish what you lost from drinking", "It's a cultural thing. America had a strong temperance movement wich lead to the prohibition. This was later removed again but drinking was still seen as problematic by many so they made this strict age limit. If really a majority was for a reduced drinking age, and would be loud about it, it would get changed. I imagine if politicians tried to the outrage by \"protect our children\" activists would be stronger than any current movements for reducing the age (are there even any?) Same why cannabis isn't widely legalized even though experts agree that it's not more dangerous than alcohol for adults.", "When we drink alcohol we are pretty much putting a poison inside of our body. So our body will often get rid of that alcohol either by peeing a lot and/or vomiting. This causes a type of dehydration called hypovolemic thirst, which is when our body is not only low in water but also a low sodium count. So after a hard night of drinking, your body is going to be craving salt and water. And fatty foods (bacon, chips etc) typically have high amounts of sodium. That's why bars typically have pretzels or other salty foods available as snacks so that the hangover the next day won't be as harsh. That's also why drinks with electrolytes (Gatorade) are great to cure a hangover.", "The alcohol goes into your blood stream, which releases some alcohol which covers up nerve endings, where it would block some (or most) attempts at sending or receiving via nerves, which is why drunk people are more clumsy, feel less pain, and eventually pass out if given enough. The more you drink, the more the alcohol would cover. the more \"drunk\" you would get", "Yarr! Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: Why can quitting drinking kill an alcoholic? ](_URL_1_) ^(_54 comments_) 1. [ELI5: What is it exactly that alcoholics become addicted to? ](_URL_0_) ^(_ > 100 comments_) 1. [ELI5: Why is alcohol supposedly very addictive, yet so few addicts are around (relatively)? Explain addiction to me. ](_URL_2_) ^(_56 comments_) 1. [ELI5:Why is alcohol regarded differently from other addictive substances? ](_URL_4_) ^(_80 comments_) 1. [ELI5: How do people get addicted to alcohol? ](_URL_3_) ^(_6 comments_)", "It doesn't. Mixing different types of alcohol in yoir stomache will make you nauseous more quickly, causing you to vomit sooner, but BAC is all that matters for how drunk you get. Likewise, the wisdom of \"beer before liquor: never be sicker. Liquor before beer: you're in the clear\" is a result of being less able to regulate your alcohol consumption when drunk and drinking hard alcohol, versus drunk and drinking something with a significantly lower alcohol content.", "You can't freeze alcohol at home. Its freezing point is -97C to -170C, depending on the type of alcohol. It's the water part of the drink that can freeze: more water = less alcohol and vice versa.", "There is no simple answer to this, because the dehydrating(diuretic) effects of alcohol are a function of your BAC, not the ABV of the drink. There is a relationship between ABV and BAC but it includes other factors such as body weight, amout of drinks consumed, when the drinks were consumed, personal tolerance to diuretics effects, how full your stomach was when you started drinking, whether you are male or female, age, and other things. Without accounting for these factors it is very hard to simply correlate ABV and dehydration. P.S. This is why you should treat your pharmacist with respect. It's not an easy job they do.", "I enjoyed this week: * /u/yodatsracist in [*Have the Kurds ever had a state? If not why have they never been able to create one?*](_URL_0_) * /u/American_Graffiti in [*Why did everything get so \"wholesome\" in the 1950s?*](_URL_1_) * /u/itsallfolklore in [*Compared to how it is portrayed in cowboy movies what brand/type of alcohol did people really drink in Saloons?*](_URL_2_)", "> Why drinking different spirits makes you more drunk than sticking to one? It doesn't. There's definitely a psychosomatic effect at play: If you think you're supposed to be more drunk, you'll actually feel more drunk. But mixing different types of alcohol has no impact on your actual level of inebriation (assuming that your total alcohol consumption is the same).", "Alcohol plays with your hypothalamus. Some people (like my friend) get very anxious when drinking. And i don't mean wasted, but mildly drunk. Some people get angry and physical, and some (like me) veel so much better, active and social. Like on some drug. I also have more motivation to finish some after work tasks home when i'm a bit drunk. I finish them correctly, and fast. Being sober i have no appetite to do anything like this.", "Those things *dont* dehydrate you. It's a myth. Caffeine/alcohol just make you pee more so you need to drink more, but if you were dying of thirst drinking a beer would save your life, not make things worse. [Your brain on drugs: Alcohol](_URL_1_) [Why do coffee and alcohol make you PEE more?](_URL_0_)", "It is a myth. But if you stick to one kind of drink you may be better able to judge how much you have consumed. It takes a loading dose of alcohol to saturate the alcohol modifying enzymes. Go over this and you begin to get intoxicated.", "Vinegar is basically fermented drinking alcohol; a special type of bacteria converts the ethanol into acetic acid, i.e. vinegar.", "I'm guessing this is similar to alcohol sales in Texas. Yes you have to be 21 to drink at a bar or restaurant. However, the TABC cannot lie about their age on a sting operation. Some bartenders and servers prefer to just ask if you are 21 or over rather than seeing an ID because the people who can get them in trouble can't lie about their age. Hope this makes sense.", "Not chemically. Any altered reactions to different forms of alcoholic beverages are psychosomatic or allergenic. edit: I should be more clear. Different types of alcoholic beverages *do* contain highly diverse arrays of ingredients and byproducts such as sulfites, various congeners, and additives that *may* have an effect on the psychotropic experience of the drink or the severity of the \"hangover,\" but it is not well understood and in [clinical studies](_URL_0_) the #1 factor that effected a subject's \"flavor\" of drunkenness was how they *expected* to be effected by the drink. When other drugs like caffeine get added into the mix, all bets are off, so watch out for those mix drinks." ]

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[ "Shoulder Muscles. The deltoids are the muscles of your shoulder, which play a crucial role in rotating your arm. Strengthening these muscles will help you put more force in your wind-up, allowing you to throw the ball harder. Among the most effective shoulder-strengthening exercises are the standing military press, seated dumbbell press and upright rows." ]

[ "deltoid. 1. triangular. 2. the deltoid muscle. deltoid muscle. a lateral muscle of the shoulder, between the scapula and the humerus that helps flex the shoulder and abducts the arm. See also Table 13.. triangular. 2. the deltoid muscle. deltoid muscle. a lateral muscle of the shoulder, between the scapula and the humerus that helps flex the shoulder and abducts the arm. See also Table 13.", "These muscles are the left anterior deltoid muscle, the right rear deltoid muscle and the right rhomboid muscle (assuming you are right handed). These are the muscles you should focus on during your strength training. When weight lifting for archery, I prefer free weights over weight machines and dumbbells over barbells. Dumbbells force you to use smaller auxiliary muscles and use fine motor movements. Recruiting these small muscles helps refine your strength by emphasizing control and balance — very important for a steady hold.", "The military barbell press mainly works the shoulder, or deltoid, muscles. The anterior deltoid, the front head of the shoulder muscle, does much of the work. The side, or lateral, deltoid and the rear, or posterior, deltoid are also involved in the movement, although to a lesser degree than the anterior deltoid.", "Three Methods:Deltoid ExtensionPush-upsPike PressCommunity Q&A. The deltoid muscles, or deltoideus muscles, are the rounded muscles over the top and sides of the shoulders. There are 3 different sets of muscle fibers that comprise the deltoids: the anterior, lateral and posterior. This muscle allows the shoulder to flex and helps support the rotator cuff. Many weight-lifters do exercises to strengthen and grow their deltoid muscles.", "Shoulders. The trapezius, which is located at the collarbone, and the deltoid, which surrounds the joint of the shoulder near the arm, are the primary shoulder muscles involved in shooting a basketball. These muscles help to raise your arm and rotate your shoulders as you aim and then shoot.houlders. The trapezius, which is located at the collarbone, and the deltoid, which surrounds the joint of the shoulder near the arm, are the primary shoulder muscles involved in shooting a basketball. These muscles help to raise your arm and rotate your shoulders as you aim and then shoot.", "Primary Muscles. The main muscle targeted by the dumbbell shoulder press is the anterior deltoid, or the front shoulder. To a slightly lesser degree, the exercise also hits the remaining deltoid muscles, including the lateral deltoid, or the outside of your shoulder, and posterior deltoid, or the back of your shoulder.rimary Muscles. The main muscle targeted by the dumbbell shoulder press is the anterior deltoid, or the front shoulder. To a slightly lesser degree, the exercise also hits the remaining deltoid muscles, including the lateral deltoid, or the outside of your shoulder, and posterior deltoid, or the back of your shoulder.", "When performing the shoulder press, the deltoids are the prime movers. Three individual muscles make up the deltoids divided by location: anterior -- or front; middle; and lateral -- or back. When you fully extend your arms, you mainly activate your anterior deltoid but still use the whole muscle.", "Jumping jacks is good for exercising your abdomens, deltoids and calves. It is one of the best exercises for raising muscle endurance. It helps you to strengthen your muscles and exercise them well.", "The deltoid muscle is involved in rotating the shoulder. The deltoid muscle is responsible for the shoulder's rounded shape. The military press strengthens the deltoids, or shoulders muscles, and other muscles of the upper body.Deltoid muscles contain three parts: posterior, anterior and lateral.he deltoid muscle is responsible for the shoulder's rounded shape. The military press strengthens the deltoids, or shoulders muscles, and other muscles of the upper body.", "There is a lower back muscle called the latissimus dorsi and your deltoids and trapezius make up your upper back. The deltoids are on your shoulder and your trapezius is the muscle on the back of your neck. There is a lower back muscle called the latissimus dorsi and your deltoids and trapezius make up your upper back. The deltoids are on your shoulder and your trapezius is the muscle on the back of your neck.", "Deltoids. The prime movers in dumbbell lateral raises are your shoulders, or the deltoids. The shoulder muscles have three heads: anterior, medial and posterior. The anterior and medial head of the deltoid rest along the front and sides of your shoulders and are activated when you raise your arms. The posterior head of the deltoid has a greater contraction when you bend forward from the hips.", "The other muscles that help you execute the decline bench press exercise are the clavicular head of your pectorals, anterior deltoids, triceps and biceps.", "Deltoid muscle is considered as the most prominent muscle of the shoulder muscles and has deltoid ligaments attaching the muscle to the You do not have access to view this node. It is capable of lateral, rotating and extending You do not have access to view this node.", "While the shoulder press focuses primarily on two portions of the deltoids, or shoulders, it also works a plethora of other muscles. Your trapezius, triceps and rotary cuff muscles all have to work in conjunction with your shoulders for this exercise to be done.he anterior and lateral deltoids are used for the shoulder press. The anterior deltoid is the front of the shoulder, and helps raise the arms in front of the body and above the head.", "Some of the main muscles of the shoulder that move the upper arm include the deltoid and the pectoralis major. The deltoid is this muscle here, right at the shoulder joint. You could say that this is the muscle that gives your shoulder that rounded shape that it has.It stabilizes and moves the shoulder and arm.The deltoid is the main abductor muscle of the shoulder, meaning it moves the arm away from the center of the body.he deltoid is this muscle here, right at the shoulder joint. You could say that this is the muscle that gives your shoulder that rounded shape that it has. It stabilizes and moves the shoulder and arm. The deltoid is the main abductor muscle of the shoulder, meaning it moves the arm away from the center of the body.", "Shoulders and Triceps. With any big muscle move such as a chest press, you will bring other muscles into play. In this case, you will work the triceps, the muscles in the back of your upper arm, which help you push the weight away from your body, and the deltoids, which are the muscles in your shoulder.", "Best Answer: Doing just arm circles will help you build your deltoids. As far as loosing the flab, you need overall fat loss. There is no such thing as SPOT reduction unless its by liposuction. But you can help tighten up your triceps with tricep extensions and make the muscle bigger to take in the flab a little.", "Purpose -- To Build Muscle Mass in front and side of deltoids. Dumbbell Press is an excellent exercise. Whenever you want to add more sets to Shoulder exercises, do it with this exercise. Muscles Used in Dumbbell Press exercise-Front and side deltoids are prime mover muscles with help from triceps and back muscles.", "When performing the shoulder press, the deltoids are the prime movers. Three individual muscles make up the deltoids divided by location: anterior -- or front; middle; and lateral -- or back. When you fully extend your arms, you mainly activate your anterior deltoid but still use the whole muscle.he triceps muscle is found on the rear of your upper arm; its main function is to straighten your arm. Your triceps are secondary muscles, which cause your arm to extend during the shoulder press. You use them more heavily in the downward phase to help you slowly lower the weight safely rather than dropping it.", "In my opinion, the most important muscle group to adding size to your upper body is the deltoids. A well-developed pair of deltoids will create the illusion that your upper body is much larger that it really is. The deltoids also help give your upper body a V shape and will give the appearance of broad shoulders.", "Muscles at Work. ExRx.net explains that upright rows primarily work your lateral deltoid, which is the major muscle in your shoulder. The deltoid is responsible for abducting and flexing your shoulder joint, which means it lifts your arms forward and raises them out to the side.", "deltoid(Noun) The deltoid muscle, a triangular muscle on the human shoulder. deltoid(Noun) The deltoid ligament, a triangular ligament on the human ankle. deltoid(Adjective) In the shape of the upper case Greek letter delta u0394; triangular. deltoid(Adjective) Of, or connected with the deltoid muscle.", "The Target Muscle. The primary muscle recruited in the shoulder press is the anterior deltoid, which is the front section of your shoulder muscle. The anterior deltoid originates at your clavicle and then runs down the front of your shoulder and inserts at the top of your humerus, or upper arm bone.he Target Muscle. The primary muscle recruited in the shoulder press is the anterior deltoid, which is the front section of your shoulder muscle. The anterior deltoid originates at your clavicle and then runs down the front of your shoulder and inserts at the top of your humerus, or upper arm bone.", "The primary muscle addressed with the upright row is the top part of the three-part deltoid muscle, which forms the rounded cap of your shoulder. This medial deltoid is assisted by the front, or anterior, deltoid.", "The deltoid muscle is the muscle that gives the shoulder its rounded shape. Many mammals have this muscle, as the design is very efficient, and this muscle is responsible for the abduction of the shoulder and some of the rotation of the arm or limb.he deltoid muscle is responsible for the shoulder's rounded shape. The military press strengthens the deltoids, or shoulders muscles, and other muscles of the upper body.", "The deltoid muscle does most of the work in abducting the shoulder, although it's likely that supraspinatus muscle does the first 10-15 degrees of movement.", "The deltoid muscles on the side of your shoulders do most of the heavy lifting when you raise your arms. They originate on your collarbones and shoulder blades and insert onto your upper humerus. Each deltoid muscle has three sections, or heads.", "The deltoid is the large muscle that covers your shoulder joint. The muscle consists of three fiber groups: the anterior, lateral and posterior deltoids. The anterior deltoid, also known as the front delt, connects the collarbone to the humerus, the large bone of the upper arm.houlder Abduction. Shoulder abduction describes raising the upper arm outward from the side of the body, such as when you put your arms out to form a T-shape. This movement is accomplished through the action of your anterior and lateral deltoids along with the pectoralis major and supraspinatus muscles.", "Deltoid. You are able to move your shoulder joints thanks to the deltoid muscles in each of them. The deltoids are divided into three sections -- anterior, posterior and medial -- and the main function of the set is to draw your arm away from your body, an action also known as abducting the arm.", "The major muscle in the shoulders is the deltoid, which features three heads: The anterior, lateral and posterior heads. The anterior head of the deltoid, lat the front of your shoulders, is recruited during the dumbbell fly to assist the chest muscle in squeezing your arms together.", "Synonyms: deltoid; deltoid muscle; musculus deltoideus. Hypernyms (deltoid is a kind of...): skeletal muscle; striated muscle (a muscle that is connected at either or both ends to a bone and so move parts of the skeleton; a muscle that is characterized by transverse stripes).", "The deltoids are composed of 3 separate muscle heads. Not all heads of the deltoids are worked through the same motions. 1 Anterior Deltoid: This is on the front portion of your delts. 2 To get a feel for it, place your hand on the front of your delts and raise your arm up directly in front of you.3 You should feel the anterior deltoid flexing. Anterior Deltoid: This is on the front portion of your delts. 2 To get a feel for it, place your hand on the front of your delts and raise your arm up directly in front of you. 3 You should feel the anterior deltoid flexing." ]

[ "Yes there are around 13 types and although different to humans they still need certain blood types to donate and dog's need certain blood types much like a humans. For a more extensive look here is the Wiki page on it: _URL_0_" ]

[ "Xenotransfusion has been attempted in the 1600s, with mixed results, with sheep blood. Ape and chimp blood might work, as would pig blood as they all have similar Rh factors. Source: _URL_0_ Also, dog to cat transfusions can be done, bit only once as the cat will make antibodies to the blood. Also, apes, dogs, cats, and birds all have blood types.", "The short answer is yes, there are blood groups for animals, and they are not interchangeable with human. Dogs have 13 types, cats 3 [australian vet journal](_URL_1_), and birds have a few. The interesting thing is that it is possible, one time, to make inter-specials transfusions - dog to cat at least - because there are no antibodies to reject the first transfusion. It happens occasionally, [NIH](_URL_0_), and was mentioned on reddit in the past year.", "The blood types have to do with the type of antigen on your blood cells and the type of antibodies in your blood. Type A blood has antigen A, type B blood has antigen B, type AB has both, and type O blood has neither. Whatever antigen you have, you have the opposite antibodies present in your blood. So type A has B antibodies, B has A antibodies, AB has no antibodies, and O has both antibodies. If you give say type B blood to someone who has B antibodies (type A or type O) then the B antibodies will react with the B antigen on the donor blood. This reaction will cause the blood to clump and coagulate. The reaction will cause serious damage and can lead to death. These antigens and antibodies are why type AB blood is the universal recipient (no antibodies to react with) and why type O is the universal donor (no antigens for antibodies to react with).", "> Do other animals have blood types? Yes, they do. Human blood groups are very old genetic indicators with deep evolutionary roots and predate modern humans. Some of the landmark work on the grouping system, for example, the Rhesus grouping system, were also done with animal sera. > do they align to human blood types? Antigens from the human ABO blood group system are found in other primates like chimpanzees and bonobos. However, they have additional non-human blood groups which can initiate a transfusion reaction if given to humans. * _URL_0_ * _URL_1_", "There is indeed a dog DNA test available that purports to tell you the dog's breed mix. Not sure how much credence I place in it! Dog type describes what that dog and others like it are bred to do. Husky type might include malamute and other working dogs of that type.", "Dogs don't actually sniff out blood pressure changes in people with Type 1 Diabetes, what they actually do is sniff out the blood sugar changes in a Diabetic patient. Specially trained dogs can detect something called Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) which can indicate a change in blood sugar and thus alert the patient well before they start to feel unwell.", "Our blood contains antibodies and antigens. Different people have different antibodies/antigens. Antibodies attack antigens of the same type. Blood type O has no antigens and both A and B types of antibodies. Blood type A has antigen A and antibody B. Blood type B has antigen B and antibody A. Blood type AB has both antigens and neither antibodies. There is a final important antigen, known as D, which people are either positive for (they have it) or negative for (they don't have it). This means that someone whose blood type is A+ has antigens A and D, as well as antibody B.", "The way that blood is classified is by the antibodies that are present in the blood. For example, a person that has type B blood will have antibodies against A. Type O will have antibodies against A and B. these antibodies will cause the blood transfusion to clot and possibly kill the person if the transfusion is of the type that the person has antibodies against. Same problem can occur with Rh, which is the plus or minus after the blood thpe.", "They may have protective roles that have evolved to deal with infections and other stressors. & #x200B; The current understanding is that variations of blood types arose from genetic mutations. It is understood that the \"original\" blood type was A, although some believe it may have been a form of O, and the others followed after due to natural selection. & #x200B; Type A suffer more severely from malaria. Type O and B seem to be more protected.[Blood group O protects against severe Plasmodium falciparum ... - PNAS](_URL_3_) [_URL_3_](_URL_3_) & #x200B; There was a link found between Type O blood and duodenal ulcers as well as a link between Type A blood and gastric cancer. [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) [_URL_1_](_URL_1_) & #x200B; There is evidence that supports that certain blood types may predispose to certain diseases. Some interesting examples are in the discussion of this paper. [_URL_2_](_URL_2_)", "No. Mixing the two blood types would, just as in the case of transfusion of a wrong blood type to a person (eg. type A to a person with type B blood), cause agglutination (clumping) of blood cells. Determining blood groups in the AB0 system is done based on the presence of specific antigens and corresponding antibodies in the blood. A person with the blood type A will have antigen A on their erythrocites (red blood cells) and anti-B antibodies in their blood. The reverse applies for persons with blood type B. Antigens are proteins that, when transferred to another organism, cause an immunological response, in this case agglutination of erythrocites. So if you were to mix the two blood types, the antibodies in type A blood would react with the antigens on the B-type erythrocites, and vice versa, thus causing clumping. More info: [Wikipedia - Blood types](_URL_1_) [Wikipedia - Agglutinin](_URL_0_)", "Identical twins / triplets do, because they come from the same pair of cells. Fraternal twins / triplets may or may not have the same blood type because they come from different zygotes.", "Antibodies in blood plasma are the opposite of the blood type, so if you have type A blood your plasma has type B antibodies and vice versa. If you have type AB blood, though, your plasma has *no* antibodies and can be safely given to anybody.", "Yes you can. The blood will clot at a macroscopic level (aka visible to the naked eye). For example if you mix type A and type O blood, the anti-A antibodies in blood sample 'O' will react with A antigen from sample 'A' and the mixture will clot. Obviously this will only happen if the two blood types don't match. Before transfusing we do a ABO and Rh blood typing using hemagglutinin tests (add patient blood to a card with antigen or antibody on it). We also do a crossmatch, which is when we directly mix the patients blood with the donor blood to make sure they actually match.", "Yes! Certain blood types are more prevalent than others in certain areas due to the selection pressures there. Different diseases are more/less disastrous to individuals with different blood types. For example, in areas with frequent cases of malaria, people with blood types O and B tend to fare better because malaria-infected blood cells stick better on cells with the A-sugar. Similarly, people with blood type O and B are more susceptible to other diseases, while those with blood type A are more resistant to them. I doubt this is the only function of different blood types, but it's one of them.", "Short answer: Mutations. Long answer: We consider type A blood \"normal\". The gene that encodes the glycosyltransferase enzyme (the part that differs in blood types) for B blood has 4 point-mutations compared to A (that means somewhere along our history, a cell replicated the gene with 4 mistakes). So, B type blood as 4 different amino acids in the glycosyltransferase enzyme sequence than A blood. O is a different type of mutation: One of the DNA base pairs is missing. The gene is one \"letter\" shorter than it should be. Now, this causes a much bigger difference. Since DNA is read 3 base pairs at a time, if one is missing it pushes the entire sequence off. (Instead of cat-dog-bat-end, if G was missing you'd have cat-dob-ate-nd {terrible example, but I don't know a quick way to explain how DNA/RNA become protein}).", "The ABO blood types refer to antigens or markers on the blood cells. Type A has a certain shaped marker, type B has a different shape, O has neither and AB has both. Type O is likely our ancestral blood type, with the A and B antigens appearing as a mutation of the blood cell. Since O was 100% at a certain point, it has taken many, many years for A and B types to catch up to the population of O.", "Just another fad. Your blood type simply describes the type of surface proteins your blood cells have. This is useful when receiving a blood transfusion because mixing certain types causes them to clump up (which is bad). But that's totally removed from your digestive and metabolic systems. There's seriously nothing linking your diet and your blood type.", "Its not different types of blood, they're simply markers if you will inside the blood. If they are in a body that has conflicting markers the body will try to fight it thinking its a virus, the blood types you hear are only the most common markers that are most likely to cause the blood to conflict. There are many blood types so even someone being transfused with the correct type is still at risk of the body rejecting it, and that is one of the reasons transfusions are becoming less common. Also o simpy means neither a or b markers are present and + or - is if it has or does not have the \"rh factor\"", "Medical laboratory science student here. O type blood does not have either A or B type antigens, and thus do not identify AB blood as self. Because of this patient's with O type blood have antibodies against the antigens present on AB type blood. When an O type patient is transfused with AB blood the O type patient antibodies bind to the AB type blood and activate complement on the cells. Complement is a process in which holes are opened in the cell membrane to cause an influx of liquid until the cell explodes. Your body is then overwhelmed with the destroyed cells and is unable to filter out all of the debris causing renal failure. Sorry for wall of text BTW. On mobile.", "Human blood types most likely came to exist to fend off infectious diseases. The incompatibility of some blood types, however, is just an accident of evolution. There are four main blood types. Blood type A is the most ancient, and it existed before the human species evolved from its hominid ancestors. Type B is thought to have originated some 3.5 million years ago, from a genetic mutation that modified one of the sugars that sit on the surface of red blood cells. Starting about 2.5 million years ago, mutations occurred that rendered that sugar gene inactive, creating type O, which has neither the A or B version of the sugar. And then there is AB, which is covered with both A and B sugars.", "It can inherit the blood type from its father or end up as a combination of the parents' blood types (parents with A and with B blood could produce a baby with type AB blood) This isn't typically a problem for the baby in the womb because generally the mother’s and baby’s blood do not mix. The mothers' and babies' circulation is kept separate by the placental membrane which allows things like nutrients to pass through but not antigens.", "Do dogs recognize other breeds of dogs (e.g. a chihuahua seeing a husky) as being one of \"them\", or do they see other types of dogs as separate species altogether?", "Technically there is. IIRC, O blood is compatible with all types. I think it went something like this: A - Can recieve A and O type. B - Can recieve B and O type. AB - Can recieve any type. O - Can only recieve O type. Pretty sure it has something to do with whats actually in the blood cells, hence the A and B.", "[Yes, mosquitoes have a preferred blood type.](_URL_0_) If you're type O blood, you're a universal donor, to humans AND insects.", "There are different proteines that can be found on the outside of your red blood cells we call them A and B. Your body produces antibodies that can bind to the proteines that do not appear on your blood cells. So someone with type 0 (the red blood cells do not have either the A or B protein on the surface) can give blood to anyone (the antibodies dont survive the process involved with a transfusion) they are universal donors. Someone with type AB doesnt have any antibodies against A or B so they can recive blood from anyone they are universal recievers.", "Not quite 5, but I'll give it a shot. Blood type refers to the type of cell marker that exists on the outside of your red blood cells. There are 3 types- A, B, and O. If you have A, B is considered foreign so you will have anti-B antibodies. The same can be said for A if you have B type blood. If you have O, it is neither A nor B so you make antibodies for both A and B. AB blood types have no antibodies since both types are present on their cells. Type ABs are referred to as \"universal recipients\" because they have no antibodies in their blood and can therefore receive any type of blood without fear of the body rejecting it. Type Os are the universal donors under most condition but this can vary depending on other more complicated factors since as I mentioned before they have anti-A and anti-B antibodies. These types are genetic. A and B are dominant to O, and if you get an A from one parent and a B from another, you will be AB (co-dominant).", "The difference in blood between a human and an animal can be small, such as between us and a gorilla or immensely different, say between us and a lobster. The gorilla's blood using the same oxygen carrying molecule and similar antigens (chemical receptors that determine your ABO blood type) whereas a lobster uses a copper molecule instead of an iron molecule to carry oxygen. Blood typing also has what's called an Rh factor that can be positive or negative (present or not). Rh stands for rhesus because it was discovered that we share an antigen with that monkey. In short it could be possible to use very closely related animal blood transfusions, but with minor mutations to the system it's not going to be easy to get a properly cross-matched inter-species blood transfusion.", "Imagine gluing tiny little marbles to all your blood cells. Type A glues red marbles, type B glues blue marbles, type AB glues both red and blue marbles, and type O doesn't glue any marbles. When your body sees blood cells with marbles it doesn't glue on, it freaks out since it's obviously not something that is supposed to be there. Type O blood can be used on many donors because it doesn't have those marbles glued on to freak their body out. People with type O blood can't use type A blood since it has red marbles, and their bodies think that blood cells really ought to not have red marbles.", "Bloodtypes refer to the proteins found on the surface of blood cells. A and B are the 2 different proteins, AB means you have them both. O (zero, oh) cells have no proteins at all. Being given the wrong type can cause problems because of the body destroying the foreign cells rendering the transfusion useless while the activation of the immuunsystem (which destroys the blood cells cells) can actually kill you. This is important when you need bloedtransfusion. In practice this means AB can receive everything, A can get A and 0,B gets B and 0 and 0 gets only 0. This is also the reason bloodbanks are happy with 0 because it's universal. Now as for the function: \"The functions are varied and include membrane structure, transport, receptor, adhesion, enzyme activity, complement components, complement regulation and glycocalyx formation.\" _URL_0_ Also you have the resus factor which can be either there or not (positive or negative)", "Different blood types are based upon things called antigens, these are found on the surface of the blood cell and help your body know the cells are your own. There are two different (major) blood cell antibodies leading to four different (major) blood groups - A, B, AB, O - A blood group has A antigens, B blood group B antigens, AB blood group has both A and B antigens and O has no antigens. The compatibility of blood groups is based on antibodies (the things that show that your antigens are your own). A antibodies attack A antigens and B antibodies attack B antigens. blood group A produce B antibodies, B produces A antibodies, AB produces no antibodies and O produces both A and B antibodies. This means that any blood group is compatible with itself as well as meaning that O is a universal donor and AB is a universal acceptor.", "In short: yes. It is known that type O blood often causes a larger amount of hemorrhaging (almost double what type A B or AB typically experience). However type A B, and AB blood can lead to a larger risk of heart problems. Certain blood types are also suspected but not 100% proven to lead to a higher chance of pancreatic and stomach cancers. I hope this helped!", "There are slight differences in red blood cells that determine blood types. If you have certain differences, then your immune system learns when you're an infant not to attack those cells because they're not foreign invaders. But if you don't have them, and you get a blood transfusion from someone else who does, then your immune system that's never been exposed to those will think it's a foreign invader and attack it, which will result in a dangerous and possibly deadly reaction. Type O don't have any of these, so they can only receive other type O blood. Type AB has both (in what's called the ABO group) and can receive any blood. Types A and B have one or the other. There's also the Rh group, which is where the + and - come in. If you're + you can receive both + and -, but if you're - you can only receive other -. There are actually 33 blood group systems that have been identified, but the ABO and Rh are the two most important. The others don't result in too many severe complications." ]

[ "MSM supplements are beneficial for helping the body form new joint and muscle tissue while lowering inflammatory responses that contribute to swelling and stiffness. An MSM supplement is a natural and effective anti-inflammatory because of how sulfur impacts the immune system and facilitates normal cellular activity." ]

[ "What results is a natural and effective reduction in unwanted weight. How to use MSM: MSM can be purchased in powder form or in supplement capsules. For best results using the MSM powder, added it to your water along with a botanical source of vitamin C like Camu Camu Berry or lemon juice.hat results is a natural and effective reduction in unwanted weight. How to use MSM: MSM can be purchased in powder form or in supplement capsules. For best results using the MSM powder, added it to your water along with a botanical source of vitamin C like Camu Camu Berry or lemon juice.", "The common dietary supplements help to prevent the occurrence of nail fungus includes Vitamin-A, calcium, magnesium, zinc, amino acids, Lactobacilli, and MSM. Vitamin A is an important dietary supplement as far as toenail fungus is concerned. This vitamin helps the body in utilizing the protein.", "There are numerous supplements, herbs and vitamins that can help bodybuilders to gain more muscle mass, enjoy especially intense workouts and reduce body fat. Some of these supplements include glutamine, protein powder, lysine, compounds that are taken before a workout, testosterone boosters, niacin, vitamin C and MSM.", "In this supplement we focused on the each of the vitamins important for hair growth and added the necessary nutrients so the benefits of each would be maximized. Then we added Horsetail Herb, and MSM. These popular supplements are proven hair growth powerhouses.", "One of the first things to clear up about the benefits of sulfur supplements is that there are two types of sulfur supplements: MSM and sulfur. The first supplement, MSM, is a chemical found naturally in plants, animals, and humans.", "I am looking for things that help with memory, concentration, and energy. I was thinking B-6 and/or maybe a B-complex, one of those focus and concentration supplements, bee pollen, and continuing on what I take right now which is only powdered MSM and one day vitamins occassionally.", "They are all Vitamin C and MSM related. You need lots of Vitamin C to build the new flesh. A deficiency in Vitamin C & MSM leads to strokes, heart attacks, varicose veins, spider veins, chronic nosebleeds, bruising, weak veins and arteries. MSM plays a major roll in “healthy body functions”.", "MSM AND THE IC/PBS CONNECTION. The positive effects of MSM on IC/PBS are already evident in supplements known to improve symptoms of these disorders.", "In like manner, taking a vitamin supplement can put nutrients in our hair to change the condition of our hair, not the texture. I could take MSM, Biotin, the Hair Skin Nail complex or anything else, but it won't change this nappy head of mine to anything else, but what it is, a head full of nappy hair.", "How does MSM make hair grow? MSM is primarily made of sulfur-one of the principle building blocks of hair and nails. So yes, the long and short is that MSM is a supplement that can be taken to help hair growth. MSM helps with hair growth because it gives your body one of its key building blocks for hair.ow does MSM make hair grow? MSM is primarily made of sulfur-one of the principle building blocks of hair and nails. So yes, the long and short is that MSM is a supplement that can be taken to help hair growth. MSM helps with hair growth because it gives your body one of its key building blocks for hair.", "If you already are a member, SIGN IN now. Glucosamine, chondroitin, MSM and Boswellia supplements compared in this review. Bluebonnet Vegetarian Glucosamine MSM Joint Juice On The Go! Solgar No. 7 Cosamin DS Kirkland Signature (Costco) Glucosamine HCl MSM Source Naturals Chondroitin Sulfate CVS Gluc.n this comprehensive report about glucosamine, chondroitin, MSM and Boswellia supplements for arthritis and joint health, you'll get test results and quality ratings for 33 supplements (including 15 that passed our Quality Certification Program) and one product similar to another that passed testing.", "Dosage is about 50 to 100 mg per 10 pounds of body weight. MSM powder can be mixed in with food. Supplements of MSM are also available in capsules. Is MSM Safe for Dogs? MSM has been used for several years to treat dogs (mainly for arthritis); no side-effects have been found.", "What is Osteo Bi-Flex with 5-Loxin Advanced? Category: Supplements. Generic name: Glucosamine-Chondroitin-MSM. Osteo Bi-Flex Joint Shield Formula with 5-Loxin is used to hels built cartilage and lubricate joints. It contains MSM, hyaluronic acid, glucosamine, 5-loxin complex, as well as other dietary supplements. See patients taking Osteo Bi-Flex with 5-Loxin Advanced.", "Although its benefits have not been proven, you might also be able to use MSM this way -- either as a supplement or as a topical gel on the skin of the affected joint [sources: Mayo Clinic, MSM Guide ]. It's important to note that MSM is not an acute pain remedy.", "By Vitamins and Supplements FAQs. Why can't I find any sulfur tablets now a days. Sulfur is good for several things, and we can't find any anywhere. MSM is not pure sulfur. I've tried to order some from natural stores and they tell me it is back ordered which could mean anything.y Vitamins and Supplements FAQs. Why can't I find any sulfur tablets now a days. Sulfur is good for several things, and we can't find any anywhere. MSM is not pure sulfur. I've tried to order some from natural stores and they tell me it is back ordered which could mean anything.", "As we age our sulfur levels fall but the need rises. MSM is the only pure sulfur product you will find on the market today. But not every manufacturer of MSM provides a pure form of sulfur you need. Instead, those companies can and do cut corners to give you MSM but they give you little surprises.When you head to the local vitamin store or supplement store, you may find oodles of MSM products. You may find that they state they are 99% or even 100% pure. The problem is that the purity is not regulated by the FDA.s we age our sulfur levels fall but the need rises. MSM is the only pure sulfur product you will find on the market today. But not every manufacturer of MSM provides a pure form of sulfur you need. Instead, those companies can and do cut corners to give you MSM but they give you little surprises.", "As a supplement, sulfur is available in two forms: dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and methylsulfonylmethane (MSM). About 15% of DMSO breaks down into MSM in the body. Both have been touted as treatments for pain. MSM occurs naturally in some plants, such as horsetail; fruits and vegetables; some grains; and milk.", "Dasuquin for Dogs With Arthritis. If your animal suffers from arthritis, MSM is a vital ingredient to have in any joint support supplement you chose. So be sure that the product you buy contains Glucosamine, Chondroitin AND MSM.", "The biochemical effects of supplemental methylsulfonylmethane are poorly understood. Some researchers have suggested that MSM has anti-inflammatory effects. The spectrum of biological effects of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and MSM differ, but those of DMSO may be mediated, at least in part, by MSM. FDA action", "Buy Dasuquin For Dogs vs Cosequin For Dogs. The new breed of joint health supplements, Nutramax’s Dasuquin for dogs and Cosequin for dogs are specially designed to support joint function in small, medium and large dogs. Dasuquin With MSM. Dasuquin with MSM is the most complete joint support supplement available.", "# 5. Yes Hair growth vitamins do work...I used to take Biotin, Silica, MSM, hair growth vitamin, and flaxseed oil pills. When I was taking these I used to get 1-1 1/2 inch of new growth each month..I stopped taking them because I hate to swallow pills and I was taking a ton of pills each day. can add this: NOW brand Derma Vits Hair, Skin & Nail formula did nothing for me (I used all 90 capsules). The formula has MSM, silica, B vitamins & amino acids. I also do omega 3 supplements and a multi vitamin daily.", "1 What vitamin & mineral suipplements are, and the role they play in health, performence, fat loss and muscle building. 2 Why vitamin supplements are especially important to hard training athletes. 3 What some of the most important individual vitamins and minerals are.4 How to look for the best vitamin and mineral supplement. What vitamin & mineral suipplements are, and the role they play in health, performence, fat loss and muscle building. 2 Why vitamin supplements are especially important to hard training athletes. 3 What some of the most important individual vitamins and minerals are.", "Available hair loss supplements range from vitamins for hair loss to hair-growth-inducing enzymes and minerals. Read through to know more about hair loss supplements and what supplements... health02,hair loss supplements,vitamins,hair loss treatment,hair growth,what supplements should I take.", "It has a distinct rotten egg smell, caused by sulfur dioxide gas escaping into the air. As a supplement, sulfur is available in two forms: dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and methylsulfonylmethane (MSM). About 15% of DMSO breaks down into MSM in the body.", "WebMD takes a closer look at what vitamin and mineral supplements can and cannot do for your health. Food First, Then Supplements Vitamins and other dietary supplements are not intended to be a food substitute.", "What are the Functions of MSM for Dogs? MSM is found to be an invaluable substance that can greatly benefit our dogs (and people too!). The main functions and benefits of MSM are: MSM as a Cell-Rejuvenator. As sulfur is stored in almost all living cells, MSM is essential for maintaining and supporting healthy cells.", "What is niacin? Niacin, also called nicotinic acid, is a B vitamin (vitamin B3). It occurs naturally in plants and animals, and is also added to many foods as a vitamin supplement. It is also present in many multiple vitamins and nutritional supplements.", "That's not an easy question to answer because there's not a lot of research on the long-term effects of the dietary supplement called methylsulfonylmethane (MSM). MSM is formed using dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO), an organic form of sulfur that's also used as a dietary supplement.Animals observed for 90 days on a daily dose of MSM five to seven times greater than what's typically used in people had no serious problems.Stomach upset, diarrhea and headache have been reported in human trials of MSM lasting up to 12 weeks.However, people taking a placebo also reported similar symptoms. Since little is known about the long-term safety of MSM, it's no surprise that the efficacy also is unclear.tomach upset, diarrhea and headache have been reported in human trials of MSM lasting up to 12 weeks. However, people taking a placebo also reported similar symptoms. Since little is known about the long-term safety of MSM, it's no surprise that the efficacy also is unclear.", "Answer: Yes. ConsumerLab.com has tested glucosamine, as well as a variety of other supplements for pets. Joint health products containing glucosamine -- as well as chondroitin and/or MSM, are one of the most common supplements given to pets.n this comprehensive report about glucosamine, chondroitin, MSM and Boswellia supplements for arthritis and joint health, you'll get test results and quality ratings for 33 supplements (including 15 that passed our Quality Certification Program) and one product similar to another that passed testing.", "You need to use a supplement that has both glucosamine and MSM – especially if you are lifting weights at the gym. Glucosamine support strength of connective tissue and MSM is a natural source of sulfur needed for optimal connective tissue health and joint support.", "Glucosamine, Chondroitin, and MSM. While glucosamine is the most common ingredient in supplements for joint health, there are other components which may increase the effectiveness of your dog's joint supplement.", "Overview. Sulfur is a naturally-occurring mineral that is found mostly near hot springs and volcanic craters. It has a distinct rotten egg smell, caused by sulfur dioxide gas escaping into the air.As a supplement, sulfur is available in two forms: dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and methylsulfonylmethane (MSM).About 15% of DMSO breaks down into MSM in the body.Both have been touted as treatments for pain.t has a distinct rotten egg smell, caused by sulfur dioxide gas escaping into the air. As a supplement, sulfur is available in two forms: dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and methylsulfonylmethane (MSM). About 15% of DMSO breaks down into MSM in the body. Both have been touted as treatments for pain." ]

[ "I expect a two-component epoxy resin will work best, like two-component glue that hardens quickly when mixed, or the material used to make light boats float when capsized.\n\nWhen kept separate, both components are liquid, but once mixed, they quickly harden. Thiols react quickly with epoxides at room temperature and might be the answer you are looking for, though you should consider the toxicity of exopy." ]

[ "Does the activity of a solid or liquid change over the course of a reaction?\n\nThe density of a solid or liquid reactant doesn't change over the course of a reaction. The mass and volume do as it is consumed, but the ratio of the two is constant. If the reaction causes a temperature change then there are small changes in density, but that would also alter the equilibrium constant and the concentrations of the species involved. \n\nThe equilibrium constant is based on activities, which you can think of as the ratio of the concentration (molar density) at standard state to the concentration in the reaction. Since solid/liquid density is constant at a given temperature, activity is too. It takes quite a large change of temperature or pressure to make a substantial change in the density of a substance, assuming no phase changes occur.\n\nWhat about gases, why don't they show the same phenomenon and have fixed activities? (Asked in comments.)\n\nFor solids or liquids, as mass decreases the volume also decreases by a proportional amount. For example, $\\mathrm{100mL}$ $\\ce{H2O}$ $\\mathrm{= 100g}$ and half as much, $\\mathrm{50mL}$ $\\ce{H2O}$ $\\mathrm{= 50g}$. Both have molar densities of $\\mathrm{55.5 mol/L}$.) Gases keep the volume of their container, so if you remove some via a reaction, the mass of the gas decreases, but its volume remains the same, and its concentration decreases as a result. \n\nWhy is active mass given a value of 1 then? Is this simply a convention? Shouldn't its value depend on the compound? (Asked in comments.)\n\nNo, it's not a convention. Activities, active mass or any other activities, are really ratios. The ratio here is a comparison between the activity under experimental conditions and the activity at standard state under standard conditions. For gases that is 1 bar of pressure at 25°C, for solutions that is 1 molar at 25°C and 1 bar, and for solids and liquids that is the molar density of the substance in its most stable phase and allotrope at 25°C and 1 bar. The activities of real substances require some additional work and there are particular compounds that do not behave quite as nicely as expected, but the basic idea of activity being the ratio between experimental state and standard state is sound.\n\nWith that in mind, consider the activity of solids and liquids. Their standard state is their density at standard conditions. Their experimental state is their density at experimental conditions. It takes significant pressure and temperature changes to cause substantial changes in the density of a solid or liquid, so their experimental state is approximately equal to their standard state, and the ratio of these two states is therefore quite close to 1.", "Adsorption is adhesion of thin film of liquid or gas on solid substance and the host solid substance does not form chemical bond with deposited material. Uptake is entering of material into substance, end product of which is a solution. Uptake generally happens in liquid host substances but it is also possible for solid host substance to uptake the gas or liquid. \n\nIn context of aerosols, the term adsorption is used when solid aerosol particles like dust, soot, ice, etc. are interacting with gases. The term uptake is used when liquid aerosol particle are interacting with gases. \n\nReference\nhttp://glossary.ametsoc.org/wiki/Adsorption", "It is caused by physical and chemical reactions in the cake batter of two types:\n\n1) When heated and mixed with water, starches present in the flour will undergo a process called gelatinization in which water is absorbed in the structure. This will cause the batter to 'set' from a liquid into a solid. \n\n2) Additionally, reactions of the proteins from the egg that you added can also work to 'set' the batter. At first the proteins will unfold (denature) after which they start to form bigger proteins through cross-linking reactions that turn the liquid into a solid. \n\nThe baking soda in the batter turns into sodium carbonate, water and carbon dioxide. The latter will make your cake nice and fluffy.", "I'm no chemist or anything, but the sugar is probably at fault.\n\nHoney is a saturated sugar solution. So saturated, in fact, that it tends to crystalize over time.\n\nMustard is a mix of solids (mustard seeds) with liquids (water, vinegar and others). Its consistency is determined by how much liquid the solids can absorb.\n\nBy mixing both together, you add lots of sugar to the mustard. Sugar pulls liquid out of solids by osmosis. The concentration of sugar outside of the solid mustard particles is much higher than inside. To even out the concentration, water is pulled from inside the solid particles and dilutes the mix, making it runny.\n\nYou can observe the same effect if you sprincle fresh fruit with sugar. The sugar pulls the juice out of the fruits. In an industrial scale this method is used to produce dry fruit: substances like sucrose, invert sugar, corn syrup and of course salt draw the moisture out of the solid fruit or vegetable and leave a relitively dry product behind. (source)", "I'm not going to do your research for you (at least not for now—perhaps if the mood takes me I'll do the Mathematica programming at some later point), but I will give you guidance that will help you find the answer:\n\nIt's hard to find data on melting points at different pressures for a wide range of compounds (and you want to search through a wide range of compounds). What is much more comprehensively available are data that can be used to calculate such pressure dependency, namely the specific densities of substances in their solid and liquid phases, and their enthalpies of fusion. So:\n\nAccording the Clapeyron equation,\n$$\\frac{dT}{dp}=\\frac{\\Delta V_m}{\\Delta S_m}$$\nwhere $T$ is the phase transition temperature, $\\Delta S_m$ is the molar entropy change for the phase transition, and $\\Delta V_m$ is the molar volume change for the phase transition.\nFor a phase transition, $\\Delta S_m$ = $\\frac{\\Delta H_m}{T}$, where $T$ is in Kelvin. And you can determine $V_m$ (in $\\pu{\\frac{{cm}^3}{mol}}$) from the molecular mass, $M_r$ (in $\\pu{\\frac{g}{mol}}$), divided by the specific density, $\\rho$ (in $\\pu{\\frac{g}{cm^3}}$):\n$$V_m = \\frac{M_r}{\\rho}\\equiv \\frac{\\pu{\\frac{g}{mol}}}{\\pu{\\frac{g}{cm^3}}} = \\pu{\\frac{{cm}^3}{mol}}$$\nThus:\n$$\\Delta V_{m, fus} = \\frac{M_{r, liq}}{\\rho_{liq}} - \\frac{M_{r, solid}}{\\rho_{solid}}$$\nThe subscript &quot;fus&quot; means &quot;fusion&quot;, indicating this is a solid-liquid phase transition.\nSubstituting, we obtain:\n$$\\frac{\\Delta T_{fus}}{\\Delta p} \\approx \\frac{dT_{fus}}{dp}=\\frac{\\Delta V_{m, fus}}{\\Delta S_{m, fus}} =\\frac{\\frac{M_{r, liq}}{\\rho_{liq}} - \\frac{M_{r, solid}}{\\rho_{solid}}}{\\Delta S_{m, fus}}=T_{fus}\\frac{\\frac{M_{r, liq}}{\\rho_{liq}} - \\frac{M_{r, solid}}{\\rho_{solid}}}{\\Delta H_{m,fus}} $$\nWhat you want is to identify the substances that have the largest values for the above expression, and then filter according to your other criteria.\nNote that this expression only gives an exact value for $\\frac{\\Delta T_{fus}}{\\Delta p}$ if you integrate with respect to $T_{fus}$ using $\\Delta H_{fus} (T), \\rho_{liq}(T) \\text{ and } \\rho_{solid}(T)$—i.e., if you account for the temperature-dependencies of each of these. However, since you are determining $\\frac{\\Delta T_{fus}}{\\Delta p}$ over a range not far from $T_{fus}$ at 1 atm, and since the densities for the phases that are stable at room temperature are probably at $25 ^\\circ C = 298 K$, which is close to your desired $T_{fus}$, and since they will not change much over your pressure range, this should give you a very good approximation. Once you narrow it down to the actual substance, you can apply corrections to get a more precise estimate.\n\nYou could do this search manually by plugging in values into an Excel spreadsheet, or semi-manually by finding downloadable data tables with these values and importing them into Excel, but the best approach would be to use a program like Mathematica*, which has access to large chemical databases, and ask it to search for all substances for which it has density data in the solid and liquid phases, and enthalpies of fusion, calcualate the values for the above expression, and sort by magnitude. You can then apply additional filters (e.g., melting point and enthalpy of fusion), as desired.\n\n[*This of course requires knowing how to use Mathematica, or learning to use it. It's possible someone on MathematicaSE could help you write such a query. Alternately, it's possible the online CRC is also searchable in this way (certainly seems it should be), though I don't know myself. One way to get help might be to check the reference desk of your local library. They might have the capability to query chemical databases in this way.]\nOnce you have this, you can then identify the best candidate compounds, and further filter by cost and stability.\n\nNote: It may not be possible to find a compound whose melting point changes enough (a comprehensive chemical database search would help you determine this). Finding a large pressure-induced change in melting point is challenging, because substances don't change volume that much in going from a solid to a liquid. Where you do get a large pressure-induced change in a phase transition temperature is when going from liquid to gas because, under normal conditions (room temp and 1 atm), gases have about 1000x the molar volume of liquids. That's why water boils at a notably lower temperature when you go into the mountains, even though the change in pressure there is a mere fraction of an atmosphere. [By &quot;notably lower&quot; I mean enough of a change to affect cooking times.]\n\nPlus you make your search even more challenging by requiring a high $\\Delta H_{fus}$, since a high $\\Delta H_{fus}$ lowers $\\frac{\\Delta T_{fus}}{\\Delta p}$ (everything else being equal).", "Gas, no. Liquid, yeah, technically.\n\nFor the water planet, you can look at a very high temperature and pressure phase diagram to intuitively see that, although this may be true, it's not going to be very satisfying. At any reasonable internal planet temperature, the water planet will have a solid ice core.\n\n\n\nThe neat thing to take away from this is that certain types of water ice can burn you if you touch them. Of course, they'd be burning your horribly crushed body, because they only exist at very high pressure.\n\nBut back to other materials than water. The diagram is from this publication. It's a proposed phase diagram for water at very high temperatures and pressures. Specifically those inside Uranus and Neptune. It turns out that water stops being water under those conditions. This occurs with all substances at the extremes of temperature and pressure. \n\nFor instance, as ckersch pointed out, hydrogen will turn into a metallic liquid under high pressure and sufficient temperature. Like those experienced inside a planet. Metallic liquid hydrogen can be 5-40 times denser than liquid hydrogen. What this means is that a planet made purely of hydrogen would smoothly transition from a gas to a liquid and the densest liquid would be several times denser than liquid water. There would be no surface. As the density increases the atoms eventually can't stay away from each other and the planet becomes a star. \n\nIt's easy to imagine that in the very early universe, all planets were made entirely of hydrogen and helium. That is to say, at one point there may have been more planets without a solid core than planets that had a solid core.", "At the melting point there is a change of state. This means that solid is transformed in liquid or viceversa. For this process you need energy which is supplied or withdrawn in the form of heat. The whole process occurs at constant temperature, which is precisely the melting point. \n\nAdding or removing temperature has no sense. It is heat what is added or removed. The temperature is just a result of the state. When you have a mixture of solid and liquid in equilibrium, this temperature is defined, is the same in the whole system and is the melting point. \n\nSince it is state change, both solid and liquid are present and the temperature will not change while both are there in any quantity and if the system is in equilibrium. The quantities of solid and liquid will not vary until there is some heat flow. However, on the microscopic level, the molecules are still moving and some will migrate from the solid to the liquid while others (the same amount) will go from the liquid to the solid. This results in that, even if the system is in equilibrium, the small crystals will dissolve while the bigger ones will grow bigger.", "Source: Hidden Animal Ingredients in Foods (dummies.com), slightly modified and extended.\n\nCan be vegan, or animal based:\n\n\n Glucose (dextrose) - Animal tissues and fluids (some glucose can come from fruits)\n \n Glycerides (mono-, di-, and triglycerides) - Glycerol from animal fats or plants \n \n Lactic acid - An acid formed by bacteria acting on sugar, often lactose.\n \n Lecithin - Phospholipids from animal tissues, plants, and egg yolks\n \n Oleic acid (oleinic acid) - Animal tallow\n \n Rennin, rennet - Produced by microbes, or extracted from calves stomachs.\n \n Stearic acid (octadecanoic acid) - Tallow, other animal fats and oils. Sometimes made from cocoa butter or shea butter. \n\n\nVegetarian, but not vegan:\n\n\n Albumin - The protein component of egg whites\n \n Casein (caseinate) - A milk protein \n \n Lactose (saccharum lactin, D-lactose) - Milk sugar\n \n Lutein - Deep yellow coloring from marigolds or egg yolks \n \n Whey - Watery liquid that separates from the solids in\n cheese-making\n\n\nNeither Vegan Nor Vegetarian:\n\n\n Carmine (carmine cochineal or carminic acid) - Red coloring made from a ground-up insect\n \n Fish Sauce - Common ingredient in Thai cooking that is almost never listed on the menu\n \n Gelatin - Protein from bones, cartilage, tendons, and skin of\n animals \n (sometimes gelatin is vegetarian and made from artificial ingredients)\n \n Isinglass - Gelatin from the air bladder of sturgeon and other freshwater fish \n (Often used to filter Alcoholic beverages)\n \n Pepsin - Enzyme from pigs’ stomachs \n \n Suet - Hard white fat around kidneys and loins of animals \n \n Tallow - Solid fat of sheep and cattle separated from the membranous\n tissues", "The gelatin has come out of the bones; I find a good chicken stock is often a bit gelatinous when cooled. \n\nAs a general rule, when you cook stock for a really long time/on a higher heat, then it's likely to have a higher gelatin content (as it will reduce more and there is also more time for the gelatin to transfer from the bones to the stock liquid). \n\nGenerally, when I make chicken stock I put a whole chicken, a couple of carrots, a couple of sticks of celery, and a few brown onions chopped in half in a big pot and fill it with water. I'd simmer it for 1.5-2 hours and then chuck the veggies, and strip the meat from the chicken. The stock I get from that needs to be skimmed of fat, but is usually fairly light and not overly gelatinous when it cools (although it always is a little bit).\n\nI hope that helps!", "While I have no clue which one does biodegrade better I'd like to focus on some other life-cycle aspects of liquid soap vs solid bars. But of course it's certain that liquid soaps (need to) contain substances that are simply not required for a bar of soap - such as emulsifying agents.\n\nLiquid soap contains added water and is therefore heavier. Transportation footprint is worse than solid bar - just to ship some water. (The same holds true for laundry detergents which are used in even greater amounts.)\n\nAdded packaging for the liquid soap compared to simple wrapping for the bar. This is an issue with respect to weight (again for shipping), resource consumption for making plastic bottles (use of non-renewable petrol) and also considering necessary recycling efforts or disposal measures (landfills, ocean dumps).", "I don't believe there is an equation that you can use for melting points of a general substance as a function of pressure (since the melting phase transition has a lot to do with the geometry of the molecule and the structure of the solid), but there is one for the boiling point of any pure substance when you are not near the critical point.\n\nThe liquid-vapor transition follows a very specific curve on the pressure-temperature plane of a PVT diagram. This is given by the Clausius-Clapeyron relation, which at temperatures and pressures that are not close to the critical point, can be approximated as:\n\n$$\n\\ln\\frac{P_2}{P_1} = \\frac{-\\Delta H_{vap}}{R}\\left(\\frac{1}{T_2} - \\frac{1}{T_1}\\right)\n$$\n\nThis is the two-point form, which lets you predict the pressure of the vapor phase at a given temperature if you know the temperature and pressure at another point, and the enthalpy of vaporization.\n\nYou can use this to predict boiling points as a function of pressure by recognizing that:\n\n\n The boiling point is the temperature at which the vapor pressure at equilibrium exceeds atmospheric pressure\n\n\nThis means that if you know the boiling point of a substance at 1 atm (the normal boiling point), and you know $\\Delta H_{vap}$ for that substance, you can predict the boiling point at another pressure by plugging in values for $P_1$ and $T_1$ (the normal boiling point), $P_2$ (the pressure you are interested in), and $\\Delta H_{vap}$, the enthalpy of vaporization (also sometimes called the latent heat), then solving for $T_2$ (the new boiling point.)\n\nLike I said, this only works when you aren't near the critical point, but for most applications that's not a concern.\n\nFor your specific case, especially since you are probably more interested in the liquid-solid transition at this temperature, you are better off looking at a phase diagram.\n\nHere's one for gallium (source) (original source):\n\n\n\nThe solid-liquid line has a negative slope at low pressure (as ron pointed out) which means the melting temperature increases as pressure decreases. Depending on how high the vacuum is, and on what temperature \"room temperature\" is, you might be in the solid phase - but the slope is steep, so even at 0 atm the melting point is still right around 300 K.", "The values that you quoted for the densities in the liquid and solid phases, were most likely obtained from experiments, in the following very simple way:\n\n(1) take exactly 1 liter of the substance\n(2) measure it's mass in grams\n(3) the density in units of g/L is simply the result of the measurement in step (2)\n(4) divide the result in step (3) by 1000 to get the density in units of g/mL.\n\nYou mentioned the molar mass of the substance as being 84.16 g/mol, which is the mass if you have exactly 6.02214076 × 1023 copies of the molecule.\nIt's not very easy to &quot;calculate&quot; the density of a substance knowing only the chemical formula and the molar mass, because you would have to know how much space a certain amount of the substance occupies.\nThe best way to find out how much space a certain amount of a substance takes up, would probably be to do a molecular dynamics simulation. Here you would start with thousands (for example) of copies of the molecule, in some initial configuration, which you can get using the software PACKMOL. Then you would set the temperature and pressure (perhaps to 25°C and 100 kPa in this case, according to the quote in your question, but I suspect you might actually have to find out where those density values were obtained and choose the values of temperature and pressure based on what they were when those numbers were measured, since it's unlikely that the substance is both liquid and solid at the same temperature+pressure).\nThen you would use a software such as LAMMPS or GROMACS (just to name a couple examples) with some choice of forcefield, to see the effect of Newton's 2nd law on the system in that forcefield (i.e. how the molecules will push and pull each other until they get comfortable with the amount of personal space they have). Eventually when the system reaches equilibrium, you will have some idea about how much space that number of molecules of your substance takes up at that temperature and pressure. Then you can do the same simulation with more and more molecules in your simulation, until you converge on a value for the number of molecules/volume. This final number of molecules/volume will be quite accurate under two main assumptions: the forces between the molecules are given by the forcefield that you chose, and the dynamics of the system follows Newton's second law rather than the time-dependent Schroedinger equation or something more accurate but more complicated that you would get from a more advanced quantum field theory).\nOnce you have the number of molecules/volume, you can finally use that molar mass of 84.16 g/mol that you correctly looked up, and get the mass/volume!\nYou will probably have to do this procedure twice: once for the temperature+pressure for the liquid phase and once for the temperature+pressure for the solid phase.\nIt would be very nice if there was a theory that could allow you to estimate the volume of a substance based on the chemical formula, so that you wouldn't have to run this type of &quot;brute force simulation&quot; known as &quot;molecular dynamics&quot; to get an estimate of the volume of a substance.", "No. \n\nTo answer your question we will assume certain things here.\n\n\nAssume $C_p = C_v$ for most liquids, where $C_p$ is the heat capacity at constant pressure, and $C_v$ is the heat capacity at constant volume.\nAssume that $C$ is constant with respect to temperature, which is not the case in most real fluids. Here, in order to leave out the integration, we assume that it is a constant. \n\n\nThen,\n\n$Q = C\\Delta{}T$\n\nAs different liquids have different heat capacities, the same amount of heat supplied to the liquid would result in a different $\\Delta{}T$, the temperature change.\n\nThe higher the heat capacity, the more heat is required to raise a unit mass(or mole) of substance by a unit temperature. Likewise, more heat has to be removed from the unit mass of substance in order to decrease the temperature by a unit temperature. \n\nIn other words, the higher the heat capacity, the more \"reluctant\" it is to change its temperature, for the same amount of heat supplied.", "As andselsik pointed out, definetley no in the general sense. Just think of some practical examples like PTFE (Teflon) - which melts at about 330 °C but is definetly not water soluble. \n\nHowever there is one connection I'd like to point out that allows to relate the enthalpy of melting to the solubility:\n\nConsider phase equilibrium between a soluble compound C and water. At equilibrium, we have equality of chemical potentials:\n\n$$\\mu^{solid}_c(p,T,x_s)=\\mu^{liquid}_c(p,T,x_l)$$\n\nAssume that $x_s$ at equilibrium is 1 (there would be a tiny fraction of water in the solid, but its fair to neglect that). Then the LHS is just the chemical potential of the pure solid:\n\n$$\\mu^{*,\\:solid}_c(p,T)=\\mu^{liquid}_c(p,T,x_l)$$\n\nNow using the solvent convention for the chemical potential of the liquid mixture:\n\n$$\\mu^{*,\\:solid}_c(p,T)=\\mu^{*,\\: liquid}_c(p,T)+RT\\mathrm{ln}(x_c^l \\: \\gamma_c)$$\n\nRearranging this and recognising that a chemical potential difference of a pure substance across a phase boundary is the gibbs energy of that phase transition gives\n\n$$\\Delta g_{c;\\: melt} = \\Delta g_{c;\\: S \\rightarrow L}=\\Delta \\mu_{c;\\: S \\rightarrow L} = RT\\mathrm{ln}(x_c^{l} \\gamma_c)$$\n\nand\n\n$$\\Delta g = \\Delta h + T \\Delta s$$\n\nusing the limiting behaviour of the activity we find that for $x_c , \\gamma_c \\rightarrow 1$, the RHS tends to zero; we can reexpress the entropy of the phase change by setting $\\Delta g$ in the above equation zero, and substitute the result into the equation obtained from equality of chemical potential:\n\n$$\\Delta h_c^{*,\\:melt} \\Big(\\frac{T}{T^{melt}}-1\\Big) = RT\\mathrm{ln}(x_c^l \\gamma_c)$$\n...\n$$x_c^l\\gamma_c=\\mathrm{exp} \\Bigg( \\frac{\\Delta h_c^{*,melt}}{R} \\Big(\\frac{1}{T^{*,melt}}-\\frac{1}{T}\\Big)\\Bigg)$$ \n\nThe activity coefficient itself is obviously also a function of the composition, so this does not give us a straightforward way to calculate the solubility of compound C (it does however provide us with a route to $\\gamma$, which is normally harder to measure than a solubility) but it shows that phase change properties have all sorts of implications!", "First, I don't know where you people all get these gelatin-filled Turkish delight recipes. Turkish delight is made with starch, not gelatin (at least the recipes used in Turkey are all with refined starch or rice flour). What you are making here is jell-o (if you use small amounts of gelatin) or gummi bears (if you use lots of gelatin). \n\nSecond, about the taste. It is normal that fresh apple juice loses its taste when it is cooked. The normal Turkish delight tastes of sugar. Its aroma comes from strong aromas added to the liquid (rose essence, or artificial aroma). You don't preserve natural fruit tastes in Turkish delight. Even if you wanted to, I don't think there is a way to do it with apple juice. Some stronger tasting fruits (cherries, raspberries) could give a syrup with more taste, but are not part of traditional lokum. \n\nThird, about the temperature. Your observation is correct, you are just evaporating the liquid. In some cases, it might be desirable to start with more liquid and evaporate, so you get more concentrated aroma - for example, if you have started with pure rose water. But if you are making a recipe which requires concentrated sugar syrup, it is OK to start with a ratio which creates saturated syrup at room temperature (3 parts sugar to 2 parts water) and cook until the desired consistency is reached (this is recognizable from the boiling point). \n\nFor most recipes however, you don't want a concentrated syrup. The candy hardness is defined by the amount of starch used. In this case, you just mix everything and you are ready after it has bubbled, just like any pudding. The amount of sugar seems to be 1 part sugar to 2 parts water.", "I believe the metaphor is liquid versus solid, rather than limpid versus opaque. When assets are liquid, they can be moved or transferred immediately, in the form of money—just as liquids run easily and quickly. When they are not liquid, they are stuck in some form that is not immediately transferable into money, such as a building, stocks, or long-term credit.\n\nThe purpose of liquidating assets is turning them into money and using that for something else, not (primarily) making them easy to analyse/comprehend. Cf. liquidity: if a bank does not have enough liquid assets available (money and similar), it may not be able to pay out money to clients quickly enough (even if it has enough other assets), which can be a huge problem.", "1. Use lower protein malt - Lower protein malts make less haze since the haze is caused by proteins.\n\n2. Use Whirlfloc tablets - Whirlfloc tablets are a blend of Irish Moss and purified Kappa carrageenan that encourages the precipitation of haze causing materials such as proteins and Beta glucans. Add for the final 5 minutes of the boil.\n\n3. Cool your Wort Quickly - Use an immersion or counter-flow chiller to cool your beer as quickly as possible.\n\n4. Choose a Yeast High in Flocculation - Flocculation is defined simply as the rate at which a particular yeast strain will fall out of the beer once fermentation is complete.\n\n5. Cold Crash your beer - This helps to coagulate proteins and make other solids fall quickly to the bottom of your secondary.\n\n6. Use Gelatin before you keg or bottle - Gelatin or other fining agents will dramatically assist in giving you a clearer beer. \n\n7. Lager your beer - Storing your beer for a long time in cold conditions will make most haze settle to the bottom of your keg or bottles.\n\n8. Use a filter - when all else fails, the best way to get a clear beer is to use a filter.", "Depends on what you mean by understood. I would argue that the answer is basically \"yes\", although helium (like water) is a complicated substance, and many details can only be understood by numerical simulation.\n\n1) The lambda transition is in the universality class of the three dimensional $xy$ model, and the critical exponents are well known (from the epsilon expansion, and numerical simulation). this means, in particular, that the \"lambda\" shape of $c_v$ is understood.\n\n2) Why the transition temperature is 2.2K, and why helium is an ordinary liquid above $T_c$ (and not a solid, for example) can only be understood using Quantum Monte Carlo simulations. The pioneering work in the area goes back to Ceperley.", "here are two alternatives.\n\nfirst, you can conformally coat the assembly with a sprayed-on and heat-cured waterproofing compound, commonly know as \"paint\". \n\nsecond, you can immerse the circuit assembly in a liquid which will cure into a solid. substances like this are known as \"potting compounds\" and there are dozens of different varieties which are not particularly expensive.", "In order:\n\na) The normal boiling point is when the pressure of the liquid is 1 atm. Graph the equation $Y = \\ln(p) - (RHS)$ (right hand side) to find the temperature where $Y = 0$. Alternatively, graph $p_{lv}$ versus $T$ and find when $p_{lv} = 1$.\n\nb) The triple point occurs when the temperature and pressure of the solid, liquid, and vapor are all equal. Create a graph with $p_{sv}$ and $p_{lv}$ as a function of $T$. They will cross at the triple point.\n\nc) I would first challenge whether the question is asking for the difference in specific enthalpies not specific heat capacities. Consider X as either solid or liquid. Vapor pressures of X-gas transitions are defined by the Clausius-Clapeyron equation. An empirical form is also found using the Antoine equation. The transition enthalpy can be determined from a Clausius-Clapeyron form of $\\ln(p)$ as shown here. Alternatively, heat capacity differences appear in the first reference in this paragraph near the end for a discussion on the second derivative of the phase transition lines.\n\nd) The transition enthalpies from above will depend on temperature. Find the value at the triple point temperature.\n\ne) The Clapeyron equation applies for a solid-liquid transition. This question asks for the value for $dp/dT = \\Delta_{fus}\\bar{H}/(T_{fus}\\Delta_{fus}\\bar{V})$, where molar values are used for the fusion enthalpy and volume changes. Molar volume is the inverse of moles per volume, which itself is the (mass) density divided by molar mass. The important hint here is to always write a $\\Delta$ as FINAL - INITIAL. Density decreases going from liquid -> solid (fusion), so molar volume increases. Fusion is endothermic, so the enthalpy is positive. Review the differences between the slopes of the $dp/dT$ lines for fusion of water (where solid ice floats) and almost any other liquid (where its solid sinks).", "The purification that occurs when an aqueous solution freezes is called Fractional Freezing and is based on the idea that impurities of a solvent (and this can be any solvent, not just water) have a much lower solubility in the solid phase of the solvent relative to the liquid phase. Several techniques for performing fractional freezing for purification purposes can be found here. As the solid is formed, the impurities are expelled into the liquid that hasn't yet solidified. The purified crystals can then be removed by physical methods (e.g. filtration). In the case of water, where ice is less dense than the liquid phase, the purified crystals float to the top of the impurity-laden liquid. This is probably the reason why some people have observed a layer of impurities deep within a block of ice. As mentioned above, the process is not limited to just water, and freeze crystallization is use to eliminate the purities of silicon wafers and has been known for many years as a way to make hard liquor. This latter use of fractional freezing is close to the OPs question, which inquires about miscible substances (in this case, ethanol and water). Despite their miscibility, ethanol and water can be separated by fractional freezing, just like they can be separated by fractional distillation. Certain substances cannot be separated completely using distillation, and these substances are called azeotropes. Water and ethanol make an azeotropic mixture that is approximately 95% water. (So the moonshine you were thinking of making using the reference above will be limited to 190 proof.) What I find interesting is the following figure, \n\n\n\nwhich shows the freezing point of water/ethanol mixtures as a function of ethanol content. At a point around 95% there is a significant dip in the freezing point. At this point, called the eutectic point, the solution behaves as if it is a single component (much like an azeotrope) and will not likely be separable through 'simple' fractional freezing means. Note I use the term simple because azeotropes can be separated using special distillation techniques.\n\nSo in summary: fractional freezing will work with any aqueous solution, regardless of the miscibility of the components, unless the component ratio is close the eutectic point. We don't need to limit ourselves to aqueous solutions, as many species can be purified in this manner. The purification mechanism is not so much a factor of the crystal lattice, but the relative solute solubilities in the solid and liquid phases of the solvent. Finally, many water solutions will freeze solid even with impurities. This and other types of separations work on equilibrium processes, and multiple iterations are necessary to \"completely\" remove impurities. (or more correct, remove the impurities to a level that is acceptable for your application.)", "Polymers such as wax definitely undergo phase transitions. You inquired about paraffin wax, which is oil-based.\n\nParaffin wax is made of long rod-like molecules called linear straight-chain alkanes. It's solid at room temperature, but when refined as liquid paraffin and combined with water, it can act as liquid crystal, which complicates its phase diagram.\n\nLiquid crystal is a phase all to itself. There are other phases within the liquid crystal phase. In the nematic phase, the long rod-like paraffin molecules all point in the same direction but have no positional structure. In the smectic phase, molecules tend to form layers (for example, slippery soap that collects in the bottom of a soap dish is smectic liquid crystal). In the cholesteric phase, the layers corkscrew around an imaginary axis. Here's a description of these and other liquid crystal phases: http://plc.cwru.edu/tutorial/enhanced/files/lc/phase/phase.htm.\n\nThe phase diagrams of polymers like paraffin may not look like the phase diagrams you're familiar with. Depending on how the paraffin molecule is altered in refining, its phase attributes will change. It may be liquid at room temperature, or solid. The phase diagram may change if paraffin combines with water, because when treated with other materials it can be a surfactant/emulsifier. One end of the molecule can be hydrophilic while the other is hydrophobic, and in that case the phase diagram will be altered. Unlike a pure element, paraffin can have many phase diagrams depending on the refinery process that produced it, additives, and other substances with which it combines.\n\nOne reason you may have trouble noticing the phase transitions of wax is that heat doesn't flow immediately through a wax blob. The outer layers soften and liquify first. Here's a link to a study of phase transitions in paraffin: http://www.ijettjournal.org/volume-2/issue2/IJETT-V2I2P213.pdf.\n\nChocolate is not a polymer, but inexpensive chocolate may be mixed with paraffin to give it polymer-like qualities such as surface sheen and smoothness. When you're dealing with composite substances such as chocolate, the phase diagram may not plot pressure against temperature. For example, here is a link to a study of the six polymorphic phases of chocolate: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11746-998-0245-y. And here is an explanation of those phases: http://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/WO2012135279A1/imgf000006_0001.png. Here's a phase diagram that plots cooling time against temperature, which shows how chocolate needs the optimal combination of temperature and cooling time to form the most desirable phase structure (scroll down to the phase diagram): http://soft-matter.seas.harvard.edu/index.php/The_Science_of_Chocolate:_interactive_activities_on_phase_transitions,_emulsification,_and_nucleation.", "Flow-rate meters based on measuring Coriolis-force reactions are widely used in process control systems. \nThe measurement principles are mentioned or illustrated at numerous web sites, including youtube video e2NGvrkmP8Y, Back to Basics: Flow Measurement (Corilolis) (via oscillating-tube phase changes) and Schenck Americas' Solids Flow Meters page, Coriolis Principle section (via vaned-rotor reaction forces) . Coriolis-based meters measure the delivered mass of solids, liquids, and gases. Delivered volume can be calculated if density is known. Purchase of a Coriolis-based meter seems far more feasible than building one from scratch.\n\nThe Schenck page also illustrates impact-plate-based measuring systems and deflection-chute-based measuring systems. These integrate impulses or deflection force to measure flow. Again, purchase seems more feasible than building one yourself.\n\nAt a hobby level, I think two approaches should be considered first: (A) calibrate a constant-flow-rate system, and control delivery time; (B) implement a fill-and-dump system, and control number of cycles.\n\n(A) Using a method from previous questions (1,2) set up a system that moves your substance at a reasonably constant rate; measure that rate; thereafter, control how long or how fast the system runs to deliver a desired amount of substance.\n\n(B) Again using methods from previous questions, set up a system to fill a cup, box, chute, or transfer bin some number of times, and dump it into a receiver. Issues like detecting when the cup is full, preventing or recycling overflow of the cup, and dumping the cup arise but can be resolved. The issue of limited resolution (where the delivered amount is an integer multiple of cup size) can be treated by using a smaller cup, or using different cups for different jobs, or using a box with an adjustable side or bottom, or having the box sit on a load cell during filling.", "Chemicals used as explosives are those which, by some reaction/state change, can produce a large pressure (and thus usually volume) change very quickly.\n\nWhile dry ice (solid carbon dioxide) is much more dense than in its gaseous phase, at room temperature the change happens very slowly, and is just unstable rather than stable but reactive, so can't be left and triggered later.\n\nThis makes it pretty useless as a working explosive.\n\nSince it can exert a significant pressure while it sublimates, however, it can make other things explosively fail -- like the dry ice in the soda bottle demonstration. A quick search suggests that soda bottles are rated to withstand a pressure difference of around 100 psi (~6.8 atm, 0.69 MPa), and the increasing pressure won't stop the carbon dioxide subliming/boiling (since at that point it'll be a liquid) until ten times that.\n\nNow, there is a market for things that slowly expand with a lot of force (\"non-explosive demolition agents\"), but they're solids that you mix into a slurry and pour into a cavity, since these can trivially exert orders of magnitude more pressure -- a common brand-name one, Dexpan, is rated at 18000 psi -- and they also turn from a slurry or solid into another solid. If you tried this operation with something that turned into a gas, you'd need to seal the cavity to stop the gas just escaping, whereas with solid-to-solid reactions, gravity and the solid itself will do the job for you.", "India ink has only three ingredients: lampblack, water and gelatin or shellac as a binder(in fact, traditional India ink doesn't even contain this), with shellac being much more common. As you've guessed, this means that the clear liquid on top is probably a mixture of shellac and water.\n\nShellac can be found easily online (if you can't find it in person) either as flakes or a liquid.", "The surface tension of water is increased by the dissolution of either glucose ($\\ce{C6H12O6}$) or $\\ce{NaCl}$. The following are excerpts from this table: \n\nSolution$\\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ $ Temp ($\\mathrm{^oC}$)$\\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ $ Surface Tension (mN/m)\nWater$\\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ $25$\\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ $ 71.97\nWater$\\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ $0$\\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ $ 75.46\n6M aqueous $\\ce{NaCl}$$\\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ $ 20$\\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ $ 82.55\nSucrose (55%) + water$\\ \\ $20$\\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ $ 76.45\n(Water is included at two temperatures in order to bracket the temperature of the mixtures.) \n\nAccording to this Wikipedia article: \n\n\n Surfactants are compounds that lower the surface tension (or\n interfacial tension) between two liquids or between a liquid and a\n solid. Surfactants may [emphasis mine] act as detergents, wetting agents, emulsifiers,\n foaming agents, and dispersants. \n\n\nThe article further states that \"surfactant\" is a concatenation of the term \"surface acting agent\". Furthermore, according to the Encylopaedia Britannica : \n\n\n Surfactant, also called surface-active agent, substance such as a\n detergent that, when added to a liquid, reduces its surface tension,\n thereby increasing its spreading and wetting properties.\n\n\nSo, by these definitions and the data above, the compounds in question do not qualify as surfactants as they raise the surface tension of water. Additionally, as they have no amphiphillic (having both hydrophilic and lipophilic properties) nature, they would not be considered surfactants in the common context of chemistry jargon.", "Yes. Presumably you're doing the firming up during the cooking, and not afterwards?\n\n\nDrain off liquid / condense any liquid. Heat fruit before placing in pie to drive off moisture\nUse a touch of cream\nUse binder / starch\nUse gelatin in the fruit mixture\ntapioca (credit to justkt for this one)", "The key to understanding this type of question is that the equilibrium (saturation) vapor pressure of a pure liquid is to a first approximation (that is, assuming ideal behavior) independent of the presence of other gases, such as (in this case) oxygen. Therefore, you can think of $\\pu{355 Torr}$ as being always the pressure of the vapor when in equilibrium with the pure liquid at $T=\\pu{80 ^\\circ C}$. For equilibrium to be established requires that there is (more than) enough substance to fill the volume with vapor at that pressure. The minimum amount of substance which will fill the volume with vapor at that pressure is, under the assumed ideal conditions, given by the ideal gas law: $$n=\\frac{pV}{RT_b}$$where in the present problem $T_b=\\pu{80 ^\\circ C}$, $p=\\pu{355 Torr}$, and V is the volume occupied by the vapor, which changes from $V&lt;\\pu{100 mL}$ to $V&lt;\\pu{50 mL}$. In the present problem you don't know how much of the water is initially a liquid, only that the inequality $V&lt;\\pu{100 mL}$ is satisfied by the vapor. During the volume reduction some of the vapor condenses into additional liquid in order to retain the equilibrium pressure. The oxygen is treated here as a spectator, although it contributes to the total pressure in the vessel. In practice it also alters the vapor pressure of the liquid, although here by a negligible amount.", "From http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/solutions/faq/why-salt-melts-ice.shtml:\n\nConsider that ice, a crystalline solid, forms via weak partial-polar forces between water molecules, known as hydrogen bonding. As liquid water cools, it loses the energy that keeps these forces from attracting and capturing neighboring water molecules, and so these bonds form in a crystalline structure. Exactly what that structure is depends on the temperature and pressure at which the ice forms; your everyday freezer ice as well as most of the stuff outside in January is Ice Ih, which is a very spacious hexagonal arrangement that makes ice less dense than liquid water.\n\nAlso consider that even within what looks like solid ice, individual molecules \"melt\" and \"freeze\" all the time as they transiently gain enough energy to break free of the lattice, and then lose it and are recaptured. When the rate at which molecules melt and freeze are equal, the ice is stable. This happens at 0.01*C; below this temperature, more water will freeze, while above this temperature, more water will melt. Right at 0.01*C, water remains water and ice remains ice (the other half of this coexistence, besides temperature, is that water like most substances requires more energy gain or loss to change its phase, known as the Latent Heat of Vaporization, and for water that's 334J/mL, 80 times what's needed to cool liquid water from 2*C to 1*C).\n\nIntroduce salt, and these dissolved ions interfere with this hydrogen bonding within the ice, preventing it from happening at the normal freezing point of water. Now the melting molecules don't refreeze, because their partial polar charges are more strongly attracted to the full charges of the sodium and chloride ions than to other water molecules. That upsets the balance; more water is melting than freezing at the normal freezing temperature, and so the ice melts. It takes more energy loss within this system before the water is too unenergetic to stay liquid and settles into crystal, releasing the salt, which then finds other liquid water at the boundary layer between liquid and ice.\n\nThis creates a vicious cycle; as the salt concentrates within the remaining liquid water, its freezing point is lowered even further as the sodium and chlorine, which won't resolidify as salt crystals until there's just too little water to remain dissolved, will become even more attracted to the remaining water, even further lowering the remaining liquid's freezing point as the water must free itself from even more ions before it can be captured by the ice crystal. \n\nSo, an aqueous salt solution, in nearly any concentration, will lower the boiling point of the solution below 0*C, but the minimum freezing point is at -21.1*C, which is the freezing point of a fully-saturated salt solution. Below this temperature, salt that loses its water to freezing can't stay dissolved, and precipitates out as a separate crystal solid suspended within the ice.", "Aside from thrust/weight ratio, I suspect at least part of this conditioning came from a peculiarity with the Space Shuttle and its launch process.\n\nThe Space Shuttle's launch process was different because it had two different types of engines firing at launch. Its liquid-fueled main engines (mounted on the back of the orbiter itself) were ignited several seconds before t = 0. At this point, its thrust was less than its weight (and the whole stack was still bolted down to the pad!) so it did not move (well, not upward, at least.) At t = 0, its Solid Rocket Boosters(SRBs) were lit and the restraining bolt nuts were blown and then it started moving pretty much immediately, as its thrust was very quickly significantly larger than its weight once the SRBs started firing.\n\nFalcon 9 has only one type of engine on its first stage and they all light at approximately the same time. As soon as they throttle up, the thrust very quickly becomes greater than the stack weight and the rocket starts moving.\n\nMost rockets actually work more like the Falcon than the Space Shuttle, with all first stage engines being of the same type and ignited simultaneously. The Space Shuttle's mix of its liquid-fueled main engines and solid-fueled boosters in its first stage meant that the liquid-fueled engines would have to be ignited sooner than the SRBs in order to be throttled up and ready to balance out the pitching moment of the SRBs once they start firing.\n\nBy lighting them before the SRBs, it is also possible to shut down the liquid-fueled main engines and cancel the launch if something goes wrong during their ignition. Once the SRBs light, however, the rocket will go somewhere. If they light and the main engines are not functioning properly, the somewhere it goes will not be where you want it to go and you will not go to space today.\n\nWith Falcon 9, there are no SRBs to worry about. If one of the Merlin engines fails to light, they can just shut the others back down quickly and abort the launch. You will still probably not go to space today, but at least you still have a rocket (and payload) and can try again later.", "Plastic food packaging in general is usually lined with Bisphenol A (aka. BPA), as are some canned goods, which is a rather controversial chemical. It's been linked to cancer, sexual dysfunction, and other ailments. So I try to avoid it whenever possible and buy my food in glass jars. I can only imagine how much BPA is dissolved into alcoholic beverages which are bottled in plastic or cans, being that alcohol is corrosive. I learned that lesson when I tried cleaning my GameBoy with rubbing alcohol as a kid. So I try to avoid alcohol bottled in plastic and canned alcohol as well.\n\nThe thing you have to realize is that plastic isn't really a solid, but a very viscous liquid. Glass is also a liquid, but it's much more viscous than plastic. That's why if you've ever been in a building that's a couple hundred years old, the glass on the windows is thicker at the bottom of the glass panes. Since both are liquids, they're obviously going to get into your drink. However, glass is a natural substance while plastic is not, so I trust it more.", "As per your question lemme tell you something more about Unohana's katana.\n\n\n Minazuki (肉雫唼, \"Flesh-Drops' Gorge\"): In sealed form, Minazuki is slightly longer than an ordinary katana, and resembles a nodachi. The tsuba has an oval shape, and the handle is red. Instead of tying it to her obi, Unohana carries her Zanpakutō over her shoulder by a rope strap, or lets Isane carry it for her.\n\n\n\n\n\n Her shikai form is more like the image enclosed above.It's release command is unknown. When released in Shikai form, Minazuki will start to morph, turning into a green, gas-like substance before taking the solid shape of a giant, green, one eyed manta ray-like creature with the ability to fly. Minazuki can be used for transportation, and will change back into the green gas substance before returning to its sword form when its duty has been fulfilled\n\n\nHer Bankai special ability is still unknown.But these are the facts that I came through\n\n\n Bankai: Minazuki (皆尽, \"All Things' End\"): When released the blade of Unohana's Zanpakutō liquifies into a thick, dark red substance able to surround her vicinity. Once the majority of the liquid flows off the Zanpakutō, it reveals the remainder has solidified into a shortened katana, which then can be used for combat, strong and sturdy enough to clash against Kenpachi Zaraki's blade.\n\n\n\n\nWe were totally oblivious about her bankai until Kenpachi fight.But her bankai is far more gore than Kenpachi.\n\nSources:-Link" ]

[ "Hints: \n\n1) The key sentence is \n\n\n the volume charge density $\\rho$ [...] does increase with distance from the sphere center.\n\n\n2) From Gauss' law in integral form $\\Phi_E=\\frac{Q}{\\epsilon}$, one gets\n\n$$\\tag{1} 4\\pi r^2 \\cdot E(r)~=~ \\frac{1}{\\epsilon}\\int_0^r\\! 4\\pi r^{\\prime 2} dr^{\\prime} ~ \\rho(r^{\\prime}). $$\n\n3) To get the idea, say for simplicity that the increase is linear\n\n$$\\tag{2} \\rho(r)~\\propto~r\\qquad \\text{for}\\qquad r~\\leq~ R. $$\n\n4) Use eqs. (1) and (2) to prove that then the electric field increases quadratically\n\n$$\\tag{3} E(r)~\\propto~r^2\\qquad \\text{for}\\qquad r~\\leq~ R. $$\n\n5) What happens if $\\rho(r)=Ar^{\\alpha}$ is a power law of $r$?" ]

[ "Magnetars (and neutron stars in general) don't need a dynamo to create their magnetic fields. Their magnetic fields are \"frozen in\" at the time of their formation. To really see why this is, you have to understand a lot about electromagnetism, but I can boil it down to the basics. Keep in mind that neutron stars are highly mysterious objects and we don't have a huge amount of good, observational evidence behind our theories since they're so hard to find and observe.\n\nNeutron stars (and magnetars) are superconductors (or at least most theory and objective evidence suggests that is the case). What this means is that there is literally no resistance to the motion of electric charges moving throughout the star. To point out, even if the entire star was all neutrons (which zibadawa timmy points out is not the case) you'd still have charges since neutrons themselves are composed of charged particles. In any case, since there's no resistance, there cannot exist any electric fields inside the star. Any field which arose would induce a force on the charged particles which would be able to immediately move to cancel said field out. All electric fields destroy themselves immediately in a superconductor.\n\nIf we venture into electromagnetic theory equations, you'll find the very useful equation:\n\n$$\\nabla \\times \\textbf{E} = -\\frac{\\partial \\textbf{B}}{\\partial t}$$\n\nWithout getting into the details of this equation, the general idea behind it is that electric fields result in time varying magnetic fields and vice versa. But we just said above that our neutron star was superconducting and thus has no electric fields. This means the left hand side of that equation is zero. The right side represents the change in magnetic field over time, but we know that has to be zero now so we're forced to conclude magnetic fields in neutron stars (and magnetars) cannot change. They're frozen in at the point of creation (when the star becomes superconducting).\n\nWe can venture one step further and say that the magnetic fields of neutron stars and magnetars is so strong simply because of magnetic flux conservation. That is, you have a huge star of a few solar masses which has a massive field in its own right. That star then collapses into a neutron star but in the process, the magnetic field flux through its surface has to stay conserved. Magnetic field flux is a function of both the field strength and the radius of the star. Since the radius is decreasing so immensely, the magnetic field strength has to increase in proportion to the radius decrease (squared) to compensate and keep the overall flux the same, at which point that magnetic field is locked into place due to the superconducting nature of the star.", "This is an out of the box setting.\n\n\nGo to \"Library Settings\" from the ribbon.\nGo to \"Advanced Settings\".\nCheck the \"Yes\" for the setting \"Launch forms in a dialog\".\n\n\n\n\n\nSave changes.\n\n\nIt opens a popup to update the metadata after you upload a document.\n\nEDIT:\n\nTo open this popup you must have at least one mandatory field that shouldn`t have any default value.", "TL;DR $b = 2(f \\cdot d)$\n\nI'll try to derive it and then we can see what $b$ should be. If the sphere is centered at point $a$ with radius $r$, its equation is $|p - a| = r$, where $p$ is a point on the sphere. $|p - a|$ is the distance from a point $p$ to the centre of the sphere, and if that is equal to the radius, then it's a point on the sphere.\n\nWe'll assume the centre of the sphere is at the origin, so $a = 0$ and we have $|\\vec{p}| = r$. Squaring both sides gives $|\\vec{p}|^2 = r^2$ which I'm going to write as $$\\vec{p}^2 = r^2 \\tag{1}$$\n\nRay has equation $$x + td\\tag{2}$$ where $x$ is the endpoint, $d$ is the direction, and $t$ is the parameter.\n\nIf the ray doesn't intersect the sphere, we will not be able to find a $t$ satisfying the ray equation. In the quadratic equation the discriminant (the bit under the square root) will be $&lt; 0$. If it grazes the sphere (i.e. tangent) then we'll have a single point of intersection and a single $t$ and the discriminant will be $0$. If it goes through the sphere, we'll get a $t$ for the sphere entry, and a distinct $t$ for the sphere exit and the discriminant will be $&gt; 0$. We need to plug $(2)$ into $(1)$ and solve for $t$:\n\n$$\n\\begin{alignat}{2}\n &amp;&amp;(x + td)^2 &amp;= r^2\\\\\n &amp;\\Rightarrow\\quad\n &amp;(x + td)(x + td) &amp;= r^2\\\\\n &amp;\\Rightarrow\\quad\n &amp;x \\cdot x + 2t(x \\cdot d) + t^2(d \\cdot d) &amp;= r^2\\\\\n &amp;\\Rightarrow\\quad\n &amp;(d \\cdot d)t^2 + 2(x \\cdot d)t + (x \\cdot x - r^2) &amp;= 0 \\tag{3}\\\\\n\\end{alignat}$$\n\nEquation $3$ is a quadratic expression in $t$ (i.e. $at^2 + bt + c = 0$) where $$a = (d \\cdot d)$$ $$b = 2(x \\cdot d)$$ $$c = (x \\cdot x - r^2)$$\n\nThis matches the code you posted, but the code is allowing spheres to be centered at an arbitrary point C. The code then has this line:\n\n// f = E - C ; // Vector from center sphere to ray start\n\n\nwhich effectively translates the endpoint of the ray E to a new endpoint f so that we can now consider the sphere to be centered at the origin. The ray direction is unchanged.", "You are correct that molecule mobility depends on the mass-to-charge ratio, and this means that different sized molecules with the same $\\frac{m}{q}$ will have the same acceleration. However, the velocity of a molecule moving through a gel matrix depends on the point at which the force exerted by the electric field is in equilibrium with the frictional forces acting on the molecule. Modeling different sized molecules as spheres of different sizes, we can apply Stokes' Law\n\n$F = 6\\pi \\mu Rv$\n\nwhere $\\mu$ is viscosity of the matrix (constant), $R$ is the radius of our molecule, and $v$ is the flow velocity. \n\nRewriting your equation, we see that\n\n$F = qE = ma = 6\\pi \\mu Rv$\n\nand \n\n$v = \\frac {ma}{6\\pi \\mu R}$\n\nFor constant $a$ and $\\mu$, we see that velocity varies with the ratio of mass to radius\n\n$v \\sim \\frac{m}{R}$\n\nFor our model spheres, assuming uniform density, radius scales cubically with mass, meaning that $\\frac{m}{R}$ decreases as molecule size increases.\n\n($d = \\frac{m}{V}$ and $V = \\frac{4}{3}\\pi R^3$ where $d$ is density and $V$ is volume)\n\nSo, larger molecules will reach force equilibrium with the opposing frictional resistance at a lower velocity compared to smaller molecules, thus explaining how different sized molecules with the same $\\frac{m}{q}$ will separate on a gel. One caveat to this explanation is that polypeptides and nucleic acids are poorly modeled by spheres, and that the mass of such molecules scales linearly with length.", "One interesting example along these lines involves the following three solids:\n\n\nHalf of a sphere (the upper half) with a radius of $r$.\nA circular cone (vertex at the bottom) with base of radius $r$ and height $r$.\nA circular cylinder with base of radius $r$ and height $r$.\n\n\nThe statement that's true is that the areas of the cross sections of shape #1 plus the areas of the cross sections of shape #2 are equal to the areas of the cross sections of shape #3. It follows that the volumes add, i.e.\n$$\n\\frac{2}{3}\\pi r^3 \\,+\\, \\frac{1}{3}\\pi r^3 \\;=\\; \\pi r^3.\n$$\nThis shows that you can derive the formula for the volume of a sphere from the formula for the volume of a cone, and vice-versa.\n\nIf you like, you make this into an example of the kind you requested by having one of the solids be the complement of either #1 or #2 in #3. That is, have the first solid be a half-sphere and the second be the complement of a cone in a cylinder, or vice-versa.\n\nEdit: Another interesting example is the following pair of solids:\n\n\nThe paraboloid obtained by rotating the region $x^2 \\leq y \\leq 1$ in the $xy$-plane around the $y$-axis, with circular cross sections.\nA triangular prism on a $1$-$1$-$\\sqrt{2}$ triangle, with depth $\\pi$, using cross sections parallel to one of the $1\\times \\pi$ rectangular faces.\n\n\nThis example lets you compute the volume of a paraboloid without using calculus (assuming you don't count Cavalieri's principle as calculus).", "According to Kabbalah mysticism, The Tree of Life is the developed symbol which can be used as a full model of reality, using the tree to depict a map of Creation.\n\nA Tree of Life consist 10 sephiroth (11th is hidden) and 22 paths (22 Hebrew letters) - 3 horizontal, 7 vertical and 12 diagonals.\n\n\n\nSource and image credits: The Tree of Life at Hermetic Kaballah\n\nIn Renaissance occult philosophy, Cornelius Agrippa provides tables of correspondences (\"scales\") for all the numbers up to twelve. \n\nThere are close relationship to the ancient hermetic notion of sympathies and harmonic connection via a higher world of the divine essences.\n\nThese are the dimensions of Creation and the fundamental building blocks of our reality.\n\nWe can divide them into the following groups:\n\nMotion:\n\n\nTime (Physical motion).\nFeeling (Emotional motion).\nThought (Mental motion).\n\n\nSpace:\n\n\nSpherical separation (Sphere).\nCircular separation (Diameter).\nLinear separation (Radius).\n\n\nEnergy (All matter is energy):\n\n\nElectric energy (the building block of physical matter).\nMagnetic energy (the primal field of the universe).\nEtheric energy (Life energy, traditionally referred as Prana or Chi).\n\n\nConsciousness of the Creator:\n\n\nInfinite Universes.\nMother Creator principle.\nFather Creator principle.\n\n\nOur life on Earth functions within first 3 by 3 matrix (9 intertwined dimensions).\n\nSource: The 12 dimensions of Creation.", "The naive reasoning which leads to the conclusion that charges $Q_1$ and $Q_2$ of two touching conducting spheres with radii $R_1$ and $R_2$ are related by the relation $Q_1 = Q_2\\frac{R_1}{R_2}$ is wrong. This formula holds only when the distance between the spheres $L$ is large compared to $R1$ and $R_2$, $L\\gg R_1,R_2$, and the spheres are connected by a long wire.\n\nThe complete rigorous solution to this question can be found by using some formulas given in the book \n\"Problems in Electrodynamics\" by V.V. Batygin, I.N. Toptygin http://www.amazon.com/Problems-Electrodynamics-English-Russian-Edition/dp/0120821605 , for example see problems 211 and 67. In the notation used in that book, the case of touching spheres corresponds to taking the limit $a\\to 0$ in the bispherical coordinates $(\\xi,\\eta,\\alpha)$:\n$$\nx=\\frac{a\\sin\\eta\\cos\\alpha}{\\cosh\\xi-\\cos\\eta},\\quad \ny=\\frac{a\\sin\\eta\\sin\\alpha}{\\cosh\\xi-\\cos\\eta},\\quad \nz=\\frac{a\\sinh\\eta}{\\cosh\\xi-\\cos\\eta}\n$$\nand solving the corresponding boundary problem. The surfaces of two almost touching spheres will have coordinates $\\xi_1=\\frac{a}{R_1}\\to 0$,$\\ \\xi_2=-\\frac{a}{R_2}\\to 0$. Without going into all the details the final answer is\n$$\n\\frac{Q_1}{Q_2}= \\frac{R_1}{R_2}\\frac{1+2\\int\\limits_0^\\infty\\displaystyle\\frac{e^{-t}\\cosh[(1+k)t]-e^{-kt}}{\\sinh[(1+k)t]}e^{-t}dt}{1+2\\int\\limits_0^\\infty\\displaystyle\\frac{e^{-t}\\cosh[(1+1/k)t]-e^{-t/k}}{\\sinh[(1+1/k)t]}e^{-t}dt},\\quad \\text{where}\\ \\ k=\\frac{R_1}{R_2}.\n$$\n\nBut if one is interested only in qualitative answer to the question, then as it was explained in the comment by D.W. above, it is energetically more favorable for the sphere with the largest radius to absorb more charge. It is the most obvious in the case when one of the spheres has much larger radius than the other $R_1\\gg R_2$.", "tl;dr: because any solid iron would still be above the Curie temperature and so unable to retain any residual magnetization.\n\nThe magnetic phenomena associated with liquid metal in (the cores of) planets is a bit different from what we see in a solid metal. Solid iron is ferromagnetic up to a temperatures of $770°C$ or so, depending on impurities, but planetary cores are too hot for that and thus a solid core can have only random magnetic fields that don't give a macroscopic ferromagnetic behavior. Breuer et al. presents a model in which the internal temperature rises above $1500°C$ within the mantle, implying that the core has also remained that hot and thus solid iron would not be ferromagnetic.\n\nWhen you have liquid metal, or any electrically conductive liquid, things change. The flow of an electrically conductive fluid can amplify these random magnetic fields and produce a macroscopic magnetic field. \nThis can happen even when the conducting liquid is not ferromagnetic, which includes the case of iron under the hot conditions in the core of Mercury (or Earth). This effect demonstrated here with sodium; even a modest liquid flow can generate magnetic fields. Thus when magnetic fields emerge from the interiors of planets, the most likely source is not a seemingly ferromagnetic solid metal but the flow of an electrically conductive liquid. The model of Mercury presented in Ref. 1, above, also predicts a partially moten core (the amount of melting depends on the sulfur level in thd core). David Hamman points out in comments that space exploration probes have found independent evidence for molten core materials on several bodies, including Mercury.\n\nNote that the liquid must be \"electrically conductive\", but not necessarily a metal. An example of a nonmetallic conducting fluid could be a salty ocean such as that appearing to exist in Europa; Galileo actually detected a magnetic field around Europa which adds evidence for this ocean. At Mercury, however, the only likely conducting fluid is the metal in the cores so the magnetic field is taken as evidence for molten metal in this core.\n\nReference:\n\n\nD. Breuer. S. A. Hauck II. M. Buske. M.Bauer, T. Spohn, \"Interior Evolution of Mercury\", Space Sci Rev (2007) 132: 229–260\nDOI 10.1007/s11214-007-9228-9", "I think there are two key aspects to the answer. 1) Solid/rocky bodies should tend to collide before they reach the Roche limit. 2) When gaseous bodies reach the Roche limit (and undergo 'Roche-Lobe Overflow'), the dynamics are basically those of test-bodies and are fairly straightforward and well understood from binary stellar dynamics. To expand on both:\n\n1) Rocky Roche Limit. If you are thinking about a gaseous donor (the object being disrupted), then this is an irrelevant point, but It sounds like rocky is what you had in mind. To an order of magnitude, the Roche limit is the same as the Hill sphere, or the Tidal Radius (e.g. Rees 1988) --- which is simply the radius at which the density of the donor equals the average density of the primary in a sphere of that radius:\n\n$$R_t^3/M \\approx r^3/m \\rightarrow R_t \\approx r \\left( M/m \\right)^{1/3}$$\n\nRocky material varies very little in density (e.g. Iron meteorites are only about twice as dense as chrondritic ones), which means that the densities will only match very near the radius of the primary. The tidal bulge in the secondary (donor) also makes it easier for the objects to collide before meeting this criteria.\n\ne.g. \n\n2) Gaseous Roche Lobe Overflow. Basically every text on stars and star systems will have a section on mass transferring binaries which will describe the dynamics of mass transfer (this PDF is by Philipp Podsiadlowski who is a wizard of the field). In the type of situation you are describing, like in (semi-)stable binary systems, it is a very gradual process where material is slowly syphoned off of the donor. This material can either form an accretion disk (high angular momentum material) and gradually accrete onto the primary, or directly impact the primary (low angular momentum material).\n\ne.g.", "The flight is magical, so it is suppressed within an antimagic field.\nSince the rules clearly state the flight ability is magical in nature then it will not function inside of an antimagic field which specifically blocks all magic:\n\nA 10-foot-radius invisible sphere of antimagic surrounds you. This area is divorced from the magical energy that suffuses the multiverse. Within the sphere, spells can’t be cast, summoned creatures disappear, and even magic items become mundane. Until the spell ends, the sphere moves with you, centered on you.\nSpells and other magical effects, except those created by an artifact or a deity, are suppressed in the sphere and can’t protrude into it. A slot expended to cast a suppressed spell is consumed. While an effect is suppressed, it doesn’t function, but the time it spends suppressed counts against its duration.\n\nTheir flight isn't quite the same as the fly spell though as the spell gives the target a flight speed of 60 feet while the fairy has a fly speed equal to their walking speed. This will be slower by default, but could be higher if they have a sufficient bonus to their walking speed.", "Nothing on the other side of our cosmological event horizon can affect us gravitationally (or in any other way) by the definition of event horizon.\nThe idea that virtual particles somehow change this is widespread, but wrong. There is no violation of light-cone causality in quantum field theory, nor in quantum gravity as far as anyone knows. Any faster-than-light virtual particles that may seem to exist in perturbation theory (Feynman diagrams) make no contribution to the final result. If they did contribute in any experimentally verifiable way, you could use that to build a faster-than-light radio.\nVirtual particles are not responsible for gravitational or electromagnetic fields escaping from black holes. The fields don't escape. The field at a point outside a black hole is due to matter on the past light cone of that point, much of which is on the verge of crossing the event horizon but none of which actually has. Nothing inside the event horizon affects what happens outside, by definition.\n\nWhether anything outside the observable universe could affect us is a slightly different question. The answer is technically yes, because the observable universe is defined by cutting off our past light cone at a certain time in the past, such as the last scattering time or the end of inflation. There are good reasons to think that our past light cone if extended farther back must encompass a much larger area. Anything in that larger area could influence us (gravitationally or otherwise) while being outside of the observable universe as it's normally defined. But any &quot;interesting&quot; (not just homogeneous and isotropic) influence from outside would show up as an inhomogeneity in the cosmic microwave background, which isn't observed.\n\nYou also mentioned the Hubble sphere. The Hubble sphere is defined as a sphere of radius $c/H$ where $H$ is the Hubble parameter; in the current era that radius is about 14 billion light years. This is not the radius of the observable universe nor the distance to the cosmological horizon. In most cases the Hubble sphere has no physical significance.", "TL;DR: It depends upon the details of the magnetic field you have going on, and the source of the force would be the electric field induced by the changing magnetic field. Also, unless there's something exceptionally clever someone can come up with, thinking about loops will not help you here.\nLet me first recall what a changing magnetic field really means. Not in terms of loops, but in terms of Maxwell's equations, which at the end of the day are the equations from which all else should follow. In particular, Faraday's law is written\n$$\n\\nabla\\times\\vec E = -\\frac{\\partial \\vec B}{\\partial t}.\n$$\nThis is a differential equation which, in conjunction with the other three Maxwell equations completely determine what the electric and magnetic fields are, given a set of charges/currents and boundary conditions. The important thing I want to note about the differential form of this equation is that it's just a differential equation: there is no ambiguity to be found here involving &quot;what&quot; loop we should choose or anything of the sort.\nSo, if we already knew, for some reason, what the magnetic field was supposed to be everywhere and how it was changing, there would be no ambiguity in solving Maxwell's equations for the electric field that goes with it. Though this calculation may be very difficult in practice and would certainly depend upon the details of whatever magnetic field you have going on. Once the electric and magnetic field are both known, then it's a matter of putting those into the Lorentz force law\n$$\n\\vec F = q(\\vec E + \\vec v\\times\\vec B).\n$$\nSo at no point here is there any ambiguity...it's just that what the answer will end up being is not obvious at any stage. But since the answer will really genuinely depend upon the details of the magnetic field, maybe that shouldn't be a surprise.\nWith that in mind, let's think a little bit about what we can say in terms of loops and why those will probably not give us much of a computational advantage here.\nThe connection to the integral form of the equation, which is what you're referring to whenever you talk about loops, comes from integrating both sides of the above equation over a surface $S$ and then applying Stokes' theorem to the LHS to write find the integral of the electric field over the boundary curve $C$:\n$$\n\\int_C\\vec E\\cdot d\\vec\\ell = -\\frac{d}{dt}\\int_S \\vec B\\cdot d\\vec A.\n$$\nThe left hand side of this is what we would normally call the induced EMF and on the right we have what we would call the derivative of the magnetic flux, usually written in the form\n$$\n\\varepsilon = -\\frac{d\\Phi_B}{dt}.\n$$\nThe important point here is that this equation now holds for any surface $S$ we like, which is often where the confusion enters. It is worth noting though that the fact that this equation holds for any surface ensures that this statement is actually equivalent to the differential form, but the any is actually very important to this.\nThis is actually the same problem we encounter when first learning how to use Gauss' law to find an electric field, but in my experience it's usually easier to spot the limitations of the integral form of Gauss' law than it is to spot the same for Faraday's law. So let's take a moment to review the limitations in Gauss' law.\nThe integral and differential statements of this equation, next to each other, are\n$$\n\\nabla\\cdot\\vec E = \\rho/\\epsilon_0,\\ \\ \\ \\ \\int_S\\vec E\\cdot d\\vec A = \\frac{1}{\\epsilon_0}\\int_V\\rho dV,\\ \\ \\ \\ \\Phi_E = \\frac{Q_{in}}{\\epsilon_0}.\n$$\nHere the first form is, of course, differential, and the second form is found by integrating the differential form over a volume $V$ with bounding surface $S$, which we usually call the &quot;Gaussian&quot; surface.\nGauss' law, of course, works for any Gaussian surface we might care to think about. But anyone who has taking any course covering Gauss' law will know that when you have a spherically symmetric charge distribution (point charge), you should choose your surface to be a sphere. If you're looking at an (infinite) line of charge, you should use a Gaussian cylinder. If you have an infinite plane, you should use a Gaussian pillbox (a rectangular prism). And, though no one ever says it, if you have any other situation you probably give up or go use the differential form and solve Laplace's equation (which is then a large focus in second courses on electrodynamics).\nSo why? We said Gauss' law is true for any Gaussian surface, why are we forced into making these specific choices for specific cases? And the answer is that we really aren't &quot;forced,&quot; but if we want to actually find the electric field, any other choice will result only in headache, pain, and failure. Why is this?\nIn all these examples, the key to actually extracting the electric field from the flux is making an argument about symmetry which tells us that $\\vec E\\cdot d\\vec A = Ed A$ where $E$ is the magnitude of the electric field, which we hope to be a constant over the surface, so we can then pull $E$ outside the integral and can then solve for it.\nThis is precisely what happens for a point particle with a Gaussian sphere. We use symmetry arguments to deduce that the electric field points only in the radial direction and depends only on the radial distance. This tells is that, for a sphere, $\\vec E\\cdot d\\vec A = EdA$ with $E$ a constant everywhere on the sphere. If the electric field were not constant over the sphere, or if we used a different surface over which the electric field was not constant, we would not be able to pull it out of the integral and hence would be left with an integral equation for $\\vec E$, which is no good. Indeed, it wouldn't even be enough to determine $\\vec E$. For that we would really need to use the fact that Gauss' law holds for all surfaces.\nThis is always the down side of integral equations and the integral forms of equations. Unless you're dealing with a situation that has exceptional amounts of symmetry, so much so that you basically already know what the answer is supposed to be, integral equations aren't the best. There are far more techniques to solving their differential counterparts.", "My bachelor thesis was about particle identification at ALICE experiment, so I can try to give you some basics. \n\nYour intuition is right. You can find the velocity of a particle using $v=p/m$ but you can see that we just shifted the problem: how do we measure momentum? But most important: how do we measure mass? How do we identify the particle?\n\nIn ALICE Experiment the detectors are surrounded by a magnet which produces an homogeneous magnetic field (up to 0.5 T). As you probably know, charged particles in a magnetic field are deflected and this leads to the measure of their momentum, since $p=qRB$, where $q$ is the electric charge, $B$ is the magnetic field and $R$ is the curvature radius.\n\nAs you can see, we just shifted the problem again: we have to determine the curvature radius. This can be achieved thanks to $\\textit{tracking}$ detectors, whose main task is the reconstruction of the particle $\\textit{track}$ or path.\n\nFor example, the main $\\textit{tracking}$ detector of ALICE is the TPC (Time Projection Chamber), a cylinder-shape detector full of gas. The charged particle, passing through the gas, ionizes its atoms and the result will be a \"track\" of electrons drifting towards the readout channels thanks to the homogeneous electric field of the TPC. This oversimplifies things a bit but at least you get an idea. Truth is the full $\\textit{tracking}$ of the particle is achieved combining data of detectors, using fitting methods (such as Kalman Filter), etc.\n\nBut we have one last problem. We may know everything about the momentum and track of the particle. But how do we identify our particle, determine its mass and finally find its velocity? We can't say if our particle is a kaon, a pion or a proton just by knowing its momentum.\n\nFortunately, we know that a particle of momentum $p$ and mass $m$ takes a specific time $t$ to cover a distance of length $L$:\n\\begin{equation}\nt=\\frac{L}{c}\\sqrt{\\frac{m^2c^2}{p^2}+1}\n\\end{equation}\n\nThe measurement of the time of flight of the particle in ALICE is achieved by the TOF detector (the detecting element is a so-called MRPC, which picks up signals caused by electron showers coming from the ionization of the MRPC gas). Knowing $t$, $p$ and $L$ we can get to the mass $m$, identifying our particle. And finding thus our velocity.\n\n(Of course to determine $t$ you have to know the start-time $t_0$, at the vertex point. But that's another -long- story)", "Beryllium oxide is a very good electrical insulator but at the same time the best non-metal (except diamond) thermal conductor.\n\nSo to summarize. In general, good thermal conductivity is correlated with good electrical conductivity, but it is not a strict relationship.\n\nFor example, there is the empirical Wiedemann-Franz law for metals which states that the ratio of thermal conductivity $k$ and electrical conductivity $\\sigma$ is proportional to temperature $T$.\n\n$$ \\frac{k}{\\sigma} =c_0T $$\n\nThe proportionality constant is $c_0$. But as the wiki article points out there are exceptions to this empirical relationship.", "Maxwell's Equations are usually written as:\n\n$$\\vec{\\nabla}\\cdot\\vec{E}=\\rho/\\epsilon_0,$$\n\n$$\\vec{\\nabla}\\cdot\\vec{B}=0,$$\n\n$$\\vec{\\nabla}\\times \\vec{E}=-\\frac{\\partial \\vec{B}}{\\partial t},$$\n\n$$\\vec{\\nabla}\\times \\vec{B}=\\mu_0\\left(\\vec{J}+\\epsilon_0\\frac{\\partial \\vec{E}}{\\partial t}\\right).$$\n\nBut the last two might be written more clearly as\n\n$$\\frac{\\partial \\vec{B}}{\\partial t}=-\\vec{\\nabla}\\times \\vec{E}$$ and\n\n$$\\frac{\\partial \\vec{E}}{\\partial t}=\\frac{1}{\\epsilon_0}\\left(-\\vec{J}+\\frac{1}{\\mu_0}\\vec{\\nabla}\\times \\vec{B}\\right).$$\n\nAnd then they clearly tell you how the fields change. And now we know what it takes for the fields to not change. An irrotational electric field causes the magnetic field to be steady in time. A $\\vec{B}$ field whose curl is exactly balanced by current, produces a steady electric field. But this doesn't tell us what the fields are. For instance if a particle was at rest its electrostatic field could be irrotational, and there could be no magnetic field (or current), so all the fields are steady. But there could also be a wave travelling through space that hasn't yet reached the particle (so the particle stays at rest ... for now, until the wave gets to it). The locations of the particles and their motions don't by themselves tell us the fields.\n\nFor a particle at rest, there is a natural and very simple solution, an inverse square electric field, unchanging, and zero magnetic field. To another observer moving at a constant velocity, they see that charged particle moving at constant velocity. So the fields they see, are a very natural solution (of the many possible) to the equations for a charged particle moving at constant velocity.\n\nThat's the most natural solution, and you can compute it. If you try to use the causal equations I listed above, it turns into a chicken and egg problem, the fields now depend on what they were in the past. Which is reasonable, but where do you stop?\n\nEdit for Sofia\n\nIn the frame where the charge is at rest at point $\\vec{p}$, the charge density could be $\\rho(\\vec{r},t)=Q\\delta^3(\\vec{r}-\\vec{p})$ and the current density definitely is $\\vec{J}(\\vec{r},t)=\\vec{0}$. (If the charge is extended, $\\rho(\\vec{r},t)$ could equal $\\frac{Q}{4\\pi R^3/3}$ if $\\left|\\vec{r}-\\vec{a}\\right|&lt;R$ and zero otherwise, as another example.) There are many possible electric fields, but $\\vec{E}(\\vec{r},t)=\\frac{Q}{4\\pi \\epsilon_0 \\left|\\vec{r}-\\vec{a}\\right|^3}\\left(\\vec{r}-\\vec{a}\\right)$ (outside teh charge) is a natural and simple one. And again there are many possible $\\vec{B}$ fields, but $\\vec{B}(\\vec{r},t)=\\vec{0}$ is a natural and simple one. There the Lorentz-transformed versions of these $\\vec{E}$, $\\vec{B}$, $\\rho$ and $\\vec{J}$ are obviously natural and simple solutions, though there are still many. Just as there are many possible solutions for electric fields when there is no charge present. For example, you could have a plane wave in any direction, with any magnitude, as well as countless other solutions.\n\nEdit for Agnivesh Singh\n\nWhat I assume is that the fields obey Maxwell. The first two Maxwell (about the divergence) are constraints. At any time, those need to hold. The other two (with the time derivatives) are about how the fields evolve (so very relevant to your question). What's nice about all four, is that if the constraints hold at one time, and the fields evolve by the evolution equations, then the constraints will continue to hold. What's unfortunate is twofold. One, that they are about the total fields, not about the field due to this or the field due to that. Second, they don't include boundary conditions, so there is no unique solution until you specify boundary conditions. \n\nIf I didn't assume the fields obey Maxwell, then actually it would violate conservation of energy and momentum. But that's because we assign an energy and momentum density to the fields such their flux through vacuum is conserved and that their flux at charges and currents is exactly the the force and power exerted by the fields on the charges through the Lorentz Force Law. So it's a bit cheating, but if you'd rather take the energy density and momentum density of fields as given, then we need the fields to satisfy Maxwell to conserve energy and momentum.\n\nI am more interested in the mechanism . My question was aimed to know how electric fields propagate ?\n\nThe fields evolve according the the equations I provided. If by propagation you mean energy and momentum transport, I think that's a different question (meaning a new question is needed, including the research stage, not an edit to this question). The biggest problem is again that there is no unique solution to Maxwell, even with no charges, there are many possible fields. Throw in a charge and there are again still many possible fields, and the equations don't specify a field as being due to a charge, they are just about the total field due to everything.\n\nThere are other difficulties to propagation. If you moved your charge to make a large field nearby and then watched that large deviation propagated, it literally is a source free field (like radiation) and so even if it propagates at $c$, you might object because you wanted to know if fields due to charges propagate at $c$. For that you'd have to trace the disturbance all the way back to the charge. And if your charge is a point charge, the fields themselves blow up there, so now you have infinities to deal with. You can try to make that work, but how convincing is it going to be in the end? And if you have an extended charge, then my example of a simple and natural field (due to the charge) isn't really convincing either since it won't look like a sphere in all frames. If it was a sphere in it's own rest frame it will look pancake like in a moving frame. If it is a sphere in the moving frame, it won't look like a sphere in it's own rest frame. You can try a fluid model, but energy and momentum conservation for a nonpoint charge actually fail unless you have something that holds the extended charge together, charged fluids actually physically spread out.\n\nThere is also a completely different way to see causality, which is to use Jefimenko's Equations:\n\n$$ \\vec{E}(\\vec{P},t)=\\iiint \\frac{\\left(c^2\\rho(\\vec{r},t_r)+c|\\vec{P}-\\vec{r}|\\dot{\\rho}(\\vec{r},t_r)\\right)(\\vec{P}-\\vec{r})-|\\vec{P}-\\vec{r}|^2\\dot{\\vec{J}}(\\vec{r},t_r)}{c^2|\\vec{P}-\\vec{r}|^34\\pi\\epsilon_0}d^3\\tau$$\n$$ \\vec{B}(\\vec{P},t)=\\frac{\\mu_0}{4\\pi}\\iiint \\frac{\\left(c\\vec{J}(\\vec{r},t_r)+|\\vec{P}-\\vec{r}|\\dot{\\vec{J}}(\\vec{r},t_r)\\right)\\times (\\vec{P}-\\vec{r})}{c|\\vec{P}-\\vec{r}|^3}d^3\\tau.$$\n\nHowever if you took those as a given, instead of Maxwell, you not only lose some solutions to Maxwell (like a primordial radiation field) but it also begs the question since the fields are explicitly calculated from the charge and currents in the past (at $t_r$) where $t_r=t-\\frac{1}{c}\\left|\\vec{P}-\\vec{r}\\right|$.\n\nI'm not expecting anything I wrote to make you completely happy. But maybe learning these things allow you to ask (or find and understand) new and more detailed questions to address your concerns. So hopefully you learned as much as possible based on how you phrased your question.", "The expectation value of the electric field on a Fock's state is zero. It is a well known result which can be verified by taking into account that the electric field is a linear combination of a photon creation and a photon annihilation operators. But the expectation value of both operators is zero on any eigenstate of the number operator. In oder to compare quantum description of the field with the classical fields, one has to move to states which do not correspond to a fixed number of photons.", "I'm looking for a thin sheet of material insulator that is fireproof and arc flash proof that you can put over wood\n\n\nMica\n\n\n These sheets are chemically inert, dielectric, elastic, flexible, hydrophilic, insulating, lightweight, platy, reflective, refractive, resilient, and range in opacity from transparent to opaque. Mica is stable when exposed to electricity, light, moisture, and extreme temperatures. It has superior electrical properties as an insulator and as a dielectric, and can support an electrostatic field while dissipating minimal energy in the form of heat;\n\n\nBut it won't be appropriate for lining a wooden cupboard containing a dangerous main breaker box. Adding bodges over other bodges never turns a bodge into anything sane. The right solution for that is to tear everything out and rebuild that part of the installation to code.", "Is such an orbit even possible?\n\nTL;DR:\nIf the Sun wasn't around, yes, such an orbit is possible. But since the Sun is around, such an orbit is impossible.\n\nAbout the name of the orbit\nQuoting from Emily Lakdawalla, who has a bit more gravitas than some random file blogger,\n\nWhat is a geostationary orbit like at Mars? I have to pause here for a brief discussion of semantics. The authors of this paper discuss &quot;areostationary&quot; for Mars orbits as opposed to &quot;geostationary&quot; for Earth, and Wikipedia uses the same convention, but I'm not a big fan of this sort of nomenclatural hair-splitting. You'd have to talk about &quot;hermestationary&quot; for Mercury, &quot;cronostationary&quot; for Saturn, &quot;selenostationary&quot; for the Moon, and so on. It gets tiresome. And while a very few people use &quot;areology&quot; to name the study of rocks on Mars and &quot;selenology&quot; to talk about rocks on the Moon, nearly everybody calls it all &quot;geology&quot; and a person who studies all that stuff a &quot;planetary geologist.&quot; So I'm going to stick with calling it a &quot;Martian geostationary orbit.&quot;\n\nI'll call the subject of this question a Venus geostationary orbit.\nThe orbit's period and semi major axis length\n\nA geosynchronous orbit has a period of 24 hours.\n\nAn Earth geosynchronous orbit has a period a bit less than 24 hours. In particular, geosynchronous satellites orbit the Earth once per sidereal day rather than once per mean solar day. The length of a Venus sidereal day is 243 days and 26 minutes, or 20996760 seconds.\nThe standard gravitational parameter for Venus is $3.24858592\\times10^{14}\\, \\mathrm{m}^3/\\mathrm{s}^2$. Via Kepler's third law, the semi-major axis length of a Venus geosynchronous orbit is\n$$a = \\left(\\mu\\left(\\frac T{2\\pi}\\right)^2\\right)^{1/3}$$\nor 1.53655 million kilometers.\nIs such an orbit even possible?\nTwo widely used metrics for determining whether an orbit is possible are the Laplace sphere of influence and the Hill sphere. The Laplace sphere of influence approximates the distance at which the perturbing gravitational acceleration toward some other body (the Sun in this case) is equal to the gravitational acceleration toward the primary body (Venus in this case). The Hill sphere is a sphere whose radius is approximately the distance to the L1 and L2 Lagrange points. Arguing which of the two is correct is hair-splitting; they are both approximations.\nThe radius of the Laplace sphere of influence is given by $r_L = R\\left(\\frac m M\\right)^{2/5}$ while the radius of the Hill sphere is given by $r_H = R \\left(\\frac m{3M}\\right)^{1/3}$, where $R$ is the distance between the primary body and the third body, $m$ is the mass of the primary body, and $M$ is the mass of the third body. Plugging in the semi major axis length of the orbit of Venus about the Sun and the masses of Venus and the Sun yields radii of 0.616 million kilometers and 1.008 million kilometers for the radius of Venus's Laplace sphere of influence and Venus's Hill sphere.\nBoth the Laplace sphere of influence and Hill sphere are a bit generous with regard to stability. An orbit at greater than the Hill sphere radius is definitely not stable. Since a Venus geosynchronous orbit is more than 3/2 of the Hill sphere radius, such an orbit is not possible.", "Here, it is useful to treat the planet as a black body. The Stefan-Boltzmann law states that a black body will have a luminosity $L$ directly related to its temperature $T$ and radius $R$:\n$$L=4 \\pi R^2 \\sigma T^4$$\nwhere $\\sigma$ is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant. We have to be careful picking $R$ and $T$, though, because the atmosphere and climate have to be considered. I would suggest using the mean radius of Earth and the mean temperature of Earth - not just the surface temperature.\n\nThis shows us that luminosity is a function of temperature. Luminosity is expressed in units of watts per second, meaning that it is a energy over time:\n$$L=\\frac{U}{t}$$\nThe $U$ here is the thermal energy of the Earth. Now you can write time as a function of temperature:\n$$t=\\frac{U}{4 \\pi R^2 \\sigma T^4}$$\nand pick the temperature you want.\n\nThere are other corrections you have to make, though - for example, taking the atmosphere into account, as well as the fact that the Dyson Sphere, too, will radiate.", "Axons are used to transfer electrical signals from Point A to Point B.\nDendrites are for receiving electrical signals from different neuron cells via their respective Axons.\n\nThere are mainly two different types of Axons, insulated and non-insulated.\n\nInsulated Axons allows extremely high velocity of electrical signals to propagate from Point A to Point B. Please note that insulated axons are not entirely insulated, the axons are only insulated at every given interval for a certain length (in measurement of distance). This forces the electrical signal to jump from one gap to another gap between insulation and result in extreme speed of electrical signal propagation down the axon.\n\nNon-insulated axons still allow high velocity of electrical signal propagation but it is very much slower as compared to insulated axons. This is why when you have a stomach ache, its a slow and dull pain due to non-insulated axons which gives you prolonged pain signal. However, if you accidentally knock into a sharp object, you receive an instant sharp pain for a split second for you to react at that instant (Its a biological life saving function) due to insulated axons that gives you extreme speed of pain signal propagation.\n\nOn the other hand, dendrites are not built for signal transmitting but for signal receiving. Dendrites comes in different configurations, one such examples are your color sensory cells in your retina.\n\nThis is why dendrites are short while axons are long. They are configured for different purpose. Just a bit more information, electrical signal in biofluid are actually ionic current. Ionic current are different from electron current, the charge carrier are different. Lastly, electrical signal are generated due to electrochemical gradient on cellular level. When a certain membrane potential threshold is reached, action potential will be triggered and they resulted in the firing of electrical signal down the axons.\n\nI hope you find these useful.\n\nBest Regards\n\nPrice", "I've tried to figure this out as well, but I don't think there is a solution that is just as performant as tracing one sphere. Basically you would want to cast one ray to hit a infinite set of repeating spheres with no marching iteration. That would be awesome but is not possible: Let me explain.\n\n \n\nRay-tracing is basically finding the analytical solution to this equation:\n$$\nf(\\vec{r(t)}) = 0 \\ for \\ t\n$$\n\nWhere $f(\\vec{p})$ is the implicit surface function (which gives the distance the given point $\\vec{p}$ is from the surface) and $\\vec{r(t)}$ is the parametric ray equation ($\\vec{r(t)} = \\vec{origin} + \\vec{direction}*t$). $t$ would represent the distance along the ray the intersection happens.\n\nIn order to ray-trace domain manipulations (like repeating space), these domain manipulations need to be present in the implicit surface function $f(\\vec{p})$ while finding an analytical solution. Let's take a 3D repeating sphere for instance.\n$$\nf'(\\vec{p}) = \\|\\vec{p}\\bmod \\vec{d}\\| - r\n$$\n(where $\\vec{d}$ is a constant representing the grid size and $r$ is the radius)\n\nIn order to solve $f'(\\vec{r(t)}) = 0$ for $t$ we would need the inverse of the modulo operator which doesn't really exist : http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/51619.html. That means there is no analytical solution to this equation, but there is a numerical one. Hence Ray-marching.\n\n \n\nThis is true for a lot of cool distance functions you see on shadertoy.com, the analytical solution does not exist for these surfaces so you cannot ray-trace.", "I'm not going to post proper working code here just giving you a guideline. There might be an easier way but what I did back in my days was to create a sphere using Triangle Strips. There is an icosahedron approach as well but I haven't looked into that.\n\nSo first of all look up on GL_TRIANGLE_STRIPS and how they work. Secondly you need to look up on Spherical coordinates and how to convert them to Cartesian Coordinates.\n\nA brief overview is that Spherical coordinates have parameters (radius, zenith, azimuth). Radius is pretty much self explanatory. Zenith angle is the inclination angle from the pole of the sphere (lines of longitude) While the Azimuth angle runs along the latitude. Zenith runs from 0-PI (assuming 0 starts from 1 pole and PI is the second pole) or -PI/2 - PI/2 (assuming the extreme at both poles and 0 is the center) and Azimuth from 0-2PI (all the way around the sphere).\n\nNow after that you can think of the sphere forming up from concentric Rings. At each fraction of the Zenith angle there is ring that runs around the sphere (the latitude lines). Then you create triangle strips between those rings to fill the sphere up.\n\nSo basically you want something like,\n\nzenith = azimuth = 0\nring_increment = PI/num_rings;\nsector_inrement = 2PI/num_sectors;\n\nfor(i=0; i &lt; PI; i+= ring_increment)\n{\n for(j=0; j &lt; 2PI; j+= sector_increment)\n {\n vertex_list.add(convertToCartesianCoord(radius, zenith, azimuth))\n zenith += ring_increment\n vertex_list.add(convertToCartesianCoord(radius, zenith, azimuth))\n zenith -= ring_increment\n }\n}\n\n\nThe more the number of rings and the number of sectors the smoother the sphere will be.", "Измените свой код, как показано ниже.\nТреугольники должны быть position: absolute и transform-origin должны быть применены к основному элементу.\nТакже обратите внимание на использование translate с теми же значениями, что и у transform-origin.\n\r\n\r\nbody {\n background-color: #312a50;\n margin: 0;\n}\n\n.main {\n height: 100vh;\n display: flex;\n align-items: center;\n justify-content: center;\n position: relative;\n overflow:hidden;\n}\nimg {\n border-radius:50%;\n}\n.t1 {\n --t: 10px; /* Толщина */\n --c: black; /* Цвет */\n position: absolute;\n top: 50%;\n left: 50%;\n width: 300px;\n border: var(--t) solid transparent;\n border-bottom-color: var(--c);\n background: \n /*Левая сторона */\n linear-gradient(to bottom left, transparent 49.5%, var(--c) 50% calc(50% + var(--t)), transparent calc(50% + var(--t) + 1px)) right, \n /* Правая сторона */\n linear-gradient(to bottom right, transparent 49.5%, var(--c) 50% calc(50% + var(--t)), transparent calc(50% + var(--t) + 1px)) left;\n background-size: 50% 100%;\n background-origin: border-box;\n background-repeat: no-repeat;\n transform-origin: 50% 66%;\n animation: rotating var(--d, 15s) linear infinite;\n transform: translate(-50%, -66%) rotate(0deg);\n}\n\n.t1:before {\n content: \"\";\n display: block;\n padding-top: 86.6%;\n}\n\n@keyframes rotating {\n to {\n transform: translate(-50%, -66%) rotate(360deg);\n }\n}\r\n&lt;div class=\"main\"&gt;\n &lt;img src=\"https://i.picsum.photos/id/1074/150/150.jpg\"&gt;\n &lt;div class=\"t1 \"style=\"--t: 8px;--c: #43b2ed;\"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;\n &lt;div class=\"t1\" style=\"--d:10s;--t: 2px;--c: #4898f3;\"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;\n &lt;div class=\"t1\" style=\"--d:8s;--t: 5px;--c: #dd2883;\"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;\n&lt;/div&gt;\r\n\r\n\r\n\nСвободный перевод ответа от участника @Temani Afif.", "The earliest occurence Milnor mentions in his survey Differential Topology Forty-six Years Later is Whitehead's paper On the Homotopy Groups of Spheres and Rotation Groups (1942). If $J_n$ is the image of the stable Whitehead homomorphism from the $n$th stable homotopy group of rotation groups to the $n$th stable homotopy group of spheres, then $J_n$ is cyclic of order $B_k/4k$ for $n=4k-1$. Whitehead's paper is the source for the Milnor-Stasheff's appendix, and the starting point of Milnor's, Brumfiel's, Kervaire's, Browder's, etc. 1950-1960s results on homotopy groups of spheres, that was the boom age of the subject. Their work eventually led to computing the number of exotic spheres, homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to the standard Euclidean sphere. The discovery of exotic spheres in 1956 is what earned Milnor his Fields medal in 1962. By the way, here is a video of Milnor delivering Hedrik lecture on exotic spheres back in 1965!\n\nOn Bernoulli numbers in general see Math Overflow thread Why do Bernoulli numbers arise everywhere? Sums of powers of integers can be expressed in their terms, as Faulhaber discovered for first 17 powers in 1631, before Bernoulli, and their generating function is $t/(e^t-1)=\\sum_{n=0}^{\\infty}\\frac{B_n\\;t^n}{n!}$. According to Henry Cohn \"the reason why $t/(e^t-1)$ is a natural generating function to consider is that we sometimes want to invert $e^t-1$ (the factor of t is just to make it holomorphic), and the most important reason I know of to invert it is that we want to invert $\\Delta=e^D-1$\", where $D$ is the derivative and $\\Delta$ is the finite difference. But this does not quite explain their appearance in topology.", "I solved this problem. I added an extra sphere - test. Although the method has errors, but it solves my problem completely. Since this is an editor, it is appropriate here. But there will be a collision in the game, and there will be no such need there. The essence of the method is as follows:\n\nint testBSphereInFrustum(float3 p0, float3 cen) // p0 - coord BBox model, cen - center BBox model\n{\n float radius = length(p0 - cen); // get radiuse sphere around the model\n float sCenterToPlaneNearCenter = length((float3)centerNear - cen); // get length center BBox model and center near plane frustum\n int res = sCenterToPlaneNearCenter &lt;= radius ? 1 : 0;\n return res; // return result\n}\n\n\nI measure the radius of the sphere around the model and the distance from the center of the model to the center near the plane of the frustum. If the radius is less than or equal to - then the test is passed.", "Creating a successful, growing and living community isn't easy. You need endurance, patience and motivation. It's not reprehensible if you have a personal benefit - even a monetary one - from running a community. You take responsibility for it and you put a lot of time and work into it so why shouldn`t you have a benefit from it?", "Let's put a more precise description to the other answers, particularly Neil's.\n\nFirst, note that there is a Gauss Law for static gravitational fields, owing to the inverse square nature of the static gravitational attraction. See this answer here and note that the argument it makes uses only the inverse square dependence. (Actually, the Gauss law also holds for dynamic gravitational fields in the approximation to General Relativity called gravitoelectromagnetism, but that is another story).\n\nSo now we apply the integral form of Gauss's law to the Earth, whose mass distribution is very nearly perfectly axisymmetric, i.e. depends on the distance $r$ from the Earth's centre. Thus, by symmetry and Gauss's law, we know that the gravitational field at a distance $r$ from the centre is the same as that arising from a point mass whose mass equals the total mass enclosed within a sphere of radius $r$. Thus if the density as a function of radius $r$ is $\\rho(r)$ we have:\n\n$$g(r) = 4\\,\\pi\\,\\int_0^r \\,u^2 \\,\\rho(u)\\,\\mathrm{d} u\\,\\frac{G}{r^2}$$\n\nwhere the field is of course always directed towards the Earth's centre.\n\nNow the form of $\\rho(r)$ is highly nontrivial, being determined by the different materials at different depths and the response of that material to pressure as described by e.g. the Adams-Williamson Equation.\n\nBut if we idealise the Earth so that $\\rho(r) = \\rho_0$ we get:\n\n$$g(r) = \\frac{4}{3}\\pi\\,G\\,\\rho_0\\,r$$\n\nso that if we, like Alice, dropped through an ideal diametrical tunnel through the Earth we would undergo simple harmonic motion with:\n\n$$\\ddot{r} = - \\frac{4}{3}\\pi\\,G\\,\\rho_0\\,r$$\n\nor, in terms of Earth radius $R_\\oplus$ and the value of $g_\\oplus= 9.81{\\rm m s^{-2}}$ at the Earth's surface:\n\n$$\\ddot{r} = - g_\\oplus\\frac{r}{R_\\oplus}$$\n\nso that our period is:\n\n$$T = 2\\pi\\sqrt{\\frac{R_\\oplus}{g_\\oplus}} \\approx 5\\,075{\\rm s}$$\n\nand it would take us about 21 minutes to fall to the centre of the Earth, whence we would keep going to the other side, and then fall back and forth sinusoidally with time.", "Why does this have an influence on the standing wave?\n\n\nAlthough there is no electrical connection between the folded sections at DC, that analysis neglects effects that are relevant at RF. Imagine a voltage step initiated at the feedpoint. It's important to consider not just the voltage at some point on the wire, but the fields around the wire.\n\nLet's assume this is a dipole: as a positive voltage step is propagating down one half, a negative voltage step is propagating down the other half. Between these halves is a changing electrical field.\n\nFurthermore, this voltage step will be accompanied with some change to current as well, and associated with this current is a magnetic field around the wire.\n\nWhen the wavefront in the field reaches the folded section, the folded back section of the antenna isn't really \"isolated\" from the rest of the antenna. Indeed, the insulation provides no DC connectivity between the sections, but each wire in the folded section is within these electric and magnetic fields. Through laws like Faraday's law of induction, and more generally Maxwell's equations, these fields mean the components of the folded section interact.\n\nFor a simpler case, consider a capacitor. A capacitor is two plates, separated by an insulator. At DC they are isolated, but in any circuit where current or voltage is changing, the interaction of the plates through the electric field becomes relevant.\n\n\n Is the result equivalent to cropping a section of the same length? Can we now just remove the excessive part and solder the wire directly and get the same result?\n\n\nNot exactly. Because the wires in the folded section are near each other and thus tightly coupled through their mutual electric and magnetic fields, the wavefront can just propagate over the folded section at the speed of light.\n\nHowever, that folded section has a different impedance than a plain wire. You might consider each pair of wires a transmission line, which might be open on one end, or shorted. In other words, a stub. The impedance of these stubs might be negligible, depending on the particular folding. But in no case is it strictly correct to say simply cropping the antenna is equivalent.\n\n\n Are there any disadvantages of folding instead of cropping, e.g. a lower radiation efficiency?\n\n\nIt's very difficult to say. You might look at loading coils and electrically shortened antennas for a more common case where this is a concern. As a very blunt guess, I'd say if the amount of folding is small relative to the overall size of the antenna, losses will be negligible.", "There is another alternative. If the lambdas are big, I would suggest that you extract one or more methods. Something like this:\n\nvar myList = myThings.Where(MatchesTheCondition).ToList();\n\nprivate bool MatchesTheCondition(SomeObject o) {\n return o.ID == someID &amp;&amp; o.Name == someName &amp;&amp; IsAdd || ... ;\n}\n\n\nOf course, your method shouldn´t be named \"MatchesTheCondition\" ;)", "It seems your question assumes that Earth magnetic field is caused by natural magnets inside the Earth. Instead, the magnetic field comes from the movement of charged particles.\nAny electrical charged particle in movement generates a magnetic field (see Biot-Savart law and Ampere law), hence, thanks to the movement of particles in a liquid mantle we have a magnetic field. Obviously, particles must have electrical charge, which is more common in metals.\nIf mantle turns solid, movement is gone, and the magnetic field reduces its strengh.", "$\\mu_p$ in general is the electric Ramond-Ramond charge associated to a p-brane that is coupled electrically to a (p+1)-form gauge field $C_{p+1}$. You can think of it roughly as a generalisation of electric charge to p-dimensional objects. Via Gauss' law, it is given by\n$$\n\\mu_p=\\int_{\\mathbb S^{D-p-2}}\\star\\ \\mathrm dC_{p+1}\n$$\nwhere the integral denotes the flux over a sphere enclosing the p-brane and $D$ is the number of dimensions of the theory. In the context of string theory, $\\mu_p$ is dimensionless, and I also note that D-brane charges in type II string theory are famously classified by K-theory.", "Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko has a mass of about 9.982 gigatonnes, a semimajor axis of 3.4630 AU, and an eccentricity of 0.64102. If it was a point mass, it's Hill sphere would be about 221 km. The Hill sphere is an approximation regarding the volume within which orbits are stable. A more reasonable limit is 1/3 to 1/2 the Hill sphere radius, or 74 to 110 km. I'll use 100 km as a nice round number.\n\n67P is anything but a point mass. The highly non-spherical nature of its gravitational field will definitely be felt at ~100 km from the center of mass. This would make the issues with lunar mascons tiny in comparison.\n\nPlus it's a comet. It emits gases and sometimes boulders when it is close to perihelion. The odds of not being plumed or hit while the comet is near perihelion are astronomically low. Even if a body orbiting the comet isn't plumed or hit by a boulder, the non-gravitational forces on the comet itself will almost certainly be enough to make any orbit about the comet unstable." ]

[ "Tommy has no moneyed relatives" ]

[ "Tommy remembered he had a rich great aunt", "Slim shook his head no.", "Lincoln shook his head no.", "White shook his head in disbelief.", "Jon shook his head no.", "White shook his head no.", "Adrin shook his head no.", "He shook his head and stood up.", "The gambler shook his head at the cupboard.", "However, the doctor still shook his head.", "I shook my head no.", "Jon shook his head and refused to speak.", "The man shook his head, and Hanson kept standing there.", "Steven shook his head without replying.", "Cynthia shook her head.", "The man shook his head with a heavy, worried expression.", "Derry shook her head.", "Jon shook his head and said he was leaving.", "She frowned and shook her head.", "They shook their heads side to side fiercely.", "Drew shook his head no. This is no good about fighting.", "The mercenary shook his head after he turned to the skinny man.", "The wondered as she shook her head.", "Poirot shook his head, \"The distribution was not fair at all.\"", "They shook their head asking if they had found the person.", "Both of the ladies shook their heads at me.", "Tommy smiled to himself while conceptualising his holiday plans in his head.", "Mrs. Vandemeyer shook her head and motioned to the exit.", "Don Cazar shook his head, drawing his pistol out from his belt.", "a rich man is on his yacht", "The rich have a head start when it comes to saving.", "Tommy began daydreaming as he scratched his head." ]

[ "Zip Code 94560 - Newark CA California, USA - Alameda County Home | Products | Learn About ZIP Codes | Find a Post Office | Search | Contact | FAQs newark, ca 94560" ]

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The Village of Newark is in the south part of the Town of Arcadia and is in the south of Wayne County.", "NEWARK, TX. NEWARK, TEXAS. Newark is on Farm Road 718 two miles east of Eagle Mountain Lake and one mile north of the Tarrant county line in extreme southeast Wise County. Settlement began in the mid-1850s, when Benjamin B. Haney built a home near the waters of Burrett Creek.", "Local info of Newark in New Castle county. Newark has 32,278 residents in 2010-2014, ranked #3 in Delaware state cities. Also Newark income, school, races, crime, weather, environment and other info / rankings.", "Newark, Ohio. Newark is the county seat of Licking County. It is located approximately thirty-five miles east of Columbus. Samuel Elliott and Samuel Parr built the first houses -- log cabins -- in the community in 1802. By 1804, approximately twenty families lived in Newark.", "Newark Valley, New York. For other uses, see Newark Valley (disambiguation). Newark Valley is a town in Tioga County, New York, United States. The population was 3,946 at the 2010 census. The town is named after the city of Newark, New Jersey. The Town of Newark Valley contains a village also named Newark Valley.", "Crime Index for in Newark, CA view crime statistics report for Newark view report *100 is national avg. Greater than 100 means higher crime, lower means less crime. Total Crime Index", "People Also Viewed. 1 Roadnet Logistics Inc 37338 Fowler St, Newark, CA. 2 R B High Tech Transport Inc 38503 Cherry St Ste A, Newark, CA. 3 Oak Harbor Freight Lines (1) 6700 Smith Ave, Newark, CA. Transportation Group Inc Mccollisters 7091 Central Ave, Newark, 1 CA. My Cafe 5475 Thornton Ave, Newark, CA.", "Newark ZIP Code. Newark NJ ZIP Code. Newark city is located in New Jersey State, Essex County and has a unique zip code assigned by the US Postal Service Office. 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Serving more than 33 million passengers each year, this airport offers domestic and international flights from Newark.", "Newark ZIP Code. Newark NJ ZIP Code. Newark city is located in New Jersey State, Essex County and has a unique zip code assigned by the US Postal Service Office. Newark Area Code is 973/201/862/908/732/551 and Time Zone is Eastern (GMT -05:00).", "East Newark, New Jersey. (Redirected from East Newark Borough, New Jersey) East Newark is a borough in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. It's a suburb of the nearby city of Newark. The Borough of East Newark was established on July 3, 1895, from portions of Kearny lying between the Erie Railroad's Newark Branch right of way and Harrison, based on the results of a referendum held the previous day.", "Silicon Valley is defined by the institute as Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, plus the the cities of Fremont, Union City and Newark in Alameda County and Scotts Valley in Santa Cruz County.", "Newark Liberty International Airport is a major commercial airport located in the southeast section of the county in Newark and Elizabeth in Union County. It is one of the New York Metropolitan airports operated by Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.", "Newark, Delaware. Tweet. Introduction to Newark, Delaware. The Delaware city of Newark is located in New Castle County, 14 miles southwest of Wilmington, 44 miles southwest of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and 57 miles northeast of Baltimore, Maryland. 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Looking for rural homes and land for sale in Newark, Kendall County, Illinois? LandWatch.com has thousands of rural properties in Newark, Kendall County, Illinois, including hunting & fishing properties, cabins, Land for sale and land auctions. Choose from small acreage lots to massive 500+ acre estates.", "Licking County Genealogical Society. A Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society. 101 West Main Street, Newark, OH 43055-5054. (located on the 2nd Floor of the Licking County Library, main library, downtown Newark, of the Licking County Library.) Phone: (740) 349-5510.", "The History of Newark California. The roots of our community are 150 years old. By California's statehood in 1850, landings along the Bay in the vicinity of today's City of Newark had already begun to appear. In 1853, Mayhew's Landing included warehouses for wheat, hay, and coal.", "Zip Code 94560, Newark, CA. Get all this data for every U.S. ZIP Code in 1 easy to use database. Map the boundaries of this ZIP Code and others on any map platform.", "Fremont ( /friːmɒnt/) is a city in Alameda County, California. It was incorporated on January 23, 1956, from the merger of five smaller communities: Centerville, Niles, Irvington, Mission San Jose, and Warm Springs. The city is named after John Charles Frémont, the Great Pathfinder..", "Recent posts about Newark, California on our local forum with over 2,000,000 registered users. Newark is mentioned 1,425 times on our forum: Latest news from Newark, CA collected exclusively by city-data.com from local newspapers, TV, and radio stations. Ancestries: German (2.9%), Portuguese (2.8%), Irish (2.4%), Italian (2.0%), American (1.3%). Current Local Time: PST time zone. Elevation: 16 feet.", "Newark, IL Other Information. 1 Located in KENDALL County, Illinois. 2 Newark, IL is also known as: 3 HELMAR, IL. LISBON, 1 IL. NETTLECREEK, IL.", "Surrounding Andrus Island, CA; Surrounding Bouldin Island, CA; Surrounding Brannan Island, CA; Surrounding Contra Costa County, CA; Surrounding Solano County, CA; Surrounding Yolo County, CA; Surrounding Sacramento County, CA; Surrounding San Joaquin County, CA; California; view more", "Surrounding 94523, CA; Surrounding Pleasant Hill, CA; Concord, CA; Surrounding 94549, CA; Surrounding Concord, CA; Surrounding 94553, CA; Surrounding Martinez, CA; Surrounding Briones, CA; Surrounding Pacheco, CA; Contra Costa County, CA; Surrounding Contra Costa County, CA; Surrounding Alameda County, CA; Surrounding Solano County, CA", "A Map Showing the Boundaries of Yolo County, CA. Permalink: https://www.maptechnica.com/county-map/Yolo/CA/06113. GeoFacts for Yolo County, CA. Yolo County, CA, is a county located in the western part of California near the city of Davis. The following Counties are next to Yolo County, CA: Sacramento is 34.3 miles southeast of Yolo County, CA. Solano is 29.1 miles south of Yolo County, CA. Napa is 26.3 miles southwest of Yolo County, CA." ]

[ "Installation & Maintenance Costs. Costs are varied depending on the project, but on average the cost for installing a living wall system, complete with plants, is $95 - $165 per sq ft. Once installed living walls require on-going maintenance regularly to stay healthy and vibrant. Vertical Gardens vs. Green Facades." ]

[ "Create an Interior Vertical Garden With Moss Tiles. October 12, 2011 by Robin Plaskoff Horton. This indoor garden doesn’t require natural light, in fact it doesn’t like direct sunlight, doesn’t need watering, fertilizing, or pruning, and is ready to install on any surface. MossTile, from Benetti Stone, is a maintenance-free vertical garden.", "1 A standard sized bay window costs around $2,000 to $4,000 installed. 2 Odd sized or custom designed bay windows could cost $5,000 to $10,000. 3 A basement window costs approximately $100 to $500 installed. 4 A garden window costs an average of $1,000 to $2,000 and some garden windows could cost up to $4,000. A standard sized bay window costs around $2,000 to $4,000 installed. 2 Odd sized or custom designed bay windows could cost $5,000 to $10,000. 3 A basement window costs approximately $100 to $500 installed. 4 A garden window costs an average of $1,000 to $2,000 and some garden windows could cost up to $4,000.", "1 Replacing a standard-sized window will cost, on average, $200 to $400 installed. 2 You can get cheap vinyl windows for as little as $100 and high end windows or a custom window could cost up to $1,000 apiece installed. A basement window costs approximately $100 to $500 installed. 2 A garden window costs an average of $1,000 to $2,000 and some garden windows could cost up to $4,000.", "The cost to install a window can vary dramatically depending on the brand, materials and local labor costs. Replacing a standard-sized window will cost, on average, $200 to $400 installed. A standard sized bay window costs around $2,000 to $4,000 installed. A basement window costs approximately $100 to $500 installed. A garden window costs an average of $1,000 to $2,000 and some garden windows could cost up to $4,000. Storm windows are mounted on a window, either externally or internally. They are used in cold weather climates to improve a window's energy efficiency.", "1 A basement window costs approximately $100 to $500 installed. 2 A garden window costs an average of $1,000 to $2,000 and some garden windows could cost up to $4,000.3 Storm windows are mounted on a window, either externally or internally.4 They are used in cold weather climates to improve a window’s energy efficiency. A basement window costs approximately $100 to $500 installed. 2 A garden window costs an average of $1,000 to $2,000 and some garden windows could cost up to $4,000.", "However, it is certainly possible for individuals to install vertical blinds on their own. Installing by a professional, however, will run anywhere from $40 per hour and upwards, with the average labor cost for a project coming to over $500 for an entire home.owever, it is certainly possible for individuals to install vertical blinds on their own. Installing by a professional, however, will run anywhere from $40 per hour and upwards, with the average labor cost for a project coming to over $500 for an entire home.", "The easiest DIY vertical garden for your home. Our modular vertical garden system will grow anything that you could in a normal planter box. organic herbs and vegetables, thrive in our living walls.he easiest DIY vertical garden for your home. Our modular vertical garden system will grow anything that you could in a normal planter box. organic herbs and vegetables, thrive in our living walls.", "In addition, include the cost of installation in your landscape edging plans. The installation cost of different materials varies, as does the ease of doing the installation yourself. Some materials require professional installation or special tools to get the desired look. wide range of materials is suitable for landscape edging. The material you choose should be based on function, style, and cost. Lawn & Garden Divider: As a divider between the lawn and garden bed, edging can be as simple as a trenched edge or a V-shape ditch.", "1 Installation disruption-It is recommended to combine the installation with other building work or as part of new developments as installation requires significant excavation and disruption. 2 Costs – Typically GSHP systems cost approximately £800 for horizontal loop and £1250 for vertical loops per kW of rated capacity.", "Contractor: Local. The contractor removed old concrete and trees in the 440 sqft patio, then installed the brick pavers (for 330 sqft), constructed garden walls (1 ft high), and a small brick step to the doorwall. The removal cost is about $900, and the remaining $2,650 is the cost for paver, garden walls and a step.The patio design includes some curves, while the majority of the area was paved with the Herringbone pattern.ontractor: Local. The contractor removed old concrete and trees in the 440 sqft patio, then installed the brick pavers (for 330 sqft), constructed garden walls (1 ft high), and a small brick step to the doorwall. The removal cost is about $900, and the remaining $2,650 is the cost for paver, garden walls and a step.", "Directional Drilling is more professionally known as “Horizontal Directional Drilling” or HDD. As opposed to drilling natural gas or oil wells (drilling vertically), Directional Drilling is used for the installation of various kinds of underground utilities.When traditional excavation is not possible or cost effective, Directional Drilling is instituted.s opposed to drilling natural gas or oil wells (drilling vertically), Directional Drilling is used for the installation of various kinds of underground utilities. When traditional excavation is not possible or cost effective, Directional Drilling is instituted.", "Sack Gardening. Sack gardening is a simple way to integrate vertical gardening into your life, especially if you have limited space. The sack has strategically placed holes where seedlings are planted in traditional soil. The sack is watered as needed with little water waste.ack gardening is a simple way to integrate vertical gardening into your life, especially if you have limited space. The sack has strategically placed holes where seedlings are planted in traditional soil.", "LIke a regular living wall, you can use a wide variety of plants, like flowers, greenery, herbs, food plants, etc. Architek provides design assistance, installation and maintenance for two types of vertical garden systems, plus a living retaining wall system.", "Building a bottle tower for container gardening. Plastic bottles stacked into a bottle tower can be recycled to set up a vertical kitchen garden at home. The bottle towers are used for container gardening of vegetables and herbs.How to build such a tower is shown in different steps.uilding a bottle tower for container gardening. Plastic bottles stacked into a bottle tower can be recycled to set up a vertical kitchen garden at home. The bottle towers are used for container gardening of vegetables and herbs.", "Costs will vary widely. The Wall - for a cast in place (concrete) retaining wall 1 with a vertical face, installed on no more than a 33 degree slope with a level embankment, at 6' high (including excavation and backfill) the cost will be $12,800.", "Vertical growing allows almost any gardener to find a space for melons. There are many advantages of going vertical with your melon vines. Space is the most obvious. What may have engulfed a 10 to 20 foot wide swath through the garden can be trellised to take up no more than a 3 foot wide footprint of garden space.", "Everything you need to know to plant in containers, leverage vertical gardens, and more. 1 Main. 2 Containers. 3 Boxes. Small Gardens. Garden 1 Anywhere. Edibles.", "1 Hiring a handyman, gardener or landscape designer to install a gravel walkway can cost $300 -$2,000 or more, depending on materials, local rates and the complexity of the layout.", "Grow Good Health. Tower Garden® simplifies traditional gardening, using a unique vertical garden system that makes it easy to grow your own fresh fruits and vegetables at home.Healthier Grow your own nutritious, great-tasting vegetables, fruits, and herbs at home.row Good Health. Tower Garden® simplifies traditional gardening, using a unique vertical garden system that makes it easy to grow your own fresh fruits and vegetables at home.", "1 With do-it-yourself installation, a central vacuum system for an average home might cost $500-$1,000 or more, depending on the size and brand of the vacuum unit and the number of inlets. 2 Better Homes & Gardens explains how to install a central vacuum system.", "Collect samples of soil from the different gardens to be tested but do not mix them. A pH test needs to be done for each garden. Insert the trowel vertically into the garden to a depth of 6 to 8 inches down to get a sample of soil.", "Understanding the vertical growing environment is key to successfully growing vertical gardens. Using the right plant for the right location determines future maintenance demands and well-being of the plants.", "1 Total costs for a do-it-yourself brick patio can run $2.80 a square foot or $560 for a 10x20-foot area, according to AskTheBuilder.com. 2 Having a brick patio professionally installed can run around $15 a square foot (labor and materials) or $3,000 for a 10x20-foot area, according to Landscape-Design-Advice.com.ontractor: Local. The contractor removed old concrete and trees in the 440 sqft patio, then installed the brick pavers (for 330 sqft), constructed garden walls (1 ft high), and a small brick step to the doorwall. The removal cost is about $900, and the remaining $2,650 is the cost for paver, garden walls and a step.", "Space. A garden mound for vegetables may be 2 feet high and 3 feet across. Using several mounds throughout the garden area increases the square footage available for planting. Mound gardening may be considered a form of vertical gardening.", "Size and Shape. There are a couple of different options for liners, all of which will impact the cost to install a pond. Most permanent garden pond liners include concrete and fiberglass. These liners last a long time: 50 years or more if maintained properly.ize and Shape. There are a couple of different options for liners, all of which will impact the cost to install a pond. Most permanent garden pond liners include concrete and fiberglass. These liners last a long time: 50 years or more if maintained properly.", "1 Do-it-yourself installation of a high tensile electric fence to control livestock or wildlife costs about $0.05-$0.75 a foot, or $50-$650 to enclose a square acre. 2 With professional installation costs can be $0.20-$3 a foot, or $200-$2,500 to enclose an acre. A woven wire fence (a wire net of vertical and horizontal wires) to keep pets or livestock in and/or wildlife out typically costs $0.40-$1.50 a foot for do-it-yourself materials, or $350-$1,300 to enclose a square acre.", "Smaller amount of windows will be charged at higher rate per window to install. On average installation of 12 windows different dimensions (excluding bay or garden windows) in the whole 2 story 1,950 – 2,350 ft 2 house will be estimated at $1,900 - $2,400 or $2,600 – 3,200 for replacement.40 - $55 per hour. Cost to install windows in the house determined as labor expenses for standard installation excluding materials cost and delivery expenses. Depending on work complexity prices per window installed will be adjusted after on-site inspection.", "Once all of the stationary glass panels and rails are in place, install the top rail. Typically the top rail will fit over the vertical rails and snap into place. Install a screw at the top and bottom of each vertical rail to completely fasten the system together. Next, install the shower door.", "1 The cost for a wooden fence can vary from $3 -$9 a foot for do-it-yourself installation of a ranch-style rail fence, to $10 -$30 or more a foot for professional installation of a basic 6' wood privacy fence. 2 For details, see How Much Does a Wood Fence Cost. A woven wire fence (a wire net of vertical and horizontal wires) to keep pets or livestock in and/or wildlife out typically costs $0.40-$1.50 a foot for do-it-yourself materials, or $350-$1,300 to enclose a square acre.", "1 A French drain 30'-50' long might cost $300-$1,500, with prices averaging about $750-$1,250. 2 For example, Galtech.com reports having two French drains installed at an Oregon home for $1,475 for 58' total, about $25-$26 a foot. A do-it-yourself dry well can cost $5-$50, or $90-$380 for a DIY installation of a prefabricated plastic model; having a concrete drywell professionally installed can cost $300-$5,000 or more. 2 Installing a rain garden can cost $100-$750 for a do-it-yourself project of 150 square feet.", "hydroponic gardens - For consumers living in cities it can be hard to find the space to cultivate and grow plants, and the iGrow hydroponic gardens allow for a simple s. Reasons why you should have a vertical garden at home Grow your own food without the hassle of weeding or watering a garden with ZipGrow Farm Walls!", "The Santo Domingo Hotel held the record for having the biggest vertical garden in the world, but unlike most of these gardens ours is substratum based, not hydroponic, making it, along with its 20-metre-high waterfall, the nearest modern equivalent to the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon." ]

[ "French hope Gael Monfils is determined to keep his individuality despite being compared with some of tennis&#39;s biggest names. &quot;It&#39;s flattering but I above all" ]

[ "Gael Monfils continued to pick off the seeds at the Poertschach International on Friday with a 6-4 7-5 win over fourth seed Lleyton Hewitt, setting up a final showdown with Juan Monaco.", "Argentina's Juan Monaco concluded an ideal warm-up for the French Open with a 7-6 6-0 win over Gael Monfils of France in the Poertschach International final on Saturday to lift his second ATP title.", "Il francese Arnaud Clement prender&agrave; il posto del connazionale Gael Monfils nella Hopman Cup d...", "Sar&agrave; Juan Monaco a sfidare Gael Monfils nella finale del torneo Atp di Portschach (terra ross...", "Gael Monfils of France will play Juan Monaco of Argentina in the Hypo Group International final on Saturday. In Friday's semifinals, Monfils upset fourth-seeded Lleyton Hewitt 6-4, 7-5 and Monaco defeated Luis Horna of Peru 6-4, 6-4.", "Gael Monfils, of France, celebrates his victory over Thomas Enqvist, of Sweden, at the BNP Masters indoor tennis tournament in Paris, Monday Nov. 1, 2004.", "Vince Carter plans to play hard for the Raptors, even though he still wants out of Toronto. &quot;It&#39;s stupid for me to come up here, and just because I want a trade I&#39;m going to mope and pout.", "The Thai police sergeant wanted in connection with the murder of two British travellers was yesterday reported to have contacted his superiors and offered to give himself up.", "A wanted Islamic militant leader has blown himself up in south-western Pakistan to avoid arrest, police say.", "All he wanted to do was keep his food chilled, but he ended up out cold himself.", "French youngster Gael Monfils upset American world number three Andy Roddick 7-5 6-3 on Thursday to reach the semi-finals of the ATP tournament in Poertschach.", "Mohamed Al Fayad wants the inquest to deal with the issue, but he'd better come up with the evidence -- quickly", "LLEYTON Hewitt had a minor mindset problem after his return to tennis yesterday. Talking of his opponent, Gael Monfils, he said: &quot;He&#39;s going to be a tough player in a few years&#39; time.", "NEW YORK - Pity the poor beagle. He comes to Madison Square Garden with those pleading eyes and wagging tail, just wanting to play. But the judge never picks him, and he winds up back in the Westminster doghouse.", "NEW YORK - Amelie Mauresmo played much more like someone serious about winning her first Grand Slam title and reaching No. 1...", "PARIS -- Gael Monfils of France reached the quarterfinals in his first ATP tournament three weeks ago. Lleyton Hewitt made sure he did not duplicate the feat at the Paris Masters.", "French teenage prodigy Gael Monfils underlined his huge promise at the Qatar Open on Tuesday, ousting second seed Gaston Gaudio of Argentina, winner of the 2004 French Open, 6-4, 7-6.", "A change of coach and a change of attitude have helped Marat Safin return to peak form and the Russian number one is now aiming at the Masters Cup with real optimism.", "World number one junior Gael Monfils and Capucine Rousseau will receive the two French Tennis Federation wildcard entries for the Australian Open, organizers said on Saturday.", "One content producer finally understands what consumers want and comes up with a reasonable anti-piracy strategy.", "Lleyton Hewitt emerged from a three week break firing on all cylinders and was happy to talk about the teenage kicks of opponent Gael Monfils, the strains of the tour and the way to solve them.", "Frank Warren doesn't want to talk about himself.", "No doubt Kenyon Martin is happy in Denver, a place where he feels wanted and is part of an up-and-coming team.", "A German travel agent has come up with the ultimate in no-frills flying - a charter flight for passengers who want to fly naked", "As the genuine Andy Roddick has morphed into a star of manufactured prickliness, it is worth wondering what Jimmy Connors is feeding his protégé.", "The 20-year-old budding superstar from Serbia asserted himself just enough to reach the semifinals, where he will meet David Ferrer of Spain on Saturday.", "The 27-year-old&#39;s awful form has become so predictable this year after a memorable 2003 which included making the Wimbledon final and leading Australia to glory in the Davis Cup.", "HUTTHURM, Germany, Nov 28 A German wanted for sending letter bombs to politicians was found dead after apparently blowing himself up as authorities were closing in.", "You don't want it to end. You want it to be 2004 forever, or at least a few more days. It's too soon to give it up. Not yet. Can't it be 2004 just a little longer?", "He just wanted to take pictures. Vidor, Tex., just wants him to go away.", "A suicide bomber on a motorbike blew himself up in a crowded square in southern Afghanistan just before evening prayers on Monday, and preliminary reports said up to 28 people were killed, officials said.", "An Italian pensioner committed suicide after his wife fell into a coma, but just hours after he killed himself the woman woke up, Italian media reported on Saturday." ]

[ "San Francisco Giants" ]

[ "Volcano", "plays", "The Girl Who Played with Fire", "play", "Who", "the Who", "Who Do You Think You Are", "Play On", "DOS", "Do It to It", "Tweed Volcano", "Who?", "Taupo Volcano", "volcano rabbit", "Do", "volcano of foam", "ice volcano", "compound volcano", "Who Made Who", "Pichincha volcano", "Salem's Seven", "submarine volcanoes", "Volcano of Fire", "Under the Volcano", "Salem, Illinois", "Salem limestone", "composite volcano", "Makushin Volcano", "Salem, Massachusetts", "Vico Volcano", "Volcano Bay", "Salem River" ]

[ "this site contains all the information you need about laptops, it contains information on pricing, different types of laptops, pros and cons on various companies and also what to look for before buying a laptop...\\n\\nhttp://imedia.atspace.com/laptop.htm" ]

[ "Enter the information you want to search for. In a Microsoft Access database, use a question mark (?) to match any single character or use an asterisk (*) to match any string of characters. For example, sm?th finds \"smith\" and \"smyth\"; *east finds \"Northeast\", \"Southeast\", and \"East\". In a Microsoft Access project, use an underscore (_) to match any single character or use a percent sign (%) to match any string of characters. For example, sm_th finds \"smith\" and \"smyth\"; %east finds \"Northeast\", \"Southeast\", and \"East\".", "A pyogenic infection just means it's an infection producing pus. So, to diagnose any infection, you could take out the pus and send it to the laboratory for culture to see what organisms grow during the culture. In addition, if for example, the doctor thinks it could be a kidney infection, he/she could send a clean urine specimen for culture. If the doctor thinks the bacteria can be found in the bloodstream, he/she could take some blood from you and send it off for culture. Then there are other investigations, for example, a chest x-ray where one can see some shadow in the chest x-ray which would suggest a chest infection. And so on.", "Bluetooth is a technical industry standard that facilitates communication between wireless devices such as mobile phones, PDAs (personal digital assistants) and handheld computers, and wireless enabled laptop or desktop computers and peripherals. A single Bluetooth-enabled wireless device is capable of making phone calls, synchronizing data with desktop computers, sending and receiving faxes, and printing documents. For example, an individual can use a Bluetooth connection to print a document from his PDA. \\n\\nBluetooth devices use a microchip transceiver that operates on the 2.45GHz frequency and have a range of up to 10 meters (approximately 33 feet).", "I'm a Videographer in the Marine Corps with experience in Still photography. send me an e-mail if you have any specifics. timbrumley@yahoo.com\\n\\nThe photos are primarily used for historical and documentary purposes. But whatever artistic you do with your kit is up to you on your free time.", "Server listens to a port (usually port 80 for http traffic). When you send a request for a webpage, your browser sends it to port 80 by default. Since the server is listening on that port, it replies with the webpage. to change the port the browser send on you will need to add :xxx to the end of the domain. For example:\\n\\nwww.yahoo.com:888\\n\\nThis would send on port 888. Unless the server is listening on 888, you won't get anything back from it.", "A test for a computer product prior to commercial release. Beta testing is the last stage of testing, and normally can involve sending the product to beta test sites outside the company for real-world exposure or offering the product for a free trial download over the Internet. Beta testing is often preceded by a round of testing called alpha testing.", "I would rather not make a decision at all. God gave us all free will and said to not judge others. Therefore, I couldn't take way the free will of others or judge them and their mistakes by sending them back to start all over.", "Bluetooth is a short range radio technology that is used in mobile telephones and other handheld devices. The range is typically 30 meters but depends on the environment it is being used in.\\n\\nBluetooth is typically used to transfer business cards, data, sound files, pictures and other files between mobile devices.\\n\\nFor example, you may have a ring tone or a picture that you took with your camera phone and you want to let your friend have a copy of that file.\\n\\nYou can transfer these types of files using bluetooth.\\n\\n\\nTypically you would 'search for bluetooth devices'. Your mobile device will scan for other bluetooth devices and list any that are found.\\n\\nYou can then initiate a connection with any of these bluetooth devices, although a pin code may need to be entered to complete the connection.\\n\\nYou can transfer files between a mobile device and a home computer or laptop by using a gadget called a bluetooth dongle.\\n\\nA bluetooth dongle plugs into the USB port of your computer or laptop and allows it to send and receive using bluetooth.", "Contact Yahoo Support - Plus and Pro account users Call (TOLL FREE) 1-866-800-8092 /// Free users call (NOT FREE) (408) 349-3300 Fax (408) 349-3301 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. pacific time in the U.S.A. /// PAID users send Yahoo a priority email /// YAHOO WEB HOTSING USERS call (toll free) open 7 days a week 1-866-781-9246 /// YOU COULD BE ON HOLD A LONG TIME THOUGH /// FREE & PAID USERS - send Yahoo some feedback http://geocities.yahoo.com/v/help/help_form.html?r=feedback\\n\\nFinding email addresses at any domain name is pretty easy if you know how. Simply search for them this way. Using the following keyword will find all email addresses at Microsoft if they have been cataloged by the search engine you are using. Try various search engines here. http://byw.cjb.net/search/\\n\\n@microsoft.com -- will give you addresses for .com only\\n\\n@microsoft -- will give you addresses for .com, .net, .org etc.\\n\\nThe following search phrases will help you find employees blog sites where you might find email addresses and/or phone numbers. try different variations of these to see what you can find.\\n\\n\"I work at Microsoft\"\\n\"I am employed by Microsoft\"\\n\\nI just used microsoft as an example. You can use these techniques with any domain name.\\n\\nSome blogs sites have \"powered by\" and then the name of the blog software used to create the site.\\n\\nThe above methods work at most domains. I just used Microsoft as an example.\\n\\nTry the above methods in any search engine or blog search.\\n\\nTry my search big page http://dwight.clickthesky.com/search/\\n\\nThe only problem is alot of the email addresses are out-of-date and no longer work. All you can do is try them and see what happens.\\n\\nSave a copy of your message to them. Then email it to several of the email addresses at one time by placing a comma or semi-colon between them in the \"TO:\" text box in your email program and click send. If you get no response in a week or so then try some more email addresses. There are lots of sneaky things you can do.", "A browser is the program you use to log onto the Internet. For example, you might be using Internet Explorer. This is a browser.\\n\\nIf you go to a website to send email, like hotmail.com or yahoo.com, it will be the same no matter what browser you are using.", "Send your 'syphillis infected' partner to the doctor. And don't touch them until they're diease 'free'.", "A recent example of a people gaining independence from civil war are the Bengalis of what used to be East Pakistan, gaining independence through civil-war and winning the civil-war to establish their independent country of Bangla Desh (Bengal Nation) in 1971. The Bengalis of what used to be East Pakistan, wanted an independent country through civil-war, because they tried to gain autonomy through winning elections for the candidate that represented them, Mubjib Rehman, but the popular candidate of West Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whom lost the general election to Mujib, instigated the West Pakistani armed forces to arrest Mujib and kill all his supporters in East Pakistan, this led to the civil-war between the freedom fighters of what is now Bangla Desh, supported by India, to win liberation from West Pakistan, which is now called Pakistan. The Bengalis of what is now East Pakistan, wanted autonomy, because the West Pakistanis wanted to impose their language \"Urdu\", a foreign language to the Bengalis, and also West Pakistanis dominated the military and government and made settlements in East Pakistan and took a lot of the resources from East Pakistan and gave it to West Pakistanis in West Pakistan with nothing in return, and when East Pakistan suffered a flood or drought, West Pakistan would not help them, and instead would send troops to deter any mass-riots against West Pakistan in favor of independence.", "Superconducting coils send electrons around in circles perpetually, and dissipate so little power that one could continue to carry a current (without outside power) virtually forever." ]

[ "The standard score (more commonly referred to as a z-score) is a very useful statistic because it (a) allows us to calculate the probability of a score occurring within our normal distribution and (b) enables us to compare two scores that are from different normal distributions." ]

[ "Z-scores measure how outstanding an individual is relative to the mean of a population using the standard deviation for that population to define the scale. Note that percentiles use the median as the average (50th percentile), while z-scores use the mean as average (z-score of 0).", "The value of the z-score tells you how many standard deviations you are away from the mean. If a z-score is equal to 0, it is on the mean. ... A negative z-score reveals the raw score is below the mean average. For example, if a z-score is equal to -2, it is 2 standard deviations below the mean.", "Standard Scores to Z-Scores This z-score is how many standard deviations from the mean that the standard score falls. If the z-score is positive, then the standard score is above the mean. If the z-score is negative, then the standard score is below the mean.", "where z is the z-score, X is the value of the element, μ is the population mean, and σ is the standard deviation. Here is how to interpret z-scores. A z-score less than 0 represents an element less than the mean. A z-score greater than 0 represents an element greater than the mean.", "How do you calculate the z-score? The formula for calculating a z-score is is z = (x-μ)/σ, where x is the raw score, μ is the population mean, and σ is the population standard deviation.", "The z score tells you how many standard deviations from the mean your score is. ... This is exactly the same formula as z = x – μ / σ, except that x̄ (the sample mean) is used instead of μ (the population mean) and s (the sample standard deviation) is used instead of σ (the population standard deviation).", "Positive and Negative Z-Scores Some z-scores will be positive whereas others will be negative. If a z-score is positive, its' corresponding raw score is above (greater than) the mean. If a z-score is negative, its' corresponding raw score is below (less than) the mean.", "To find a specific area under a normal curve, find the z-score of the data value and use a Z-Score Table to find the area. A Z-Score Table, is a table that shows the percentage of values (or area percentage) to the left of a given z-score on a standard normal distribution.", "A high z -score means a very low probability of data above this z -score. ... Note that if z -score rises further, area under the curve fall and probability reduces further. A low z -score means a very low probability of data below this z -score. The figure below shows the probability of z -score below −2.5 .", "Z-Score in Excel: Overview A z-score in Excel can quickly be calculated using a basic formula. The formula for calculating a z-score is. z = (x-μ) / σ, where μ is the population mean and σ is the population standard deviation.", "How to find the area between two z scores on one side of the mean. Step 1: Split your z-scores at the tenths place. For example, if you have z score of 1.95 and 2.13, they become 1.9 + 0.05 and 2.1 + .", "Key Takeaways. Standard deviation defines the line along which a particular data point lies. Z-score indicates how much a given value differs from the standard deviation. The Z-score, or standard score, is the number of standard deviations a given data point lies above or below mean.", "Usually in stats, you don't know anything about a population, so instead of a Z score you use a T Test with a T Statistic. The major difference between using a Z score and a T statistic is that you have to estimate the population standard deviation.", "The standard deviation of the z-scores is always 1. The graph of the z-score distribution always has the same shape as the original distribution of sample values. The sum of the squared z-scores is always equal to the number of z-score values.", "--- The mean of a set of Z-scores is always 0. --- The standard deviation (and variance) of a set of Z-scores is always 1. In words: You add up all the scores and divide by the number of scores you have added.", "The first thing you do is use the z-score formula to figure out what the z-score is. In this case, it is the difference between 30 and 21, which is 9, divided by the standard deviation of 5, which gives you a z-score of 1.8. If you look at the z-table below, that gives you a probability value of 0.9641.", "Step 2: Find the z-score for the first raw data value. Next, we'll find the z-score for the first raw data value using the formula z = (X – μ) / σ. Cell C2 shows the formula we used to calculate the z-value in cell B2.", "A positive z-score says the data point is above average. A negative z-score says the data point is below average. A z-score close to 0 says the data point is close to average. A data point can be considered unusual if its z-score is above 3 or below −3 .", "A z-table, also called the standard normal table, is a mathematical table that allows us to know the percentage of values below (to the left) a z-score in a standard normal distribution (SND). ... When the mean of the z-score is calculated it is always 0, and the standard deviation (variance) is always in increments of 1.", "So why the difference? The algorithm used by Equifax and TransUnion is proprietary to each company and most likely different in how they compute your score. Equifax makes use of the Equifax Risk Score while TransUnion uses the CreditVision Scoring model.", "In short: No, a mean of z-scored variables is not a z-score itself. This quantity could be scaled, however, since the sum of normals is normal, and this would meet the criteria of a Z-score.", "Let x represent the data value, mu represent the mean, sigma represent the standard deviation, and z represent the z-score. Since the z-score is the number of standard deviations above the mean, z = (x - mu)/sigma. Solving for the data value, x, gives the formula x = z*sigma + mu.", "Calculating a t score is really just a conversion from a z score to a t score, much like converting Celsius to Fahrenheit. The formula to convert a z score to a t score is: T = (Z x 10) + 50. Example question: A candidate for a job takes a written test where the average score is 1026 and the standard deviation is 209.", "Z-score only applies to distributions derived from the normal distribution, or distributions that can be approximated by them. Many skewed distributions can not. Therefore, much of the time, Z-score does not apply skewed distributions.", "z = (x-μ) / σ, where μ is the population mean and σ is the population standard deviation. Note: if you don't know the population standard deviation or the sample size is below 6, you should use a t-score instead of a z-score.", "DEXA scores are reported as \"T-scores\" and \"Z-scores.\" The T-score is a comparison of a person's bone density with that of a healthy 30-year-old of the same sex. The Z-score is a comparison of a person's bone density with that of an average person of the same age and sex.", "A Z-Score Table, is a table that shows the percentage of values (or area percentage) to the left of a given z-score on a standard normal distribution. ... The intersection of the rows and columns gives the probability or area under the normal curve. Each value in the body of the table is a cumulative area.", "To get the area between two z- scores, tell Excel to subtract The area to the left of the higher z-score, minus the area to the left of the lower z-score. “Find the total area under the normal curve.”", "Yes, a z-score with a negative value indicates it is below the mean. Z-scores can be negative, but areas or probabilities cannot be.", "Step 1: Split your z-scores at the tenths place. 03. Step 2: Look in the z-table for your z-scores (you should have two from Step 1) by finding the intersections. For example, if you are asked to find the area from z= -0.46 to z= -0.40, look up both 0.40 and 0.46 (see note below about negative numbers).", "Find the product of the z-scores by multiplying each of the pairs of z-scores (zxzy). Then sum the products (S zxzy). Finally, divide the sum of the products by the number of scores (n) to find the correlation coefficient, r. Recall that z scores have a mean of zero.", "The Z Score Formula: One Sample Assuming a normal distribution, your z score would be: z = (x – μ) / σ = (190 – 150) / 25 = 1.6." ]

[ "there is scientific proof to back up this statement 4 out of 10 people on this site are intelligent." ]

[ "Hello, who said Marines have a messed up lifestyle? Your wrong. We dont. I take it your talking about the semper-fit lifestyle. Marines are just like everyday people. We all have our ups and downs. Altho the change is forever, the change is for the best. To the asker, I suggest you look in my profile, and read my question (my only question btw..) Being a marine is something, not everyone can do. Becoming a marine is the best way to understand who we are, and what we do.", "it depends on the person as to which subject to discuss. some people just get on here to waste time and ask pointless questions for the heck of it. others are seroius about what they ask and need serious answers. i still dont understand why there are still those that put stupid remarks like \"i dont know\" for answers to important questions. it frusterates me but what can you do?", "It is too bad that there are so many of you ignorant people out there answering these questions about the boycott today. There are immigrants that do things the right way and others that don't, just like anybody else. You can blame mexicans, italians, germans, etc. for whatever you want but there are many of white people that are doing wrong things just like anyone else is. Something I heard a lady say this morning on the radio was that the immigrants are taking all the jobs with the benefits. Instead of complaining why isn't her voice heard in positive ways instead of just talking sh!t...\\n\\n*To those of you who have previously answered this question, why do you complain about immigrants not knowing english when you yourselves don't even know how to spell correctly? If you are going to talk sh!t then I suggest you atleast take a minute to spell check and read back your answer to yourself!", "I dont understand. Australia is a nice place. There must be a problem with you. Maybe you are going to the wrong places, meeting the wrong people.", "you dont know your middle name? or are you just like looking it up sorry i dont understand the question i cant help :( sorry", "It's Italian. It's actually spelled capisci. It means \"you understand\" and can be used as a question or a statement.", "im trying to understand wht you are saying but i will answer this the best way i can i dont know why you cant live with the partner you choose to be with and i most certainly dont know if it is true or not so you probalbly need to ask this question again so we can better understand what you are asking or whatever", "I have read things like these, but since thats the way I feel so its not plagarism of thoughts, only expression of them on this issue.\\n\\nFor me friend is anyone who is close to heart to listen to it. Close to soul to feel it.\\nI feel that anyone can fit into this role who is:\\n- there when i need him/her/ even it!\\n- seeking me to help him\\n- there to guide me to a right path\\n- asking for advise when needed\\n\\nBut sadly so, many people dont fit into this role. I myself have only one closest friend, then there is another ex-classfellow who understands whatever i mean and fits in there. Still I am very happy with both of these:)", "i dont i have never read the bible nor do i wish to, but i can understand wat you re saying and also why it winds you up, but at the same time why do so many religious people feel the need to save us??? i also agree that there are many absurd comments on here but instead of getting upset just laugh mate they are only posted to get you to bite if you dont bite then they cant upset you xx", "I personally am not racist, I'm a very open-minded individual. I know a lot of people are going to take your question the wrong way, but I see it as just a question and a desire to know and understand. There are some who sadly are racist here, but there are those who aren't, but you can't classify all Americans as being racist. It depends on the person, not the country, no matter where you live.", "Most would say how irrelevant or how stupid your question is, while others just take common approaches to the number or speed of correct responses. Here is my take on what intelligence means...To never stop seeking answers. Think about it, if you no longer question anything, it would not imply that you know everything. It states that you have given up on attaining knowledge (intelligence). Intelligent people never tire of knowing more...An unquenchable thirst.", "Thats the problem, we dont have to ask who created the creator because we are told that God just \"is, was, and always will be\". \\n\\nThe arrogance of man to think that we are smart enough to understand everything is our greatest downfall. Ever hear people say that when they think they know everything, they learn that they know very little?\\n\\nVirtually everything that we know today was once unreasonable to the abilities of our brain. Just like no one knew about gravity until it was discovered and able to be measured. People thought the Earth was flat, and when they were told it was round, it took many years before they realized the person was right. Then they discovered later it was somewhat oval. Just because the most intelligent scientist in the world cannot understand supernatural things, dont mean they dont exist. Maybe someday someone will discover a way to \"see\" these things too, so that everyone will have the knowledge. Just because it hasnt happened yet dont mean we are at the end of all learning, and it wont.\\n\\nThe fact that we are the only animals on the planet that aspire for greatness, desire things that we dont need, and have learned how to create things ourself is proof that God created us in His image. We dont question why we have the ability to learn and evolve, we just take it for granted.\\n\\nMankind has in effect became gods, because they forgot and no longer appreciate what created them. They believe as long as they can invent and create new things that now they are gods. \\n\\nThis has been prophesied in Revelation. Part of being marked with the mark of the beast is man becoming their own god.", "Hey, im an hindu bcz im from india & i do follow it & i know it better than u all who have only learned it,Its our culture to pray the God in so many different forms,So those who are saying it false OR critising it,i think they are the biggest idiots.U dont have the right to criticise any religion.\\n I know u can only read about it in books,u cant feel it until u dont follow hinduism.And remember that books do lie,u cant get better view by just learning about it.\\n I m a hindu & i know that my religion is best in world & i respect my culture,country & religion heartly.So those who dont understand my religion just shut ur mouth.\\n And now i wanna answer ur question.I think u have got wrong information from somewhere because every person is allowed to make conversion in our religion but u have to follow rules of it.U can join any religion,there is no boundation for it.Boundation is in Muslism not in Hinduism.The person who follows hinduism are best in this world,they are truthful,cultured,honest,trustworthy & filled with lot of good qualities.!! And u can easily join hinduism just by learning some rules & i can bet that u will find this religion best than others & u will enjoy it.And one thing more that hinduism is NOT complex,The only people who dont understand it says that its complex but believe in me im saying that its NOT COMPLEX at all.\\n So u people dont make any comments on my religion without knowing it.Ok.Thank u.", "i like a bit curvey. My ex was too skinny i did not like it. I dont understand anorexics(DONT KNOW HOW TO SPELL) They would look much nicer naturally.", "first select a place where you can concentrate on studying.. \\n\\nread, read, read! (understand not memorize)\\n\\nhave a break when you feel you dont understand what you study anymore, rest for a while then read, read, read again! goodluck!", "We enroach by sending various branches of our military over there. Any of them and all of them then enroach there way on in to a country that isn't ours under whatever bullshit reason like protecting them as we slaughter them all. I love that word enroachment, it fits what we do so very well. We enroached in Vietnam, we enroached during the gulf war (and dont think I dont know that a lot of our young kids got enroached because of the older coachroachers like generals) we are still enroaching in Irag. Thank you and bless you for that word. It's perfect, armies have always had a mindless insectile feel to them to me anyway. Never learn to spell your an inspiration!!!! (How would you spell Central Intelligence Angency?)", "I AGREE with you, people would probably die if they couldn't talk on the phone while driving. VERY unsafe. They should have an automatic device that interfers with cell phone while driving if you use it. \\n\\nAnd THANK YOU SO MUCH for being nice about my detroit football question others see fit to be idiots, it's nice to know that there are nice intelligent people out there.", "read an english koran it never preached hate, and praises christians and jews as \"peoples of the book\".\\n\\nPS i didnt spell Qu'arn wrong..........there is no official translation into english.", "The only way I know of to KNOW a religion is to practice it.\\n To learn what a religion is about, I think read the books, listen to the people and go to the churches and then make YOUR decision based on how you feel that it all fits in with your core values and beliefs", "it doesnt matter at all as some1 has just said if your in love your in love me and my partner had 10 years between us and we were fine its just other people who see wrong in it people who dont understand mainly", "I dont go to church- my fellowship is among my fellow Christians that I worship and praise with- The Church that is required is the people, not the building. Fellowship is what we are guided to do, and for some, that works better in a church. More power to them, but I do not need a building.\\n\\nIn fact, many people that go to a church to worship only do it once or twice a week. If we are supposed to pray without ceasing- and worshipping should be an everyday practice- I dont appreciate being judged by people saying I am wrong for not going. Just as I think its wrong to say people are wrong for going to church.\\n\\nI am NOT against going to church, I just dont feel comfy in the ones I have been to. The last one I went to was AWESOME, but I had a falling out with a friend who claims to be super christian, but her and many of the people at that church enjoyed gossipping and slandering me- I dont think I am missing much by not going if thats what most churches are like (and from experience, it is like that in every church if you dont fit the code they have for people)", "an atheist does not beleive in the concept of a God.\\n\\nan agnostic thinks there may be a God, and is intelligent enough to admit that no man-made religion knows what God is, nor is he, the agnostic, wise enough to define or understand God.\\n\\nif only people were intelligent enough to acknowledge that, and not need a crutch like religion to get through life.", "im not sure what kind of people u will find but try yahoo chatrooms..go into the fitness ones see whats there...i dont think its great but its the only one i know of", "go to the doctor girl cuz these people dont know only a doctor it a sign telling u something wrong inside so go check up on it", "if you have friends who have read the bible then its better to read with them so that you can be able to discus with them.. the bible has so many parables that it's better to share while reading it coz you may not understand all the words in it...but if u dont have these kind of friends then you can always read and try to reflect afterwards and if you have passages that you dont understand you can always approach sombody (priest,pastor,parents if they are religious) to clarify and discus this things...", "some of them just dont have nothing else to do with their lives and the some of them are just immature and very young and the rest just try to see what kind of response they will get. kinda like u when u asked the question u did does it really matter what is wrong with them it is only a communication device that people that have time to get on the computer and spend a little time not drugging or killing anyone i think that that is a good idea dont you.", "Not understanding each other is the biggest division between people. I'm a person whose intentions are good, but you don't seem to understand that even after reading 33 questions. Or, if you do understand, then I don't understand that you understand and that is divisive.\\n\\nRead that you love god. I respect and understand that - so that is not divisive.\\n\\nBut to answer your question about the 33 questions - I don't know if you will understand this but there is a certain amount of guilt in being so wonderful and being blessed with so many fine qualities. So, it helps to talk about it.", "OCD..lol..there are so many people on this site with that.\\nYou can tell who they are because they complain constantly about spelling, they report people for using ALL CAPS.\\n\\nSeriously, people who constantly wash their hands have OCD, or if they have a habit of arranging things in order just for fun this is OCD. I dont know of any meds though", "I think your web site is put together very well. The links are working great, the color coordination is great. Awesone job! Only one thing that I see wrong..... you spelled grammar wrong when you asked this question... (grammer)? Didn't use spell check did ya... lol. Any way, great web site. Have a nice day! :-)", "I am just going to assume this is a valid question and give it an honest answer. I am not the greatest speller myself and I am a college graduate. Did you know that the ability to spell has nothing to do with how intelligent a person is? My sister is a teacher and she told me an individual is either a speller or not, that it has something to do with how brains work, but nothing to do with intelligence. I was so releaved to hear that! Though how I could get such a high IQ score if spelling were predicated upon intelligence I don't know, so this should have demonstrated the truth long before my sister validated it for me. \\n\\nAnyway, if you are attempting to learn a second language, it can be tough. If you are still learning how to read and write in your first language, it is still tough. Difficult that is. It can be difficult to learn to read and write in any language. However, I have heard the english language is one of the most difficult. Not the number one difficult, but one of the harder ones to learn. There is just so much to learn, and much of it contridicts itself or doesn't follow the rules. \\n\\nPhonics is just half of the battle in learning proper reading and writing of the english language. I also reccoment a tutor if you can find one. Obtaining a good solid foundation of both the fundemental rules and the phonics of reading and writing are extreamly important to skilled use of the english language is written form. It helps in speaking it properly as well. \\n\\nLooking for a tutor should not be too difficult. First check out what resources are available at your school. Utilize those resources as much as you can. Your teacher and/or school counselor should know what is available for you. If there isn't anything avialable, I understand school funding is getting cut drastically in even these basic services, then it will depend on one of two things: 1. If you have friends who would be willing to assist you and 2. your financial situation, if you have the money to purchase a tutor.\\n\\nIt may also assist you to go to both the school library and the local public library. There you can access books to help you teach yourself what you need to know. There are many individuals who needed to self instruct, for many reasons. Two of the reasons are not having access to a free public school system, and having learning disabilities which the school did not address properly, and failed students with such disabilities.\\n\\nHaving a learning disability has nothing to do with how smart or intelligent a person is. It just means there is a disability which interfers with an individuals ability to access his/her intellegence the way others without disabilities can and take for granted every day. Those without learning disability do not really understand what it is like having one. They often tease kids who do have one and make those kids feel stupid when the kids with the disability may be smarter than those without any disabilty. \\n\\nI have made a couple of assumptions from your question. That you are either attempting to learn the proper way to read and write in your first langauge or you are attempting to learn a second or even third language. I have also assummed you may have a learning disability. You may not. I have not assummed you are stupid. The only stupid question is the question not asked, in my opinion. \\n\\nI have not assummed you intentionally made this question appear as though you are uneducated or engaging in teasing us who are answering this question. If you are teasing, then oh well. \\n\\nI wish you the best, and happiness always, good luck in acheiving all you hope to acheive in life.", "Its a question of fitting in and to make people like them. Or to hide themselves because they dont people getting to close or figuring out exactly who they are", "Listen Up:\\n\\nSeriously, you are clinically depressed. You fit the exact diagnosis of clinical depression. Don't listen to people who say \"just get over it!\" or whatever, they dont understand your pain. You can choose to get professional help, or not...that is up to you...but, if you choose not to, you need to read up on it and help yourself. Your heart has been broken in a way that no one can understand, and one can just not get over it without some sort of education (meaning professional or self help) and time. \\n\\nYou don't mention it on your post, but I would bet anything that you blame yourself for her cheating, even though you did anything and everything for her. Also, I bet that she told you \"reasons\" why it was your fault that she did it. Even more ridiculous is the fact that other people will somehow suggest that you must have been the reason that she cheated. THAT IS FALSE!!!! People cheat because they are selfish and only care about themselves. Then, they blame others to avoid the guilt and responsibility for their miserable actions. \\n\\nThis will be hard, but you have to ACCEPT that her cheating was not your fault. Once you can release this belief, with education, you can begin to come around.\\n\\nYou will never come around, unless you \"accept\" the truth and \"educate\" yourself.\\n\\nIf you wanna know more, contact me." ]

[ "Second in a two-part report. The Ozark region, covering most of southern Missouri and northern Arkansas, has long been a haven for white supremacists. The area is home to the neo-Nazi accused of killing three people at Jewish centers near Kansas City, Kan., in April. The region continues to grapple with a culture that has historically turned a blind eye to bigotry. That fight is particularly concentrated in Harrison, Ark. Most residents seem to love their quiet little town. Terry Stambaugh, who retired here after a career with FedEx, says it's one of the most welcoming and loving and places he's ever seen. \"But what the rest of the world sees of Harrison, Ark., isn't what I found,\" he says. Instead, \"it's the portrayal of a hotbed of hate.\" Riots and murder drove more than 100 black residents from Harrison in the early 1900s, and it became a notorious \"sundown town,\" a perilous place for African-Americans after dark. Harrison's mayor, Jeff Crockett, is trying hard to lay the town's reputation to rest. Last month, near city hall, the town \"buried racism and hatred,\" he says. And it did it in style — with a funeral march, a handmade casket and civil rights speeches. The ceremony, attended by regional civil rights leaders and local residents, was part of a sustained effort here to press an uncomfortable conversation about race. Addressing Bigotry That 'Didn't Go Away' That effort runs against the grain of some citizens, who Crockett says repeat the same objection year after year: \"If you just leave it alone, it'd go away.\" \"Well, they left it alone for so long, and it didn't go away,\" Crockett says. That's partly because of some of very outspoken people based in Harrison, like Mike Hallimore, director of Kingdom Identity Ministries. The group, Hallimore says, believes \"in the government of God on Earth — theocracy according to God's laws.\" Those laws, he says, call for execution in cases of blasphemy, abortion or homosexuality. He preaches that Jews are descended from Satan and that only absolutely pure-blooded Caucasians enjoy what most would call a soul. The Southern Poverty Law Center says tens of thousands follow Hallimore's ministry online. Like most prominent white supremacists in the Ozarks, Hallimore is a transplant. He moved here from California. \"I like rural living for one thing,\" he says. \"But of course I like that it's predominantly white.\" Hallimore is not the only one. At the library in Harrison, lots of people seem to know Thom Robb, a pleasant-looking, middle-aged fellow who runs the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. \"I have identified myself as a Gandhi of the White Nationalist Movement,\" he says. Robb says he doesn't hate black people. He just loves white people so much, he says, that he doesn't abide so-called race mixing. Robb says he likes the name recognition the KKK label offers. He sells Klan shirts, hats and jewelry on his website. The three letters generate Web traffic for Robb, but headaches for the town. \"Harrison isn't the only nice, white community in the country. There are many,\" he says. \"Harrison gets the attention because I happen to live here.\" In reality, while his KKK post office box is in Harrison, Robb, like Hallimore, actually lives in a neighboring community. He moved in from Arizona decades ago, for some of the same reasons Hallimore chose the area. But now, Robb says that Crockett and his supporters are trying to mess it up. \"They are promoting white genocide,\" he says. \"They want to take a nice city, with no problems, and do something — change it!\" Dueling Billboards Carolyn Cline is one of the founders of Harrison's Community Task Force on Race Relations. The group formed a decade ago precisely to change not just the image but also the nature, of Harrison — methodically and respectfully. \"Because you can never change either a perception, or an individual's worldview, by going to them and explaining to them [that] they're wrong,\" Cline says. The president of the Chamber of Commerce, Patty Methvin, is another charter member of the task force. \"For economic development, it's huge,\" she says of the effort. \"In order to promote Harrison for companies to come in, we want to be able to recruit the brightest and the best, no matter who they are.\" By some measures, it's working. Alice Sanders, an African-American who moved here from Washington state, joined the task force and has made a point of speaking with lots of people. \"I have not had any problem with seeing any signs of racism,\" she says. \"Of course, I haven't looked that hard for it.\" If she did, she'd see it. There is, literally, a sign of racism — a big, yellow one, right on the main highway. It says, \"Anti-Racist is a Code Word for Anti-White.\" \"I really find it offensive,\" says Stambaugh, a member of the race relations task force. The group considered putting up its own sign, reading, \"You Can't Fix Stupid,\" but decided on something more positive. \"We have a couple of billboards around town that simply say, 'Love you" ]

[ "Updated 11:00 p.m. ET The 2018 Golden Globe Awards aired Sunday night on NBC. Below is the list of the winners and nominees. (Winners are in bold italics.) Best motion picture — drama Dunkirk The Post The Shape of Water Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Call Me By Your Name Best motion picture — musical or comedy The Disaster Artist Get Out The Greatest Showman I, Tonya Lady Bird Best performance by an actress in a motion picture — drama Jessica Chastain (Molly's Game) Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water) Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) Meryl Streep (The Post) Michelle Williams (All The Money In The World) Best performance by an actor in a motion picture — drama Timothée Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name) Daniel Day-Lewis (Phantom Thread) Tom Hanks (The Post) Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour) Denzel Washington (Roman J. Israel, Esq.) Best performance by an actress in a motion picture — musical or comedy Judi Dench (Victoria & Abdul) Helen Mirren (The Leisure Seeker) Margot Robbie (I, Tonya) Saoirse Ronan (Lady Bird) Emma Stone (Battle of the Sexes) Best performance by an actor in a motion picture — musical or comedy Steve Carell (Battle of the Sexes) Ansel Elgort (Baby Driver) James Franco (The Disaster Artist) Hugh Jackman (The Greatest Showman) Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out) Best performance by an actress in a supporting role in any motion picture Hong Chau (Downsizing) Allison Janney (I, Tonya) Laurie Metcalf (Lady Bird) Octavia Spencer (The Shape of Water) Mary J. Blige (Mudbound) Best performance by an actor in a supporting role in any motion picture Willem Dafoe (The Florida Project) Armie Hammer (Call Me By Your Name) Richard Jenkins (The Shape of Water) Christopher Plummer (All The Money In The World) Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) Best director — motion picture Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water) Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk) Ridley Scott (All The Money In The World) Steven Spielberg (The Post) Best screenplay — motion picture Guillermo del Toro, Vanessa Taylor (The Shape of Water) Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird) Liz Hannah, Josh Singer (The Post) Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) Aaron Sorkin (Molly's Game) Best motion picture — animated The Breadwinner Coco Ferdinand Loving Vincent The Boss Baby Best motion picture — foreign language A Fantastic Woman (Chile) First They Killed My Father (Cambodia) In The Fade (Germany, France) Loveless (Russia) The Square (Sweden, Germany, France) Best original score — motion picture Carter Burwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) Alexandre Desplat (The Shape of Water) Jonny Greenwood (Phantom Thread) John Williams (The Post) Hans Zimmer (Dunkirk) Best original song — motion picture \"Home\" (Ferdinand) \"Mighty River\" (Mudbound) \"Remember Me\" (Coco) \"The Star\" (The Star) \"This Is Me\" (The Greatest Showman) Best television series — drama Game of Thrones The Handmaid's Tale Stranger Things This Is Us The Crown Best television series — musical or comedy Black-ish The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Master of None SMILF Will & Grace Best television limited series or motion picture made for television Big Little Lies Fargo Feud: Bette And Joan The Sinner Top of The Lake: China Girl Best performance by an actress in a limited series or a motion picture made for television Nicole Kidman (Big Little Lies) Jessica Lange (Feud: Bette And Joan) Susan Sarandon (Feud: Bette And Joan) Reese Witherspoon (Big Little Lies) Jessica Biel (The Sinner) Best performance by an actor in a limited series or a motion picture made for television Robert De Niro (The Wizard of Lies) Jude Law (The Young Pope) Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks) Ewan McGregor (Fargo) Geoffrey Rush (Genius) Best performance by an actress in a television series — drama Caitriona Balfe (Outlander) Claire Foy (The Crown) Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Deuce) Katherine Langford (13 Reasons Why) Elisabeth Moss (The Handmaid's Tale) Best performance by an actor in a television series — drama Jason Bateman (Ozark) Sterling K. Brown (This Is Us) Freddie Highmore (The Good Doctor) Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul) Liev Schreiber (Ray Donovan) Best performance by an actress in a television series — musical or comedy Pamela Adlon (Better Things) Alison Brie (GLOW) Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) Issa Rae (Insecure) Frankie Shaw (SMILF) Best performance by an actor in a television series — musical or comedy Aziz Ansari (Master of None) Kevin Bacon (I Love Dick) William H. Macy (Shameless) Eric McCormack (Will & Grace) Anthony Anderson (Black-ish) Best performance by an actress in a supporting role in a series, limited series or motion picture made for television Laura Dern (Big Little Lies) Ann Dowd (The Handmaid's Tale) Chrissy Metz (This Is Us) Michelle Pfeiffer (The Wizard of Lies) Shailene Woodley (Big Little Lies) Best performance by an actor in a supporting role in a series, limited series or moti", "Like everything else, the ongoing pandemic and the nation's civil rights reckoning has completely upended this year's Emmy awards. And it may be the best thing that has happened for the contest in quite a while. Most years — held back by groupthink, star worship and Hollywood's unending popularity contests — the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences overlooks quite a lot in its nominees for TV's ultimate awards, the Emmys. Which is why, years ago, I created my own TV honors, called the Deggys. Here, I kick over all the rules. I say what shows are comedies or dramas; I might even name two winners in the same category. Thanks to the pandemic, I've been cooped-up awhile – who knows what might happen? This year, sheltered in place during the voting period, the academy raised its game. But there were still plenty of mistakes; like completely overlooking Latinx performers in major categories while handing out a record number of nominations for Black performers (and a few other snubs I'll deal with below). Here's a look at what I would do with the Emmys if they let me – because even a pretty good slate of nominees still has plenty of room for improvement. Best Drama Series Nominees: Better Call Saul (AMC); The Crown (Netflix); The Handmaid's Tale (Hulu); Killing Eve (BBC America); The Mandalorian (Disney+); Ozark (Netflix); Stranger Things (Netflix); Succession (HBO). And the Deggy goes to...Better Call Saul AND Apple TV+'s Little America. Yeah. TWO winners. (what did I say about kicking over the rules?) For some reason, Saul is always the bridesmaid at the Emmys, with an astounding 39 nominations and no wins since its 2015 debut. But the show keeps getting better, as a Breaking Bad prequel which turned Saul Goodman's origin story into an amazing study of new and familiar characters. Little America is the best original series Apple TV+ has produced so far — including The Morning Show, that overwrought drama with the lady from Friends and the guy from The Office-- and it wasn't even nominated. I'm not feeling it as a comedy; instead, this poignant, heartfelt series did a great job dramatizing eight real-life stories about American immigrants. Those tales include a 12-year-old Indian-American kid who wins the national spelling bee while managing his family's motel in Utah after his parents get deported and a Nigerian student who connects with American culture by living his cowboy dreams. It epitomizes the aspirational, inclusive spirit America should stand for these days and it deserves a turn in the winner's circle. Okay, but who will ACTUALLY win? Most every nominee in the drama category had a killer year this past season, from Olivia Colman's uncanny debut as Queen Elizabeth in The Crown to the often underappreciated technical tour de force of The Mandalorian. Still, the best way to judge these things is to look at total nominations, which indicate how much the entire academy feels about each show; Ozark and Succession are tied for most drama series nominations at 18 each. My money is on Succession, simply because the academy will view this thinly-veiled take on the Fox News-owning Murdoch clan as the more relevant show of the two, especially in an election year. Best Comedy Series Nominees: Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO); Dead to Me (Netflix); The Good Place (NBC); Insecure (HBO); The Kominsky Method (Netflix); The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon); Schitt's Creek (Pop); What We Do In The Shadows (FX). And the Deggy goes to...Better Things on FX. This is another high-quality series which somehow got overlooked this year. Pamela Adlon's sorta autobiographical series kept its artful balance of wry comedy and drama in its fourth season, as her single mother character struggled to keep the lid on a midlife crisis while pursuing an acting career and parenting three daughters. That this show didn't even get nominated after one of its best seasons in a category with eight slots ...well, that's just the kind of showbiz crime the Deggys were invented to rectify. Okay, but who will ACTUALLY win? Using the metric I cited in the last category, Maisel has the most nominations of any comedy series at 20. It's entirely possible Amazon's comedy — which always has the feel of a razor-sharp, immaculately performed Broadway play – will win its second Emmy as best comedy series. But my money this year is on Schitt's Creek. In so many ways, it's the little comedy that could; airing on under-the-radar Pop TV and starting out with a mixed bag of a first season, it found its voice in later seasons and grew into a program with serious heart and devoted fan base just before ending its run this year. Best Actress, Drama Nominees: Jennifer Aniston, The Morning Show; Olivia Colman, The Crown; Jodie Comer, Killing Eve; Laura Linney, Ozark; Sandra Oh, Killing Eve; Zendaya, Euphoria. And the Deggy goes to...Rhea Seehorn, Better Call Saul. I don't intend for this story to be a massive get back for Saul, but Seehorn has done amazing work playing ", "The Ozarks mountain town of West Plains, Mo., is the kind of town where a person can stand in his front yard and have a comfortable view of his past. \"My mom was actually born about 150 or 200 feet that way, and my grandfather's house is I guess 200 yards that way,\" says Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter's Bone, and most recently, The Maid's Version. Woodrell's family — on both sides — goes back a long way in West Plains. His father moved away, but Woodrell used to visit his grandparents here when he was a kid. After several years away from the region, Woodrell and his wife, Katie, decided to move back to settle in his hometown about 20 years ago. Both of them are writers, but most of Woodrell's neighbors had never heard of him. \"When we first moved in here, we had a neighbor next door for three years,\" Woodrell says. \"One night there was an ice storm, and we got to stand around outside talking, and I mentioned I was a writer. And he said, 'Oh, that's what you do! My God, I've been wondering ... but I'd never ask a man what he did for a living.' \" Woodrell's profile as a writer got a big boost in 2010, when his book Winter's Bone was made into a film starring the then-unknown Jennifer Lawrence. It's a tough story about blood ties and the code of silence in the criminal underworld of the Ozarks. It was not the first time, nor the last, that Woodrell has taken readers into the dark corners of this world. Woodrell says for a long time he resisted coming back to the Ozarks to write. \"I just thought, no, I don't see how this is going to work being a writer in the Ozarks,\" he says, \"but once I got over that, I realized I felt more kind of confidence to the stories I would tell about this region — as well as interest in the stories than I really did anywhere else.\" Around town, he occasionally runs into people who resemble the seedy characters he writes in his books. But he says the area feels safe. \"One of the interesting things about the Ozarks is you just about don't have street crime,\" Woodrell explains. \"It's strictly between people who know each other. It really isn't indiscriminate; it's kind of between themselves.\" In his latest book, The Maid's Version, Woodrell moves into more personal territory with the fictional retelling of a tragedy that hit the town hard back in 1928. An explosion and fire at a dance hall left a good portion of the town's young people dead or injured. There was an official investigation, but authorities never pinned down a cause. Rumors were rampant and echoed down the decades. \"There were several gossipy possibilities of some kind of romance involved and a couple of things about people who were having business failures and these kinds of things,\" says Woodrell. \"There were rumors of seeing people running away. All these stories reached me.\" Many of the characters and events in The Maid's Version closely follow Woodrell's own family history. The fictional maid of the title is based on his own grandmother. Here's his description of the maid in his story: \"She lived scared and angry, a life full of permanent grievances, sharp animosities and cold memories for all who'd ever crossed us, any of us, ever. Alma DeGeer Dunahew, with her pinched, hostile nature, her dark obsessions and primal need for revenge, was the big red heart of our family, the true heart, the one we keep secret and that sustains us.\" Woodrell's grandmother and mother had their own firm ideas of what really happened the night of the fire, and some of those opinions made their way into the book. And because the disaster involved almost everyone in town, it gave Woodrell a way to write about the class boundaries that defined life in West Plains. On the town's main square, Woodrell points out the spot where the dance hall once stood. \"It was livelier then because everything was centered around the square,\" he says. \"You can see old pictures of a Saturday night on the square, and it would have been packed.\" Around the corner is an old hardware store that is now an antique mall. The mall is owned by Toney Aid, whose family has been living in West Plains since 1885. (Click here to listen to a 2008 interview with Aid on KSMU.) He and Woodrell fall into conversation with the ease of two people who have known each other a long time. Aid, who was born in 1950, says that when he was a teen, the dance-hall fire was a \"taboo\" subject. \"There were a lot of people in town you couldn't mention the explosion in front of,\" he says. \"... You just didn't bring it up because there was too much tragedy, too many unanswered questions; they didn't want to discuss it anymore.\" The town's cemetery sits close to the railroad tracks. In Woodrell's book, there's a statue in the cemetery that is a memorial to those who died in the fire. When the train goes by, the statue shakes, and the people of the town say it is dancing. The real memorial is an oversized tombstone. \"This is the memorial to the unidentified dead,\" Woodrell says. \"Some families", "His name was Alvin Thomas. But nobody dared call him that. During a life spent gambling -- and mostly winning -- he earned the nickname \"Titanic Thompson\" -- because Titanic could sink anybody. Titanic Thompson became one of the most famous gamblers of the 20th century. Poker, golf, billiards, target shooting -- you name it, Thompson bet on it. And with a little creative cheating, he usually won. The tall tales of Thompson's life are now collected in a new biography by Kevin Cook called Titanic Thompson: The Man Who Bet on Everything. According to the book, Thompson \"had close-set eyes that looked a little dead. At least, until he offered you a bet.  Then those dark eyes sparked, and he smiled like he had good news. 'Are you a gambling man?' he'd ask. 'Because I am.' \" Thompson even once scammed Al Capone out of $500, Cook tells NPR's Audie Cornish. The pair were leaving a poker game, and they passed by a fruit vendor. \"I can throw this lemon all the way on top of that building across the street,\" Titanic boasted. Capone took the bet. What the infamous gangster didn't know was that Thompson had prepared the bet the night before -- by filling a lemon with buckshot to make it easier to throw. The gambler's reputation even inspired hard-boiled crime writer Damon Runyon to write Thompson into the story that became the musical Guys and Dolls -- as the character Sky Masterson. Not bad for \"a boy who came out of the Ozarks with nothing.\" Cook says Thompson was self-taught, living by wit and guile. \"He was proud of that,\" Cook says. \"He wanted to prove he was deserving.\" Though he made millions over his lifetime, Thompson died almost penniless in 1974. Despite the glamorous tales, he lived a lonely life, moving from town to town looking for new suckers. Through five marriages and a scattering of offspring, Thompson really never connected with any person -- only with the games. He blew into town like a rogue wind that lifted girls' skirts and turned gamblers' pockets inside-out. Tall and thin with a bland mask of a face, he had close-set eyes that looked a little dead, at least until he offered you a bet. Then those dark eyes sparked and he smiled like he had good news. \"Are you a gambling man?\" he'd ask. \"Because I am.\" Alvin was his name, but nobody called him that. They called him \"Titanic.\" Titanic Thompson—a made-up name for a self-made man who won and lost millions of dollars playing cards, dice, pool, golf, horseshoes, and anything else he could think of to bet on. He also killed five men. \"But they'd all tell you they had it coming.\" He also married five women, each one a teenager on her wedding day. Titanic liked his women young and pretty, his cars big and fast, his suckers rich and gullible. He spent fifty years roaming America's back roads, living by his wits and reflexes, until America changed and there was no more room for such a man. ----- In the years between world wars, Titanic Thompson motored from town to town in a nickel-plated, two-ton Pierce-Arrow, the same car Babe Ruth, Franklin Roosevelt, and the shah of Persia favored. He carried his tools in the trunk: left- and right-handed golf clubs, a bowling ball, horseshoes, a shotgun, and a suitcase full of cash. During his first twenty years on the road he crossed paths with Harry Houdini, Al Capone, Howard Hughes, Minnesota Fats, and Jean Harlow. Still he managed to remain a cipher to the public. Damon Runyon wanted to write about him, but Titanic told him to forget it. He said, \"Mine ain't the kind of work publicity helps.\" So Runyon based a character on him—Sky Masterson, the hero of Guys and Dolls. Professional gamblers still talk about Titanic Thompson. They say that he threw a watermelon over a three-story building, that he pulled Capone's pants down, that he beat Ben Hogan playing golf right-handed and then turned around and beat Byron Nelson left-handed, that he survived the sinking of the Titanic by sneaking into a lifeboat dressed as a woman. Only the watermelon story is true. But plenty of other Titanic tales are gospel. He hunted quail by throwing rocks, knocking the birds out of the air. He tricked Capone out of five hundred dollars and double-crossed Arnold Rothstein, the crime boss who fixed the 1919 \"Black Sox\" World Series. He hustled country-club golfers for twenty thousand a hole while Hogan and Nelson were earning ten thousand a year. He once drove a golf ball more than five hundred yards. There's a true story to his name too. In 1912, a few weeks after the unsinkable Titanic sank, taking 1,517 souls down with her, a rangy teenager in a brown suit stepped into Snow Clark's pool hall in Joplin, Missouri. He proceeded to beat every player in the place, then asked, \"Who's the best cue in town?\" That would be Snow, the pool players said. Snow Clark could run the table as fast as you could blink. \"Where do I find him?\" \"Right over there.\" Alvin from Arkansas moseyed over and introduced himself. In an Ozarks twang that sounded half-d", "Lil Nas X's \"Old Town Road\" rode right into its 16th week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 today, tying the record for longest consecutive time in the top spot. Only two songs have achieved this long of a streak before in the chart's history. Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men's \"One Sweet Day\" was first in 1995, and held the record for more than two decades until Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee — with an assist from Justin Bieber on the remix — tied it in 2017 with \"Despacito.\" Lil Nas X seemed confident this weekend, tweeting \"what we doing to celebrate the billboard record when we break it y'all.\" But his chart victory was a close one — especially once Billie Eilish, the artist best positioned to break his streak, seemed to figure out one of the keys to his success. The rapper had dominated the Hot 100 in part by exploiting Billboard's murky remix policy, which counts the original song and its remixes as one when it comes to calculating chart position (as long as the remixes don't deviate too far in composition). Lil Nas X has released four official versions of \"Old Town Road,\" the newest of which, featuring rapper Young Thug and viral star Mason Ramsey, came just last week, in time to push listening numbers up ahead of week 16. Eilish effectively deployed the same tactic, enlisting veteran chart-booster Bieber for a remix of her No. 2 song, \"bad guy,\" also released last week. Today's chart unveiled the results of their remix race: Adding Bieber wasn't quite enough for Eilish to catch up to the hundreds of millions of listens \"Old Town Road\" and its many permutations have generated. It's worth noting that this deft manipulation is happening at the hands of two very young artists — Eilish is 17, Lil Nas X is 20 — who each clearly understand the power of virality and taking advantage of a moment. The original \"Old Town Road\" first entered the Hot 100 in March after going viral on the social media platform TikTok, and was propelled upward by attention from a controversy over whether the song belonged on Billboard's country chart, which fatefully led to a collaboration with Billy Ray Cyrus, resulting in the most popular remix of the bunch. NPR Music's Rodney Carmichael asked Lil Nas X in April if the rapper was simply trolling the music industry with all these games. His answer was characteristically self-assured: \"Even if they like ['Old Town Road'] as a joke, they're not liking this as a joke and putting it at No. 1, too.\"", "This past week, the No. 1 album in America was by a polo-shirted New York band that has never had a hit single. Even alt-rock radio doesn't play them much. This week, that band will be replaced at No. 1 by a French duo that only appears publicly in robot getups and, until a month ago, had never seen the inside of the Top 40. This is notable activity atop a Billboard album chart that, in 2013, has been led by the likes of Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake, Bon Jovi, Michael Bublé and Lady Antebellum. Are Vampire Weekend and Daft Punk — our latest and next chart-topper — the hippest pair of acts ever to top the U.S. album chart back-to-back? Depending on how you define \"hip,\" maybe. And does this chart-topping success make them instantly unhip? Maybe not. As of last week, Vampire Weekend's third album Modern Vampires of the City led the Billboard 200, the music-industry bible's flagship album chart. Modern Vampires is actually VW's second straight No. 1; their sophomore disc Contra debuted on top, too, back in 2010. Disappearing for three years doesn't seem to have been bad for business — Modern Vampires rolled 134,000 in sales in its debut week, about 10,000 copies higher than Contra's first-week total. But VW's solid six-figure sum looks like chump change this week. Daft Punk, who have been away from recording even longer, are replacing VW at No. 1 with Random Access Memories. Billboard just announced late Tuesday that the album rolled an eye-popping debut-week total of 339,000 copies. That's not only more than twice what VW tallied; Random Access Memories' opening tally is the second-largest debut of the year to date, after Justin Timberlake's 968,000-album arrival in March. For Daft Punk, it's the biggest sales week of a two-decade career, and about two and a half times what the robotic duo's last studio album, 2005's Human After All, sold in total. Daft Punk's album is benefiting from a savvy prerelease awareness campaign that's been months (even years) in the making. But the duo is also reaping rewards from the public as electronic-music godfathers, for helping to birth the sound that's been permeating the radio for about five years now. In one sense, Vampire Weekend's debut is the more impressive — despite recording a raft of catchy songs, they can't rely on the radio. Ezra Koenig's jaunty, Paul Simon–esque foursome is selling largely based on buzz and hardcore fandom (a Saturday Night Live appearance two weeks ago didn't hurt). A perusal of Billboard's flagship singles chart, the Hot 100, shows a dearth of hits for VW. In the five years since their 2008 debut, none of their songs has peaked higher on the chart than 2010's \"Horchata,\" which reached No. 102. That's not a typo — Billboard tracks songs that \"Bubble Under\" the Hot 100, many of which never make the leap onto the list. All of VW's singles have bubbled under the Hot 100, from 2008's \"A-Punk\" (No. 106) to the new album's \"Diane Young\" (No. 119). Essentially, Top 40 radio has largely ignored VW; and their fans seem to buy the albums, not the singles. Even on Billboard's Alternative Songs list (an all-radio chart), success for VW has been hard-won — 2010's \"Cousins\" stalled at No. 18, and current single \"Diane Young\" has fought its way to No. 11. These are modest chart results for a band with two No. 1 albums. Daft Punk's pop profile is only moderately higher. Prior to this year, they'd only hit the Hot 100 twice: 1997's \"Around the World\" and 2001's \"One More Time\" each peaked, coincidentally, at a dismal No. 61. They've scored Top 10s and even No. 1's on the Dance Club chart before, but that's a tastemaker list, one of the few Billboard charts with no consumer or radio component at all. This time, however, Daft Punk have an honest-to-goodness, booming-from-a-car-near-you U.S. hit: the Song of Summer frontrunner \"Get Lucky,\" featuring producer–vocalist Pharrell Williams and legendary, should-damned-well-be-in-the–Hall of Fame–already Chic guitarist Nile Rodgers. A month ago, \"Lucky\" crashed onto the Hot 100 at No. 19, instantly becoming Daft Punk's first Top 40 pop hit, period. Last week, just as Random Access Memories hit stores, \"Get Lucky\" rose into Billboard's Top 10. An actual hit surely helps DP's U.S. momentum. But to a large extent, the radio gatekeepers are belatedly catching on to DP's deafening buzz and jumping on the bandwagon. So, given all this commercial success for VW and DP, just how hip are these two albums? By chart standards, pretty hip. Flipping though 50 years of Billboard album-chart No. 1's, it's hard to find a pair of back-to-back chart-topping acts (not counting soundtrack albums or compilations) with such a heretofore low profile on Billboard's song and radio charts. No. 1 albums have occasionally reflected their era's hipper rock movements, something that was percolating just to the left of the singles charts; but it's near-unprecedented for two such albums to own the penthouse in a row. For example, some classic-rock ", "To dream of ferns means something good is close by or is going to happen. The Los Angeles-based Dreaming Ferns met through a combination of random coincidence and Craigslistings. Their music is an eclectic mix informed by everyone from Bessie Smith to Jay Z, Johnny Cash, AC/DC and Prince. Dreaming Ferns also offer an odd assortment of instruments, including piano, cello, guitar, clarinet and drums. You're A Spark is the group's debut, self-produced EP. \"This Town\", the first song on the EP, is a bittersweet, nostalgic tale of identity, ambition and the love/hate relationship so many have with their home town. Dreaming Ferns are currently working on another EP. They are also strategizing how to tour the globe so that everyone can sing along with their music.", "Birthed in the shadow of Dollywood at the tourist mecca that is Ole Smoky Moonshine Distillery in Gatlinburg, Tenn., The Po' Ramblin' Boys play a spirited and aged brand of straight-ahead, Monroe-style bluegrass. Driving a 1965 GM tour bus, the fast and furious five-person band (whose members hail from Kentucky, Missouri, North Dakota and Pennsylvania) isn't trying to reinvent the bluegrass wheel so much as bring back that rawhide edge of Monroe's original Saturday night and Sunday morning blend of bluegrass and gospel. The band did just that on The Po' Ramblin' Boys' first trip to Mountain Stage on March 24, 2019, with guest host Kathy Mattea. Describing them as looking \"like they could be Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys except for the tattoos and mandatory facial hair,\" Mattea called the 2018 International Bluegrass Music Association's emerging artist of the year, \"authentic bluegrass at its best.\" The Po' Ramblin' Boys (plus guest artist Laura Orshaw, a Boston-based fiddler and vocalist), proved Mattea right and fired off four straight bluegrass bangers: \"Leaving This Town,\" \"Old Richmond Prison,\" \"Late Last Night\" and \"Longing for the Ozarks\" with barely a breath in between. Orshaw sprinkled some honky-tonk angel dust onto \"Row Number Two, Seat Number Three,\" a song made famous by Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper, the late, great Grand Ole Opry stars and 2008 inductees into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame. Freshly signed to Rounder Records, The Po' Ramblin' Boys shared some more songs from Toil, Tears & Trouble, the band's 2019 debut which was nominated for best bluegrass album at this year's Grammy Awards. After a fresh take on the cinematic bluegrass gem \"Ice Covered Birches,\" the band showcased their polished harmonies on Don Brown's \"God's Love is So Divine\" before banjoist Jereme Brown rolled the band home with its briskly-paced charting song, \"Next Train South.\" SET LIST: \"Leaving This Town\" \"Old Richmond Prison\" \"Late Last Night\" \"Longing for the Ozarks\" \"Row Number Two, Seat Number Three\" \"Old New Borrowed and Blue\" \"Ice Covered Birches\" \"God's Love Is So Divine\" \"Next Train South\" MUSICIANS: CJ Lewandowski: mandolin and vocals; Josh Rinkel: guitar and vocals; Jasper Lorentzen: bass and vocals; Jereme Brown: banjo and vocals; Laura Orshaw: fiddle and vocals.", "Lil Nas X has officially broken the record for the longest-running No. 1 single on Billboard's Hot 100 list thanks to his breakout hit \"Old Town Road.\" Billboard announced on July 29 that the genre-jumping song has topped the chart for 17 straight weeks. But what's the significance of such a feat? \"What's most remarkable about the run that the song has had is that it has literally dodged all of the major contenders for song of the summer by some real pop heavyweights,\" pop critic and chart analyst Chris Molanphy says. Since being officially released via Columbia Records and skyrocketing to No. 1 in April, the \"Old Town Road\" remix featuring Billy Ray Cyrus has edged out music by pop music darlings Taylor Swift, Shawn Mendes, Ed Sheeran and more from the top spot. In order to logistically pull this off, Molanphy says consistency is key across three major metrics: Sales, streaming and airplay. According to Molanphy, \"Old Town Road\" has been \"dominant\" in all three fields since its release. \"Streaming has overwhelmingly been the reason why 'Old Town Road' has stayed at number one so many weeks,\" Molanphy explains. \"But it's also been a big hit at radio and it has outsold most songs on downloads for much of the last three to four months.\" If the original track, which was released independently by the rapper on Dec. 3, 2018 and first gained rapid popularity thanks to the music app TikTok, wasn't enough, three subsequent remixes — first featuring Cyrus, then with Young Thug and Mason Ramsey, then with rapper RM of the K-pop supergroup BTS — undoubtedly tipped the scales in Lil Nas X's favor. In claiming this 17-week throne, \"Old Town Road\" has beat out the other contenders who've held the previous record of 16 weeks — 1995's \"One Sweet Day\" by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men and 2017's \"Despacito\" remix by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee featuring Justin Bieber. Molanphy points out that all three of these long-reigning No. 1's, at 16 and 17 weeks respectively, were collaboration records that paired larger-than-life artists together and created a moment in the music world, whether it be two R&B titans teaming up or an unexpected bilingual crossover. \"They're kind of event singles, if you will,\" Molanphy says. In the case of \"Old Town Road,\" Molanphy thinks the contention surrounding the song's genre designation is what propelled it into being an \"event record.\" \"Folks debating whether or not it qualified for the genre of that Lil Nas X was claiming it belonged in; country music,\" he says. \"And then, to sort of step it up a notch, he invites an actual country veteran, Billy Ray Cyrus, to do a vocal on the first remix and that just kicked it into overdrive and turned what was already a very viral song into a total event.\" Outside of the music industry push, the 20-year-old artist has been able to keep the momentum on his song going by intuitively harnessing the power of the Internet. Lil Nas X teasing remixes on Twitter, adding sly cameos to the music video and creating residual viral moments all helped to keep the conversation around the song feel current. \"All throughout this 17 weeks, it's been a breadcrumb trail of new information — exciting new content, if you will, memes, if you will — related to 'Old Town Road' and I think that's gone a long way toward keeping it front of mind with certainly a younger generation and American culture in general,\" Molanphy notes.", "Fresh from his victories in nine of 10 state contests Tuesday, Sen. John Kerry holds a town hall meeting on national security in Orlando, Fla. Kerry, the de facto presidential nominee of the Democratic party, discussed the challenge of unseating President Bush. NPR's David Welna reports.", "Daniel Woodrell is a novelist who lives in the Missouri Ozarks. He's often grouped with the more literary types on the crime-genre spectrum; I've heard the label \"country noir.\" His prose is spare but deeply evocative of hardscrabble places and the near-biblical cruelty they engender. Director Debra Granik has captured that tone in her harshly beautiful adaptation of Woodrell's 2006 novel Winter's Bone. The setting is inspired by a small town near Woodrell's home where everyone is kin -- and so alienated from American culture it's like a parallel universe. Woodrell keeps his distance from the scariest and most shrouded of its denizens, and so would his 17-year-old heroine, Ree Dolly, even though she's distantly related. But the threat of homelessness compels her into the woods and up those barren hills, past shacks and rusted-out farm equipment, in search of answers about her father. Ree's mother is mentally ill, near-catatonic, and Ree takes care of her young brother and sister. Somehow she has kept them from being broken by their circumstances. Winter's Bone's opening shots are of the boy and girl on a trampoline in a landscape stripped of life, while a woman on the soundtrack sings, unaccompanied, an Ozark lullaby. Right from the start, Granik and her cinematographer, Michael McDonough, create a lyrical tension between death and life, despair and determination. A cop drives up to tell Ree, played by Jennifer Lawrence, that her dad, Jessup, was arrested for cooking crystal meth and that he's now nowhere to be found. He's also signed over the lease to the family's house, threatening to leave them homeless. She is forced to beg -- something she told her siblings never to do -- even from her best friend, played by Lauren Sweetser, and her father's brother, Teardrop, played by a scarily volatile John Hawkes. As Ree, Lawrence is hauntingly self-contained. She can't afford to show vulnerability, even to herself. Despite winning a big prize at Sundance, Winter's Bone isn't the usual good-for-you indie movie, what critics and industry people used to call snarkily \"deadbeat regionalism.\" Beneath its plainness is an odyssey that's mythic in its intensity, that builds to a confrontation not with the men perhaps responsible for her father's disappearance, but their haggard wives. Their leader, the wife of a powerful man named Thump Milton, is Merab, and as played by Dale Dickey it's impossible to take her full measure. Motherliness and murderousness have melted together; you can't spot the line between this woman's free will and her loyalty to her male-driven clan. You could watch her remarkable performance a hundred times and never get to the bottom of it. All through Winter's Bone are moments in which the characters are so unfathomably mean to Ree that we search their faces for a glimmer of sympathy, kinship -- anything human. Some filmmakers would settle for masks of malevolence, because that would clinch the case that these clannish Ozark hill folk were born or else worn down to pure evil. But director Granik doesn't let her actors go dead: There is movement, barely perceptible, under the surface. Some vein of compassion, however thin, must be down there. Somewhere. Ree's final scene with Merab, a midnight boat ride into the marshes, is what bad dreams are made of. But for all the horror of Winter's Bone, it's the drive toward life that lingers in the mind. It's a miraculous film -- it gets blood from a headstone. DAVE DAVIES, host: Set in the Ozarks, the new film \"Winter's Bone\" is the story of a teenage girl who embarks on a search for her missing father. Based on the novel by Daniel Woodrell at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Film critic David Edelstein has this review. DAVID EDELSTEIN: Daniel Woodrell is a novelist who lives in the Missouri Ozarks. He's often grouped with the more literary types on the crime-genre spectrum. I've heard the label country noir. His prose is spare but deeply evocative of hardscrabble places and the near-biblical cruelty they engender. Director Debra Granik has captured that tone in her harshly beautiful adaptation of Woodrell's 2006 novel \"Winter's Bone.\" The setting is inspired by a small town near Woodrell's home in which everyone is kin, and so alienated from American culture it's like a parallel universe. Woodrell keeps his distance from the scariest and most shrouded of its denizens, and so would his 17-year-old heroine, Ree Dolly, even though she's distantly related. But the threat of homelessness compels her into the woods and up those barren hills, past shacks and rusted-out farm equipment, in search of answers about her father. Ree's mother is mentally ill, near-catatonic, and Ree takes care of her young brother and sister. Somehow she's kept them from being broken by their circumstances. \"Winter's Bone's\" opening shots are of the boy and girl on a trampoline in a landscape stripped of life, while a woman on the soundtrack sings, unaccompanied, an Ozark lul", "David Greene missed Hillary Clinton's speech at the Democratic National Convention. He was too busy dancing at an Ozarks jam session in Mountain View, Ark — in search of local leaders. ALEX CHADWICK, host: This is Day to day. I'm Alex Chadwick. MADELEINE BRAND, host: And I'm Madeleine Brand. This week, we're speaking with NPR's David Greene as he heads west. He's talking to Americans about the people they look to for leadership. And the series is called Take Me To Your Leader. David, where are you today? DAVID GREENE: Hey, I'm actually at Wal-Mart in Mountain View, Arkansas, which is this spectacular little town nestled in the Ozark Mountains. BRAND: OK. So what are you doing at Wal-Mart? GREENE: I don't know how much detail you want. I need some more socks because we haven't found a good Laundromat yet. But also, we need a power adapter for our laptops to plug into the car that we have. So there you go. BRAND: OK. So you're doing some housekeeping. Are you meeting any interesting characters? GREENE: We are. We actually - this is a - it's a really neat place. This town is known for its music, and every night on the town square, you know, into the evening under the stars, there are these spontaneous jam sessions, people getting together to play old time music, which sounds very much like bluegrass. Last night, there were three or four different groups playing, and people were out there eating ice-cream and burgers, and it was just a great evening in a really quiet spot. The roads are so small and curvy, and we're so far away from anything else that the tourism industry hasn't exploded, so it's really retained its charm. BRAND: So, David, we have to point out that you were actually with the Clinton campaign during the primaries. You were, you know, on the bus following every twist and turn of the campaign. And now, of course, you're nowhere near Denver. Did you watch the speech last night? GREENE: I actually didn't. I was planning on trying to catch some of the evenings, and, you know, we'll see about Obama's speech. But, no, we were out on the square, and there was just no reason to go inside. The music was great. We talked to some of the musicians, and they have been paying absolutely no attention to the convention here, and they were almost apologetic. They said, you know, we're not apathetic - announcement over there - and, you know, they're not apathetic. They care about politics, but they just said that, you know, music is their diversion. And it was a beautiful evening, and that's what was important. BRAND: Hmm. Even though this is, you know, Hillary Clinton's state, Arkansas. GREENE: Exactly. What did she say in the speech? BRAND: Well, you know, she talked about party unity, that kind of thing. GREENE: It had to have been a hard night for her. I mean, I followed her for so many months. This was supposed to be her night, and after coming so close and, you know, with Bill Clinton speaking tonight, the two of them, I mean, just - that has to be in the back of their mind, that this - we were so close to this being our evening. BRAND: Right, right. Well, it really was her evening. You could feel it, and, you know, a lot of people said after this, wow, had she been giving these speeches all along, hmm, things may have turned out differently. GREENE: We've heard that before from other politicians. BRAND: Yes. OK, so you are in this tiny Ozarks town in Arkansas. Where are you headed next? GREENE: Back up to Missouri and then eventually to Kansas, and we're going to take a train next week to New Mexico. That's our rough plan, but we've got this email address, meetyourleaders@npr.org, that is up and running. And we're not in the business of making hotel reservations. We don't have a clue where we're going to be staying tonight. Last night, we stayed at this - one of those motels where you pull up, you know, get out of your car and walk into your room. So we're just finding places. So if people have suggestions, seriously, tell us. BRAND: Otherwise are you going to be staying in a tent, or what? GREENE: We're thinking about it. I'm staring right now at a hexagonal sport dome tent for 32 bucks, so uh... BRAND: It's a good deal. I don't know if you could get a hotel room for that. OK. So, well, maybe you could just stay in the Wal-Mart parking lot. You know, people do do that. GREENE: Not a bad idea. This Wal-Mart actually - when there was a tornado in Mountain View recently, this was the only place with power, and the whole town was basically here being good neighbors and trying to cope. BRAND: All right. Listeners write to David with a good place to stay or any other suggestions. meetyourleaders@npr.org. Thanks, David. GREEN: Thank you, Madeleine.", "\"Despacito,\" the Spanish-language summer smash by Puerto Rican stars Luis Fonsi and \"king of reggaetón\" Daddy Yankee, is now the most-streamed song in history. On Wednesday, Universal Music, which released the song in January, said the original version of the hit and the subsequent remix featuring Justin Bieber have combined for 4.6 billion plays in just six months. That remix currently sits atop Billboard's summer songs chart. Most of those plays — 2.6 billion of them — were generated on YouTube from views of the original version's music video, which is the third-most watched video in the site's history. An audio-only post of the Bieber remix has about 425 million plays on YouTube. On Spotify, the two versions were listened to a combined 1.1 billion times. (\"Despacito\" has yet to unseat Spotify's most-played song, Drake's \"One Dance,\" which is closing in on 1.3 billion plays.) Together, Spotify and YouTube accounted for 92 percent of the song's plays. The speed with which the song reached this high-water mark is remarkable and points to the increasing popularity of music streaming services. According to analytics firm BuzzAngle, audio streams were up 58.5 percent in the first half of 2017. While \"Despacito\" was a bona fide global hit prior to Bieber's involvement in April, it generated relatively little interest in U.S. markets. But when Universal Music re-released the song with an English introductory verse by Bieber, \"Despacito\" gradually found its way onto the American pop charts. On the song's success, Universal Music Group chairman and CEO Lucian Grainge said in a statement that streaming \"has opened up the possibility of a song with a different beat, from a different culture and in a different language to become a juggernaut of success around the world.\" To that end, expect to see major labels attempt to replicate the success of \"Despacito\" on other international hits through similar guest arrangements. \"I think it's the beginning of a very long journey of new sounds,\" Charlie Walk, the Republic Records executive responsible for promoting the song, told Billboard last month.", "When an artist finds their song climbing up the Billboard charts for the first time, it's usually a cause for celebration. But in the case of 19-year-old rapper Lil Nas X and his viral hit, \"Old Town Road (I Got Horses in the Back),\" it's also been a cause of controversy. Lil Nas X first released \"Old Town Road\" in December 2018 and it quickly gained popularity on the social media app TikTok. \"Old Town Road\" blends genres of country and trap and in March, the song charted on Billboard's Hot 100, Hot Country Songs and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts simultaneously. But that same month, Billboard removed the track from its Hot Country Songs list. This raised questions and uproar from fans over discrimination. The publication released a statement to Rolling Stone defending the chart revision that read: \"While 'Old Town Road' incorporates references to country and cowboy imagery, it does not embrace enough elements of today's country music to chart in its current version.\" Critics of Billboard's decision, including artists like Moses Sumney and Billy Ray Cyrus, say it's proof that the music industry doesn't afford black artists the same creative license as white artists. \"The song is definitely a rap song. But who decides what is or isn't country music is very subjective,\" says Sam Sanders, host of NPR's It's Been A Minute. \"Lots of folks are saying 'Hey, Billboard, Hey, country, You allow white artists to get on these charts with songs that aren't quite country all the time.' There are artists like Sam Hunt who was clearly influenced by hip-hop, artists like Taylor Swift who made country songs that were more pop than country for years.\" Shane Morris, founder of BMD Agency in Nashville, says part of the push back against Lil Nas X wasn't just related to race. It was also the country industry being afraid of how the rapper emerged; on social media, without going through the Nashville gatekeepers. \"There isn't like a SoundCloud for independent country,\" Morris says. \"The fans don't adopt music in the same way. They very much are given what they're supposed to like and then that's that.\" With songs like \"Old Town Road\" changing the playing field, Sanders says it's country's job to adapt. \"The question is can country music catch up with hip-hop and everyone else and make peace with this brave new world?\" On April 5, Lil Nas X released the official remix to \"Old Town Road\" featuring Billy Ray Cyrus.", "There are violent ghosts, flying whales, and dead people with mouthfuls of saltwater hundreds of miles from the ocean in Sam J. Miller's The Blade Between, but it all makes sense. It all makes sense because the story takes place in Hudson, New York, a place built on the remains of slaughtered whales, where their unused parts were buried underground and the scraps were fed to animals later used to feed people. Hudson is full of angry spirits, but now a different monster is destroying it: gentrification. Ronan Szepessy is a famous photographer and influencer who promised himself he'd never return to Hudson, where he was born and then grew up as a lonely, bullied gay kid. But now he's back. The drinking, sex, and drugs of New York City were getting out of control — and his father is sick. While his memories are intact, the sleepy town he remembers is gone, replaced by a bustling town full of hipsters and artists where rent has skyrocketed and the streets are lined with antique shops for tourists. Unsure of why he's there and what is pushing him to stay, Ronan reconnects with two friends from high school: Dom, a cop who was his first love, and Attalah, Dom's wife, who hates what's happening to her hometown. The three friends hate gentrifiers, so Attalah and Ronan start plotting ways to change things — including blackmail — and Ronan and Dom rekindle their relationship, but their actions unleash something darker in the process. The Blade Between is a book about broken people. The creepy atmosphere and ghosts make it horror, but the drug abuse, evictions, cheating, and destroyed lives make it noir. Also, Miller's writing and vivid imagery, especially when describing dreams, make it poetry. The mix of genres, much like the mix of elements, makes no sense, but it works. People are angry and sad. Poverty is rampant. The opioid crisis has destroyed many of Hudson's residents. Failed drugs tests separate kids from their mothers. Corporate interests destroy places locals considered sacred. When those things come together, the flying whales and apparitions, what Ronan calls the town's \"supernatural miasma,\" are no big deal because the darkness and pain underneath them, the carnage of daily life, is astonishingly real and painfully relatable. Miller pulls readers into a universe where the banality of everyday life in a small town and the extraordinary weirdness of the supernatural collide, but the collision somehow results in a strange balance. On one side there are dying businesses, junkies, closeted gay men looking for sex on apps, and people struggling to get by and deciding they will offer gentrifiers everything they have for money and a chance at a better future. On the other, there are unreliable narrators, a creature Ronan creates on his computer, made up of various photos of attractive men, that comes to life, and the ghost of a young gay man who serves as a sort of guide to Hudson's hidden world. There is plenty of strangeness and action in The Blade Between, but Miller also finds ways to tackle important subjects within the chaos. Grief and guilt are driving forces for many characters. People know their vices and bad decisions have messed them up, but they're unable — or unwilling — to do anything about it. Homophobia is a recurring theme that helps readers understand why Ronan is the way he is and why he stayed away from Hudson for two decades: \"But I couldn't have stayed. Not as who I was. I'd have had to keep myself in some kind of horrible closet. How I made it out at all, without being the victim of a homophobic crime, is still a mystery to me.\" This is a complex novel that never allows one storyline to overpower the others. The fight against gentrification lies at its core like a rotten chunk of whale flesh buried under a crumbling building, but there's enough going on to build a whole town on top of that. For example, Dom and Attalah have an open relationship, but when Dom and Ronan become lovers again, things get complicated. Also, Ronan wants to kick the gentrifiers out, but even so he's tempted to sell his father's property and return to New York. The Blade Between is more than a dystopian sci-fi thriller with a dash of poetry; it's an explosive narrative about a small town caught between the decaying ghosts of the past, the shattered dreams and mediocre lives of its residents, and the monster of gentrification that threatens to erase it all under shiny new buildings and fancy coffee shops. That Miller manages to discuss all three while also exploring the interstitial spaces between homosexuality, technology, and class privilege and resentment is a testament to his storytelling skills, and a powerful reason to read this haunting tale. Gabino Iglesias is an author, book reviewer and professor living in Austin, Texas. Find him on Twitter at @Gabino_Iglesias.", "In India, a nation of more than 1 billion people, two national obsessions rule: cricket and movies. Going to a movie is a major family outing. Seats are assigned, as in an NFL stadium or a Broadway theater. Movies have intermissions; concessionaires sell gourmet sandwiches and samosas along with the popcorn. On one recent Friday night, a live three-man band played in the lobby of one Mumbai multiplex. And though Hollywood likes to think of itself as the world's biggest movie town, those billion-plus movie-mad Indians are served by a home-grown movie industry — the entertainment machine some refer to as Bollywood — that annually puts out more than twice as many movies as its U.S. competition. Hollywood, no surprise, is hungry for a piece of that market. At first, American studios tried a strategy that has worked in almost every other overseas market: dubbing Hollywood blockbusters into the local language. That approach brought only limited success. \"Culturally, India is much more connected with our own movies and our own stars, much like our food,\" says Uday Singh, managing director of Sony Pictures in India. \"Here, 95 percent of the business is local film. So if you want to be a meaningful player ... you have to participate in that big chunk of business.\" That's why Sony became the first major Hollywood studio to produce a Hindi-language film. They chose a script called Saawariya, or \"Beloved\" — a romantic tale based on Feodor Dostoevski's short story \"White Nights.\" Back in New York, Sony executives loved it. \"I think that it's a magical vision,\" says Deborah Schindler, president of Sony Pictures' international production arm. \"It is a fabulous, romantic, passionate tale of youngsters finding true love.\" The movie was shot in India, on studio sets that evoked an aqua-and-blue version of Venice or St. Petersburg, with dark canals and low-lying bridges. The scenes call to mind the glamour of '40s and '50s Hollywood; there's even a lovesick actor singing in the rain. Sony put all its corporate muscle behind the movie. There were billboards, promotions on Sony-owned TV stations, and plenty of radio airplay for the title song. Sony scheduled Saawariya to open on the weekend of Diwali, a holiday that, like Christmas, is a big moviegoing time. Unfortunately, this year's Diwali season wasn't big enough for two major movies: On the same weekend, one of India's biggest stars premiered a film called Om Shanti Om. Shahrukh Khan is to Hindi film as Brad Pitt is to Hollywood. All over the country, everyone was talking about billboards featuring Khan in an open shirt, revealing newly minted six-pack abs. And the title song from Om Shanti Om was just as big a hit as Saawariya's. But Om Shanti Om had more than 30 major Indian stars in its cast. A sendup of the last 30 years of Hindi moviemaking, it was what Indians call a masala film, meaning it had a little bit of everything: comedy, tragedy, romance, drama, music, and a plot that turned on reincarnation. In other words, it was as flashy as a Hollywood blockbuster like Pirates of the Caribbean, and Sony's first foray into the Indian market — the arty, literary, Bergman-esque Saawariya was hardly a match for it at the box office. The Indian media went to town: newspaper headlines, special reports on TV, and adjectives like \"debacle\" and \"disaster.\" \"Sony stepped into territory which it doesn't understand,\" says Komal Nahata, editor of the Mumbai-based Film Street Journal. \"And they did not think it fit to take the opinion of people who understand, because they wouldn't have made this mistake otherwise.\" Audiences came out in record numbers for both films on opening weekend. But as the reviews poured in, ticket sales tapered off for Sony's movie and kept rising for Om Shanti Om. Megastar Shahrukh Khan suggested in interviews that seeing his film was a way to fight against a Hollywood giant trying to take over the Indian film industry. Sony's experience may prove a cautionary tale for all the other Hollywood studios eyeing the Indian film market — Warner Bros., Fox, Viacom and Walt Disney among them. Disney's Roadside Romeo, its first animated feature for the Indian market, is due in summer. There's already an early trailer, with the lead character — a dog named Romeo — trying out for a part in a movie. Disney's strategy is different from Sony's. Animated features are new to India, and Disney — internationally known for its animation — partnered with one of India's best-known studios, Yash Raj Films. \"When we go to animation, that is an area that we don't have expertise in,\" says Yash Raj CEO Sanjeev Kohli. \"We felt the need, and it would bring a lot of value to the product if we tied up with the world's leader in that area. And there is no better name than Disney at all.\" The consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that India's film industry will more than double in size over the next four years, from just over $2 billion dollars in revenue to close", "Jerome Antone says he is one of the lucky ones. After becoming ill with COVID-19, Antone was hospitalized only 65 miles away from his small Alabama town. He is the mayor of Georgiana — population 1,700. \"It hit our rural community so rabid,\" Antone says. The town's hospital closed last year. If hospitals in nearby communities don't have beds available, \"you may have to go four or five hours away.\" As COVID-19 continues to spread, an increasing number of rural communities in the U.S. find themselves without their hospital or on the brink of losing already cash-strapped facilities. Eighteen rural hospitals closed last year and the first three months of 2020 were \"really big months,\" says Mark Holmes, director of the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Many of the losses are in Southern states, including Florida and Texas, he says, and more than 170 rural hospitals have closed nationwide since 2005, according to data collected by the Sheps Center. It's a dangerous scenario. \"We know that a closure leads to higher mortality pretty quickly\" among the populations served, says Holmes, who is also a professor at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. \"That's pretty clear.\" One 2019 study found that death rates in the surrounding communities increase nearly 6% after a rural hospital closes — and that's when there's not a pandemic. Add to that what is known about the coronavirus: People who are obese, live with diabetes, hypertension, asthma and other underlying health issues are more susceptible to COVID-19. Rural areas tend to have higher rates of these conditions. And rural residents are more likely to be older, sicker and poorer than those in urban areas. All this leaves rural communities particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus. Congress approved billions in federal relief funds for health care providers. Initially, federal officials based what a hospital would get on its Medicare payments, but by late April they heeded criticism and carved out funds for rural hospitals and COVID-19 hot spots. Rural hospitals leapt at the chance to shore up already-negative budgets and prepare for the pandemic. The funds \"helped rural hospitals with the immediate storm,\" says Dr. Don Williamson, president of the Alabama Hospital Association. Nearly 80% of Alabama's rural hospitals began the year with negative balance sheets and about eight days' worth of cash on hand. Before the pandemic hit this year, hundreds of rural hospitals \"were just trying to keep their doors open,\" says Maggie Elehwany, vice president of government affairs with the National Rural Health Association. Then, an estimated 70% of their income stopped as patients avoided the emergency room, doctor's appointments and elective surgeries. \"It was devastating,\" Elehwany says. Paul Taylor, chief executive of a 25-bed critical access hospital and outpatient clinics in northwestern Arkansas, accepted millions in grants and loan money Congress approved this spring, largely through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. \"For us, this was survival money and we spent it already,\" Taylor says. With those funds, Ozarks Community Hospital increased surge capacity, expanding from 25 beds to 50 beds, adding negative pressure rooms and buying six ventilators. Taylor also ramped up COVID-19 testing at his hospital and clinics, located near some meat-processing plants. Throughout June and July, Ozarks tested 1,000 patients a day and reported a 20% positive rate. The rate dropped to 16.9% in late July. But patients are still avoiding routine care. Taylor says revenue is still constrained and he does not know how he will pay back $8 million that he borrowed from Medicare. The program allowed hospitals to borrow against future payments from the federal government, but stipulated that repayment would begin within 120 days. For Taylor, this seems impossible. Medicare makes up 40% of Ozarks' income. And he has to pay the loan back before he gets any more payments from Medicare. He's hoping to refinance the hospital's mortgage. \"If I get no relief and they take the money ... we won't still be open,\" Taylor says. Ozarks provides 625 jobs and serves an area with a population of about 75,000. There are 1,300 small critical access hospitals like Ozarks in rural America and, of those, 859 took advantage of the Medicare loans, sending about $3.1 billion into the local communities. But many rural communities have not yet experienced a surge in coronavirus cases — national leaders fear it will come as part of a new phase. \"There are pockets of rural America who say 'We haven't seen a single COVID patient yet and we do not believe it's real,'\" Taylor says. \"They will get hit sooner or later.\" Across the country, the loss of patients and increased spending required to fight and prepare for the coronavirus was \"like a knife cutting into a hospital's blood supply,\" says Ge Bai, associate professor of health po", "Getting \"Hotline Bling\" to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 was something that Drake really, really wanted. He said so, very publicly, last week on Instagram: The \"Hotline Bling\" video, which was originally only posted on Apple Music, proved to be endlessly remixable, with Drake seeming to be in on the joke — or at the very least, more or less cheerfully resigned to its destiny. A meme doesn't always make a No. 1 hit, though. Billboard confirmed for us this morning that Apple does not report its video streams to Nielsen Music, whose statistics determine the Billboard charts. As Silvio Pietroluongo, Billboard's vice president of charts and data development, pointed out to me in an email this morning, they don't know the volume of views that \"Hotline Bling\" actually had on Apple — and if those numbers would have been enough to squeeze The Weeknd out of his month-long stretch at No. 1 with \"The Hills.\" At any rate, Adele's \"Hello\" is now in stratospheric ascent — garnering nearly 90 million views and counting on YouTube since its release on Oct. 22, in contrast to Drake's 900,000 count. So it seems that \"Hotline Bling\" won't be the arrow that gets Drake to his target, despite its omnipresence in GIFs. Maybe Drake's disappointment serves as a little bit of a cautionary tale for other artists: The streaming platform you choose just might decide your chart fate.", "In her rise from the Bronx to the Billboard charts, Cardi B has been many things frequently deemed disposable in the annals of pop culture: an exotic dancer, an Instagram celebrity, a reality TV star. But now there's no denying her place in history. At 24, Cardi B has become the first woman rapper to score an unassisted No. 1 hit since Lauryn Hill nearly two decades ago. Her late-summer anthem, \"Bodak Yellow,\" bombarded the charts seemingly out of nowhere in recent weeks, clawing its way to No. 2 on the Billboard 100, where it looked like it might remain outdone by Taylor Swift's \"Look What You Made Me Do.\" But the buzz surrounding Cardi proved too strong, as she burst through this week to become only the fifth female rapper to top the Billboard 100. Since Hill's \"Doo Wop (That Thing)\" debuted at No. 1 back in Nov. 1998, Lil' Kim (\"Lady Marmalade\" ft. Christina Aguilera, Mya and P!nk; 2001), Shawnna (Ludacris's \"Stand Up\"; 2003) and Iggy Azalea (Fancy\" ft. Charli XCX; 2014) are the only women emcees to hold the spot, Billboard reports. It's a significant milestone, and it comes in the same year that Nielsen Music, incorporating streaming data for the first time this year, confirmed that hip-hop/R&B outpaced all other genres in consumption for the first time in its annual mid-year report. It's also a significant notch in rap's heavyweight belt for women artists, who are often treated as secondary within a male-dominated industry that also loves to pit its top female contenders against one another (as if there is only room for one notable female rapper at a time). Last week, Rapsody released a long-awaited stellar full-length Laila's Wisdom. Cardi B's own major-label debut LP is slated for an October release. But this is an especially sweet win for Cardi. Coming on the heels of a grind that saw her release two mixtapes — she has yet to release a debut studio album — within six months, it's been a fairy-tale rise from projects to the pop charts for a rapper whose ratchet personality and flamboyant, self-deprecating sense of humor has endeared her to more and more fans along the way. \"I'm the hottest in the street / Know you probably heard of me,\" as she raps on \"Bodak Yellow.\" \"Got a bag and fixed my teeth / Hope you h*** know it ain't cheap.\" Two weeks ago, she arrived at Rihanna's Annual Diamond Ball looking like a modern-day Cinderella. But there'll be no curfew on this Bronx belle's chart-topping success.", "Around the world, people are struggling for access to drinking water. All Things Considered is examining the forces at play in separating the haves from the have-nots — from natural disasters to crumbling infrastructure and corruption. When the drought in Cape Town, South Africa, was worsening in late 2017, one of the country's leading insurance companies, Sanlam, wanted to help get the word out that people needed to save water. Sanlam's idea was to make a billboard telling people to cut down on water use. But that seemed boring to copywriter Susan van Rooyen and art director Moe Kekana. They're with the King James Group, the communications firm that Sanlam pitched. So van Rooyen and Kekana started brainstorming. Cape Town's government was asking people to save water by taking showers that lasted two minutes or less. Inspiration struck soon enough. \"What do people do in the shower?\" says 30-year-old van Rooyen. \"They sing.\" She and Kekana, 28, came up with something of a musical challenge: the 2-Minute Shower Songs campaign. The team asked South Africa's biggest pop stars to record new, shortened versions of their most famous songs. \"I remember sending an email where somebody said, 'How many do you want?' And I said, 'I could live with four or five, but 10 would be the dream,'\" Kekana says. \"And we got 10.\" The South African artists who contributed to the project range from pop singer Jimmy Nevis and rapper Youngsta to rock band Desmond & The Tutus. Once everyone was on board, the songs were recorded within two weeks in November 2017. \"We basically created an album in under a month,\" van Rooyen says. The idea of 2-Minute Shower Songs is fairly simple: You hit play as you jump in the shower, sing along and finish by the time the song ends. The 10 songs span an array of genres — from chill house to heavy drum-and-bass — and translate the sense of urgency around the drought into the music. In June — after the city cut down on water usage by more than half — Cape Town officials proclaimed that \"Day Zero\" had been averted. The term refers to the day it was predicted the city would have had to turn off its taps and distribute rationed water. Pop stars aren't exactly superheroes. But during this water crisis, everyone had a role to play. \"Sometimes you don't know what you can do to help within a crisis,\" van Rooyen says, \"and they were doing what they do best.\"", "Republicans in the Senate appear likely to hold onto their majority, as Democratic contenders fail to unseat most incumbents. In the House, Republicans have picked up a couple of seats, but not enough to significantly dent the Democratic robust majority. Here & Now&#8216;s Robin Young speaks with NPR&#8217;s Kelsey Snell about the congressional races. This article was originally published on WBUR.org.", "\"Sometimes, I feel I got to get away,\" sang the Who in their 1965 single \"The Kids Are Alright,\" and no wonder the song became an instant classic for the youth of Townshend and Daltrey's g-g-g-generation — teenagers of every age tend toward the restive, longing to experience life beyond whichever town or city they were raised in. For 16-year-old Helen Dedleder and her group of misfit friends, that desire is especially urgent. The kids live in Rosary, Calif., a fictional town run by religious fundamentalists, and are almost completely cut off from the outside world. Their struggle to be themselves and support one another in a community built on intolerance and hatred forms the basis of gods with a little g, the sweet and triumphant second novel from author Tupelo Hassman. Helen introduces her hometown thus: \"If you were flying in a plane over Rosary, California, the first thing you'd see is me, a skinny white girl with messy hair and a big backpack, waving you on. 'Keep going,' I'd say.\" And unless you have a soft spot for religious authoritarianism, you'd be wise to take her advice — Rosary is half Peyton Place, half Gilead from The Handmaid's Tale, a town where sex education is verboten, LGBTQ people are unwelcome, and \"the internet is policed, so we read our porn from books like the ancient peoples did.\" The town isn't a good fit for Helen, who's still hurting from the recent death of her mother from cancer, and her religious father's subsequent breakdown: \"When my mom was alive he was different, whole. When she died, though, he fell right apart, and I've been collecting the pieces of him since.\" She spends her after-school hours working for her aunt, Bev, a psychic who's roundly hated by the townspeople. (Bev is also a sex worker who, despite the town's collective lip service toward Christian virtue, never lacks for clients.) The rest of the time Helen spends at a tire yard with a group of young outsiders who call themselves the \"Dirtbags.\" (Actually, they call themselves something we can't print here, so \"Dirtbags\" will have to do.) The kids spend their time drinking beer, fighting and being horny at one another. \"Like, we're stuck, here with each other,\" Helen explains. \"The best and worst of everyone we know, doing what we must but shouldn't, becoming who we are and always will be. Without thinking, maybe.\" Helen's plan to run out the clock until she's old enough to ditch Rosary forever is complicated by two developments. First, she befriends two oddball siblings who have just moved to town: Win, a sweet boy with a barely disguised crush on Helen, and Rainbolene, a transgender girl who can't get the hormone therapy she needs in intolerant Rosary. Then, Helen develops feelings for \"the world's wrongest boy,\" Bird, the de facto leader of the Dirtbags, a bad boy whose mom happens to be dating Helen's father. Teenagers exist in a world of heightened emotions, and it can be tricky for writers to evoke that state of mind without seeming either distant or patronizing. This isn't a problem for Hassman — as in her debut novel, girlchild, she captures the anxieties and affections of young people in a perfectly realistic way, without a note of condescension. In one scene, a confused and lovelorn Helen describes seeking solace in the home of Win and Rainbolene: \"And they listen, even though I'm not saying anything. And they don't ask questions looking for answers I don't have. And I love them. And I hate everything and everyone else.\" It's a touching moment that perfectly captures Helen's dueling senses of toughness and tenderness. And while Hassman proves masterful at recounting Helen and her friends' most painful moments, she also brings a disarming sense of humor to the novel. Much of this comes in the conversations between Helen, Win and Rain (who pass their time reading aloud hilariously named vintage erotica novels); some comes at the expense of the fundamentalist cabal that runs Rosary. (In lieu of sex education classes, the high school offers pamphlets with titles such as \"Abstinence and Teens: A Hot Couple\" and \"1, 2, 3, No!\" Hassman is a vastly talented writer, and she brings to the novel a fascinating structure — gods with a little g is told in a series of short vignettes; the result is a staccato kind of narrative that brilliantly evokes the feeling of being a teenager, constantly addled, at loose ends, desperate to make a connection. And for all its dark moments, it's a novel that's as heartwarming as it is beautifully written. Despite everything going against them, these kids take care of one another. These kids look out for one another. These kids are alright.", "In 2017, former President Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides” when a group of protesters — including white nationalists — marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, and clashed with counter-protesters. The event was a brazen display of racism and anti-Semitism, and it claimed the life of a young woman named Heather Heyer. When President Biden launched his campaign a year and a half later, the first two words of his announcement were &#8220;Charlottesville, Virginia.&#8221; The ugliness of the “Unite the Right” rally and Trump&#8217;s response helped inspire Biden&#8217;s bid for the presidency. But as Biden called for unity in his inaugural address last week, many in Charlottesville are still healing from what they call the &#8220;summer of hate.” The people of Charlottesville want to be more than the events of that summer, says Rev. Phil Woodson, associate pastor at First United Methodist Church in the city and one of the counter-protesters at the rally. He believes that bringing justice and equity to the forefront can lead to unity. “In many ways, we are still a town that&#8217;s still traumatized and still struggling,” he says, “not only to address these overt attacks by white nationalists but also dealing with systemic white supremacy that permeates through our educational system, our housing systems, health care, policing.” During the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, people carried some of the same white supremacist iconography and ideology seen in Charlottesville. The two events are connected by the “unbridled evil of white supremacy on full display” on both days, Woodson says. It’s painful to see such hateful acts carried out in some cases in the name of Christianity — but his divine hope and joy limit the ache, he says. As a local pastor, his deepest pain stems from bearing witness to how white supremacy has harmed Black, Brown and Indigenous people in Charlottesville. Woodson pointed out in a recent New York Times article that Biden hasn’t visited Charlottesville, despite claiming that the events inspired his presidential campaign. Like other cities, Charlottesville needs support from the country’s leadership to help solve problems such as providing equitable education, and food and shelter for unhoused people, he says. “I hope that [members of the Biden administration] come to listen and to learn from the people who have been doing the hard and necessary work of loving each other in this community,” he says. “Charlottesville does not want to be a political backdrop or jumping-off point. We&#8217;re people just like everyone else across the country who&#8217;s struggling with these issues and trying to work through these hard things together.” Three and a half years ago on the day of the “Unite the Right” rally, Diane Hillman was vice-president of Congregation Beth Israel — the only synagogue in Charlottesville. Outside the synagogue, in broad daylight, there was a sea of Nazi imagery as white supremacists marched and chanted. Torahs were moved to another house for their safety, and an armed guard was hired. Hillman says she never expected to experience something like this. Since that day, the Jewish community in Charlottesville has evolved but not fully healed. “I don&#8217;t know that this is a wound that will ever completely heal. There are too many events in our history going back 50, 100 years that many of us have either experienced personally or through our parents and relatives,” says Hillman, now president of Congregation Beth Israel. “This is just a continuation of what started eons ago.” The following year, in 2018, a shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh left 11 dead and six wounded. As a Jewish woman, Hillman says she doesn’t feel as safe living in the U.S. compared to before 2017. “I always felt that I was invisible, that I was in a bubble. l look like a white person and hid behind that bubble. But depending on where you live, people know that you&#8217;re Jewish based on the way you speak and the way you look,” she says. “I had never felt frightened by that before, and now I&#8217;m much more aware of it in a negative way.” Biden called for lowering the temperature in the country in his inaugural address last week, yet he said that on the site of the insurrection at the Capitol where some participants held and wore anti-Semitic iconography. Hillman believes unity is possible if people can learn from these troubling events. Some people will realize how dangerous this extremist rhetoric is, she says, but others already understand and fully believe the slogans. In order to learn, people need to treat those they disagree with kindly and gently, she says. “We make people defensive about what may or may not be their deep beliefs, and we force them to make those beliefs even deeper than they might have been,” she says. “If we could back away a little bit and begin to educate in a way that&#8217;s non-threatening, we might make more progress than constant, a", "Bags in the coupe, bustin' out the roof. Rap fairy tale and Bronx bomber Cardi B has just shared \"Money,\" her first single since the release of her debut album, April's Invasion of Privacy. \"Money\" puts its subject matter front and center. Cardi holds the almighty dollar higher than all other pursuits in life for her and her baby, Kulture, whom she welcomed with her husband and fellow rapper Offset this past summer. \"Sweet like a honey bun, spit like a Tommy gun / Rollie a one of one, come get your mommy some,\" she spits in the second verse. \"Cardi at the tip-top, b**** / Kiss the ring and kick rocks, sis.\" It's fair to say Cardi B gets back to the money, but in reality, she never left. After welcoming her firstborn in July, Cardi's name appeared atop the Billboard Hot 100 twice this summer, and she's remained in the public eye. Cardi's song \"I Like It,\" featuring J Balvin and Bad Bunny, went No. 1 on the Hot 100 on July 7, and Maroon 5's \"Girls Like You\" (which features Cardi) reached No. 1 on Sept. 24. Cardi's impeccably orchestrated rise, which first caught mainstream attention in 2017 with the breakout single \"Bodak Yellow\" — and was launched into overdrive with her debut album in April — has remained a topic of discussion in hip-hop circles throughout 2018. And while \"Bodak Yellow\" earned the performer two 2018 Grammy nominations, per the rule of the Recording Academy, those nods disqualify her from competing in the category of Best New Artist at 2019's awards. Even if \"Money\" doesn't fly up the charts like her previous singles, it reminds listeners that Cardi is staying consistent enough to warrant accolades in other Grammy categories.", "Updated at 1:52 a.m. ET Saturday Mac Miller, the Pittsburgh-born rapper who developed a ravenous following over the course of five successful albums, died Friday of an apparent overdose in his Los Angeles home, multiple outlets have reported. He was 26 years old. He was found unresponsive in his home in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles late Friday morning and was pronounced dead at the scene, the Los Angeles County coroner's office confirmed to NPR, though the office said an autopsy was pending and said an official cause of death had not yet been determined. Born Malcolm James McCormick in Pittsburgh, Mac Miller had a string of hit albums reach the top ranks on the Billboard 200. His 2011 debut, Blue Slide Park, reached No. 1 on that chart, followed by 2013's Watching Movies with the Sound Off (No. 3); 2015's GO:OD AM (No. 4); 2016's The Divine Feminine (No. 2); and, released just last month, Swimming, which reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200. He was also a skilled producer under the alias Larry Fisherman. Mac Miller openly struggled with substance abuse, which he documented throughout his mixtapes and albums. (On the song \"Loud,\" he said \"Yeah, people lie, numbers won't ... Keep me high, drugs is close ... Roll one up, pour a cup ... Watch the world go up in smoke.\") Last month, the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office reportedly charged the rapper with a DUI in the wake of a May car accident, which came after a highly public breakup between him and singer Ariana Grande. At a Tiny Desk concert taped last month for NPR Music, he performed three tracks from Swimming for the first time in front of an audience. \"I may trip, but I never fall,\" he rapped in the song \"Small Worlds.\" \"God knows, I came close — don't try this at home.\" The day before Mac Miller's death, Vulture published a profile in which he addressed his relationship to fans and friends alike: \"The people that have the best chance of knowing me, that would like to, would just be by listening to my music.\"", "The NBA regular season is over, and the playoffs start this weekend. Here & Now&#8216;s Lisa Mullins asks Here & Now sports analyst Mike Pesca (@pescami), host of the daily podcast The Gist, whether anyone can unseat the defending champion Golden State Warriors.", "Monuments and statues in at least four U.S. cities have been toppled or graffitied with the words \"land back\" this week. \"Land back\" is a movement for indigenous sovereignty, and these actions occurred during the week of Thanksgiving, which many Native Americans call the National Day of Mourning. Along the southern shore of Long Island, the Shinnecock Nation are trying to protect their sovereign land, located in the town of Southampton, New York. The Shinnecock are surrounded by wealth, but roughly 60% of the population lives below the poverty line. For weeks, members of the tribe camped out in the cold, protesting along Sunrise Highway, the only road into the Hamptons. The protest, called Sovereignty Camp 2020, ended on Nov. 26, Thanksgiving Day. The Warriors of the Sunrise — a group of Indigenous Shinnecock women and their allies — organized the demonstration. \"It was an extreme experience,\" says Tela Troge, a lawyer representing the Shinnecock Nation who participated in the protest. \"We were under a tornado watch one day. We had bad storms that tore apart the camp some nights. But at the same time, it really was a beautiful experience because we had so many supporters come to visit the camp and we were able to build really strong alliances.\" The demonstration was, on the surface at least, about an electronic billboard on the side of Sunrise Highway. New York state has a lawsuit against the sign, and it's one of two large signs the tribe is building along the highway. The billboard — which members of the Shinnecock Nation call a monument — is 61-feet tall. It sits at the entrance to the Hamptons. \"A lot of people aren&#8217;t even aware that there is a Native tribe living in the Hamptons,\" she says. \"The education system in this country has completely failed to educate people about not only the history of Native people but the continued existence of Native people.\" Onlookers can't miss the massive sign, she says. It stands as \"a testament to the Shinnecock Nation&#8217;s continued existence and the fact that once you drive past the sign, you&#8217;re entering Shinnecock territory,\" Troge says. The monument has also helped the Shinnecock Nation raise revenue as it has grappled with food insecurity and economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. Jay Schneiderman, the town supervisor for Southampton, declined to speak to Here & Now about the controversy over the monument, but he told the New York Times in May of last year that it was \"clearly out of character\" for the neighborhood. \"All of their overdevelopment of our homelands is really what&#8217;s out of character,\" Troge says. The coronavirus pandemic prompted a \"mass exodus,\" Troge says, of people from Manhattan into the Hamptons and homes that they had previously used as second properties. Troge says because the town of Southampton isn't hooked up to wastewater treatment, the increase in population, and thus septic usage, is having a \"devastating, detrimental effect on the environment.\" \"For the most part, our land here is completely vacant except for this monument, which has an extraordinarily small footprint,\" Troge says. In 1703, the Shinnecock Nation signed a 1,000-year lease for 3,500 acres with Southampton. Today, the Shinnecock Nation has two territories, including the 80-acre territory where Sovereignty Camp 2020 is located. That territory is bisected by Sunrise Highway, which the State of New York built on Shinnecock land in 1959 to make the drive to Montauk easier for summer vacationers. The other Shinnecock territory is about 800 acres, and it's where most Shinnecock people live today. Ultimately, Troge says, the town and the wider U.S. population should engage in a \"process of truth and reconciliation\" to help the Shinnecock Nation heal and move forward. \"It's not about the sign. None of this is about the sign,\" she says. \"One of the beautiful things about Sovereignty Camp is that when people stopped by and really got to hear our history and really start questioning things, I mean, it really leaves you with no opportunity but to side with us.\" Elie Levine produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Todd Mundt. Levine also adapted it for the web. This article was originally published on WBUR.org.", "Photographer Robert Landau inherited artiness from his father, who ran a fine-art gallery in Los Angeles and favored German and Austrian expressionism in particular. As a teenager in the 1970s, though, Landau favored something else. The Sunset Strip was his playground, and in his eyes, art was all around. \"When I went out to explore the world,\" he says on the phone, \"I felt the Strip was like a gallery; there were these hand-painted works of art on the street.\" What he's referring to, though, are billboards: Not necessarily what most would consider \"art\" — at least not by contemporary standards. \"They looked like giant art pieces that kind of represented my generation and the music I listened to,\" he says. Landau was 16 when he started pointing a Kodachrome-loaded camera at larger-than-life icons hanging over L.A.'s streets — the Beatles crossing Abbey Road, Linda Ronstadt in roller skates. At the time, he explains, music billboards were relatively new to L.A. Big ads for hotels, cars and soda were a dime a dozen. But in his new book, Rock 'N' Roll Billboard of the Sunset Strip, Landau writes that rock-related billboards didn't debut in L.A. until 1967. That year, Elektra Records took a gamble on a new marketing strategy to promote a local, up-and-coming band: The Doors. \"It led me to an interest in the urban environment,\" he says. \"I'm an urban landscape photographer. I've always thought that L.A. had a very unique look. It's really built around people driving in their cars. And so the billboards, like a lot of the signage and architecture, are really meant to be seen from people's cars.\" Landau has an extensive record of L.A. from the 1960s onward. And a good 40 years after his first billboard photo, he has unearthed those early Kodachrome slides for this book. It's not only a catalog of music billboards in L.A., but also offers anecdotal insight into the rise and fall of an art form. Each billboard photograph contains information about the art directors, photographers and artists involved — including names you might recognize like Andy Warhol and Saul Bass. To this day, Landau is still friends with men like Mario Rueda, now in his 90s, who made a living painting billboards by hand. He writes in his book: \"Whether he was painting Paul McCartney walking barefoot across Abbey Road or rendering some ornate marble statuary for a funeral home, [Rueda] brought the same natural talent and disciplined approach to his work, earning him the highest respect from everyone in the outdoor advertising business, where most considered him to be the greatest billboard painter of his time.\" The outdoor advertising agency (and Rueda's employer), Foster and Kleiser, had a space the size of an airplane hangar for the creation of these billboards. Because they were hand-painted, no two were alike. And, like Rueda, many of the painters who worked on them were highly trained, with degrees in fine art. It was an ephemeral art form. Each billboard could take up to 10 days to create, and after hanging for a month, would be painted over. Landau's photos are all that remain of L.A.'s golden age of billboard art. These days, Landau says he will occasionally photograph a billboard, though now it's all digital. \"At one time, L.A. just felt a lot funkier. It felt more Western, and ... people could come here and do whatever they want. To a degree, that created a lot of chaos, but there was something about that freedom that allowed people to do fun things,\" says Landau. \"Things were a little quirkier back then,\" he says. \"There was a bit more of a personal feel to the environment.\"", "The rock music veterans in The Smithereens have just returned with a brand-new release, Smithereens 2011, which marks their first set of new originals since 1999's God Save the Smithereens. What better way to celebrate than to listen to the band perform songs from its new record at World Cafe Live? The Smithereens' members have earned their living with successful releases for more than 25 years, dating all the way back to their debut album, Girls About Town, in 1980. Since that time, they've appeared all over U.S. Billboard charts, performing concerts domestically and internationally, and even lent their signature sound to a handful of movie soundtracks. The Smithereens might be one of the only bands in history to take lifelong influences from Buddy Holly and The Beatles and spin it with elements of heavy metal and prog-rock. In addition to this Live Fridays concert, you can catch The Smithereens at this summer's XPoNential Music Festival on Friday, July 22.", "When Le Hoang Nguyen put up a bright yellow billboard in support of the Black Lives Matter movement in Houston, the pushback from his community, \"was immediate, it was vicious, my Facebook wall filled up with just hate speech.\" Nguyen's original idea for the billboard was to thank essential workers for their work during the pandemic, but when George Floyd was killed, he felt strongly about supporting BLM. The insurance business owner knew that some people wouldn't like the message, but he thought people would respectfully agree to disagree. \"I was totally blindsided. It was unnerving,\" he said. \"They threatened with physically destroying our office, they called for a boycott of our business, people posted photos of my family online. No one wanted to have a conversation, they were just making threats and demands.\" In spite of the massive protests across the country in support of racial justice and the Black Lives Matter movement, racial divisiveness continues to manifest itself around the nation, though sometimes it can be more subtle. Nguyen appeared on a local Vietnamese television show to explain himself to his community and he says that helped. Eventually, people on social media started defending him, and this \"helped quell the haters.\" Floyd was killed on May 25, which was also Nguyen's 50th birthday. \"I broke down in tears when I heard him cry out for his mama before he drew his last breath,\" Nguyen said, adding that it could have been him or any of his three children in that video, \"underneath that knee.\" Soon after Floyd's death Nguyen came across an ad published in The New York Times in the late '70s by a group of Black leaders urging President Jimmy Carter and Congress to allow refugees from Southeast Asia into the country. \"That was me,\" the Vietnamese-born U.S. citizen said. \"I was an 8-year-old boy languishing in a camp, and halfway around the world a group of Black civil rights leaders spoke up for me.\" \"It's going to be uncomfortable\" It's not easy to talk about race, even in communities seen as more liberal. In Brooklyn, N.Y., a man protested a BLM sign, repeatedly asking the barista at Burly Coffee to remove it. The New York Times recently reported that in Catskill, N.Y., town leaders banned a BLM painting on main street. Many communities have created groups to engage in conversation. In New York there's Hastings-on-Hudson, a village with its Hastings Against Racial Injustice, and Carmel, Ind.'s Group For Carmel Against Racial Injustice. \"It's going to be uncomfortable and you're going to have legitimate fear,\" if you choose to engage in racial equity dialogue, said Kwame Christian, director of the American Negotiation Institute in Ohio. \"When we are exposed to ideas that are different from our own, we interpret it as a threat,\" Christian said. For many people it may not be worth the risk, but Christian says conflict is an opportunity. He urges people to reflect, and to be intentional and informed because it helps people to understand the impact of their action or inaction. And he says people often lack compassionate curiosity or the ability to acknowledge someone else's emotions. \"I needed to say something\" Anya Randall Nebel is a 54-year old Black woman, her husband Joe is white. They've lived in Chevy Chase, Md., a wealthy enclave outside of Washington, D.C., since 2006. Watching the video of Floyd being killed forced her to examine her own experiences in her community. \"I felt that after 18 years of sitting silent, I needed to say something,\" Randall Nebel said. Last month, the software expert wrote a message to her community's e-mail listserv. \"Black in Chevy Chase,\" Randall Nebel wrote in the subject line. \"It has taken me quite a while to share with you my adventures in our fair town.\" She wrote about attending the town's annual Fourth of July picnic. \"We were met with stares, rudeness, just the feeling of uneasiness,\" and about the times at the playground with her daughter when people would ask if she's a nanny or if she lives here. She said she's felt unwelcome. People often made assumptions about her and her politics, especially during President Barack Obama's tenure. Randall Nebel said she wrote her email to start a real give and take conversation on race with her neighbors, but that didn't happen. Several responded to Randall Nebel's email but the moderators made the decision to not publish them essentially halting the conversation. Randall Nebel describes her neighborhood as largely liberal, \"but liberal where it's [a] 'not in my backyard' and 'it's not my problem' type thing.\" \"This conversation, this dialogue has to happen [in the open] in order for us to get past or move on,\" she said. \"I was waiting for it.\" Randall Nebel said she values the opportunities her daughter has had living in the tree-lined suburban town, but as one of the few black residents she has also felt isolated. \"Don't do it because it's fashionable\" According to the 2010 Census, 94.3% of r", "The nominees for the 2018 Golden Globe Awards were announced early Monday morning in Beverly Hills, Calif. Guillermo del Toro's fantasy The Shape of Water — a dreamy love story between a mute janitor in a government lab and an amphibian man in tank — snagged the most motion picture nominations, with seven. Upcoming Pentagon Papers drama The Post and the darkly comic Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri got six apiece. In television, the domestic melodrama Big Little Lies led the pack with six nominations, followed by Feud: Bette and Joan, Fargo, The Handmaid's Tale and This Is Us. HBO, Netflix and FX productions got the most TV nominations. Both Big Little Lies and The Handmaid's Tale took home multiple awards at September's Emmy Awards. The big winner at the 2017 Globes was La La Land, which took seven, including best motion picture, comedy or musical. But the night's final award went to Barry Jenkins' Moonlight, which won for best motion picture, drama. Last year's ceremony was notable for other reasons, including a marked increase in diversity among the nominees and Meryl Streep's calling out President Trump for mocking a disabled reporter. This year's awards — the 75th annual — will be hosted by Seth Myers and broadcast live on NBC on January 7. Without futher ado, the nominees are: Best Motion Picture – DramaCall Me By Your NameDunkirkThe PostThe Shape of WaterThree Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Best Motion Picture – Comedy or MusicalThe Disaster Artist Get OutThe Greatest ShowmanLady BirdI, Tonya Best Actress in a Motion Picture — Drama Jessica Chastain, Molly's GameSally Hawkins, The Shape of WaterFrances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, MissouriMeryl Streep, The PostMichelle Williams, All the Money in the World Best Actor in a Motion Picture – DramaTimothée Chalamet, Call Me By Your NameDaniel Day-Lewis, Phantom ThreadTom Hanks, The PostGary Oldman, Darkest HourDenzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, ESQ Best Supporting Actress in a Motion PictureMary J. Blige, MudboundHong Chau, DownsizingAllison Janney, I, TonyaLaurie Metcalf, Lady BirdOctavia Spencer, The Shape of Water Best Supporting Actor in a Motion PictureWillem Dafoe, The Florida ProjectArmie Hammer, Call Me By Your NameRichard Jenkins, The Shape of WaterChristopher Plummer, All The Money In The WorldSam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Best Actress in a Motion Picture — Musical or ComedyJudi Dench, Victoria & AbdulHelen Mirren, The Leisure SeekerMargot Robbie, I, TonyaSaoirse Ronan, Lady BirdEmma Stone, Battle of the Sexes Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or ComedySteve Carell, Battle Of The SexesAnsel Elgort, Baby DriverJames Franco, The Disaster ArtistHugh Jackman, The Greatest ShowmanDaniel Kaluuya, Get Out Best Director – Motion PictureGuillermo Del Toro, The Shape of WaterMartin McDonagh, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, MissouriChristopher Nolan, DunkirkRidley Scott, All The Money In The WorldSteven Spielberg, The Post Best Screenplay – Motion PictureGuillermo Del Toro, Vanessa Taylor, The Shape of WaterGreta Gerwig, Lady BirdLiz Hannah, Josh Singer, The PostMartin McDonagh, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, MissouriAaron Sorkin, Molly's Game Best Animated Feature FilmThe Boss BabyThe BreadwinnerCocoFerdinandLoving Vincent Best Foreign Language FilmFantastic WomanFirst They Killed My FatherIn the FadeLovelessThe Square Best TV Comedy Seriesblack-ishThe Marvelous Mrs. MaiselMaster of NoneSMILFWill & Grace Best Television Drama Series The CrownThe Handmaid's TaleThis Is UsStranger ThingsGame of Thrones Best Limited TV Series or Movie Big Little LiesFargoFeud: Bette and JoanThe SinnerTop of the Lake: China Girl Best Actress in a TV Comedy or MusicalPamela Adlon, Better ThingsAlison Brie, GLOWRachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs. MaiselIssa Rae, InsecureFrankie Shaw, SMILF Best Actor in a TV Comedy or MusicalAnthony Anderson, black-ishAziz Ansari, Master of NoneKevin Bacon, I Love DickWilliam H. Macy, ShamelessEric McCormack, Will & Grace Best Actress in a TV DramaCaitriona Balfe, OutlanderClaire Foy, The CrownMaggie Gyllenhaal, The DeuceKatherine Langford, 13 Reasons WhyElisabeth Moss, The Handmaid's Tale Best Actor in a TV DramaJason Bateman, OzarkSterling K. Brown, This Is UsFreddie Highmore, The Good DoctorBob Odenkirk, Better Call SaulLiev Schreiber, Ray Donovan Best Actress in a Limited TV Series or MovieJessica Biel, The SinnerNicole Kidman, Big Little LiesJessica Lange, Feud: Bette and JoanSusan Sarandon, Feud: Bette and JoanReese Witherspoon, Big Little Lies Best Actor in a Limited TV Series or MovieRobert De Niro, The Wizard of LiesJude Law, The Young PopeKyle MacLachlan, Twin PeaksEwan McGregor, FargoGeoffrey Rush, Genius Best Supporting Actress, TelevisionLaura Dern, Big Little LiesAnn Dowd, The Handmaid's TaleChrissy Metz, This Is UsMichelle Pfeiffer, The Wizard of LiesShailene Woodley, Big Little Lies Best Supporting Actor, TelevisionDavid Harbour, Stranger ThingsAlfred Molina, Feu", "Alabama voters go to the polls Tuesday with an increasingly heated Republican primary underway to fill the seat left empty when Jeff Sessions was appointed attorney general. Right now that job is held by Sen. Luther Strange, who is backed by key players in Washington, including President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. But it&#8217;s not going to be an easy win for Strange: His top challenger is former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, unseated twice from the bench on religious stances he&#8217;s taken. Gigi Douban (@gdouban) from Here & Now contributor WBHM in Birmingham has the story." ]

[ "25 June 2017 Last updated at 12:58 BST\nIt's a big sporting event which takes place place every two years on a different island.\nPeople from 24 islands with small populations like Bermuda and Greenland take part in 14 different sporting events to see which country is the best.\nThe games were first started in 1985, and people as young as 13 can compete in them!\nThis year's games are being held in Gotland, a Swedish Island in the Baltic Sea." ]

[ "The Games were first held in Hamilton, Canada in 1930, when 11 countries sent a total of 400 athletes to take part.\nIn Glasgow 2014 there will be more than 4,500 athletes from 71 nations competing in 17 sports over 11 days.\nScotland has previously hosted the event twice, in 1970 and 1986, both in Edinburgh. This will be the first time Glasgow is the host city.\nComments: Will you be watching the Commonwealth Games?\nSporting superstars such as Usain Bolt, Mo Farah and Tom Daley are all competing in what is being billed as the biggest and best Commonwealth Games yet.\nThe Commonwealth is a collection of countries that are linked in some way to Great Britain, all apart from one - Mozambique.\nMany years ago Britain used to control lots of countries as part of something called the British Empire.\nOver the years the Empire has disappeared as countries have taken charge of themselves, and has reformed and changed to become the Commonwealth.\nAll 53 members have signed up to a set of values including democracy, gender equality and international peace and security.\nDuring the opening ceremony the Games will be officially opened by the Queen, who is the head of the Commonwealth.\nAfrica\nBotswana, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, The Gambia, Uganda, Zambia\nAmericas\nBelize, Bermuda, Canada, Falkland Islands, Guyana, St. Helena\nAsia\nBangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, India, Malaysia, Maldives, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka\nCaribbean\nAnguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & The Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago, Turks & Caicos Islands\nEurope\nCyprus, England, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey, Malta, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales\nOceania\nAustralia, Cook Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Norfolk Island, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu\nList taken from Glasgow 2014 official website", "The tour of Commonwealth nations and territories will span 388 days, 71 countries and 200,000 miles before reaching the host nation of Australia.\nThe baton will be carried on the Isle of Man by Commonwealth athletes and will visit the top of Snaefell, Tynwald Hill and a kipper factory.\nThe 2018 Games begin on 4 April on Australia's Gold Coast.\nEvents will be held around the Island giving residents the opportunity to see the baton and celebrate Team Isle of Man, said the Manx government.\nThe official route for the 2, 3 September is available online and will see the baton travel on the island's horse tram.\nIt will be officially welcomed by the Isle of Man Commonwealth Games Association's President Basil Bielich, the Chief Minister and CGA officials.\nThe Isle of Man has earned an impressive medal tally over the years with three gold, two silver and six bronze at the competition.\nAt the 2014 Games in Glasgow, cyclist Peter Kennaugh won a silver medal. in the men's 40km points race.\nThe island's last Commonwealth gold was won by Mark Cavendish at the 2006 Games in Melbourne.\nThe Queen has started the countdown to the 2018 Commonwealth Games, launching the baton relay at Buckingham Palace in March.", "Media playback is not supported on this device\nThe Gold Coast Games start on 4 April 2018, with the Welsh contingent aiming to top the 25 medals they won in Auckland 1990.\nChef de mission Phillips says it is a realistic target.\n\"We want to have more medals than we've ever had in an away Games,\" she told BBC Wales Sport.\nShe continued: \"We've had some really good competition results since we entered the selection period. You can see the performances picking up.\"\nWales will take around 150 athletes to Queensland - down from the 228 who went to Glasgow in 2014.\nIt means the record 36 medals won in Scotland will be tough to match, but Phillips believes an overseas record of 26 would be a successful outcome.\n\"We know it's a massive task but the team are up for the challenge,\" she continued.\nPhillips - a physiotherapist and Cardiff University professor - was Team Wales' chef de mission at the 2015 Commonwealth Youth Games in Samoa.\nShe has also worked at Olympics and previous Commonwealth Games, as well as in professional rugby and weightlifting.\n\"I think we're going to go there with a strong team,\" she added.\n\"You only have to look at how the national governing bodies and Sport Wales are preparing their athletes compared to 10 or 11 years ago.\n\"They're getting better support, they're training smarter and we've got really good youngsters coming through. So it all looks really positive and I'm very optimistic.\"\nWales is one of just six nations to have appeared at every Commonwealth Games since it began in Hamilton, Canada in 1930.\nIt is the only multi-sport event that athletes can compete for Wales, rather than Great Britain.\nPhillips believes this brings added motivation.\n\"As proud as I am to be British, there is something special about being able to compete for Wales and the pride you have for your home country,\" she added.\n\"I've gone to a number of Games, mainly as a physio, and I've supported athletes all my life.\n\"But to be leading the team now is really special. I'm bursting with pride.\"", "The Channel Island, which sends players to the Commonwealth Games, will have a representative side at April's European Team Championships in Slovenia.\nThe island team will play in the third division of the tournament.\n\"This is pretty impressive that we've managed to get a team in there and become a member of European and World Squash,\" the island's director of squash, Nick Taylor, told BBC Sport.\nJersey decided to apply for international status after squash was not included as one of the sports for this summer's Island Games.\nJersey is the having won 10 gold, six silver and three bronze medals in the three Island Games that have included squash.\n\"The Island Games is amazing and if we did have the opportunity to compete at the Island Games we would certainly snatch their hands off because it is a fantastic event,\" said Taylor, who is a former British Open winner, European champion and world number 14.\n\"It could be up to 10 years before we're competing at an Island Games again, so they need competition.\n\"We've got hundreds of kids playing the sport in Jersey so we need something to inspire those youngsters as well.\"\nTaylor, along with his wife Sarah and Scott Gautier, in Glasgow.\nHe is hopefully Jersey can replicate the success of their Channel Island neighbours Guernsey, who have produced world number ones such as Martine le Moignan and Lisa Opie, as well as current world number 23 Chris Simpson.\n\"Being a small island it's very difficult to go to a Commonwealth Games and compete for medals,\" added Taylor.\n\"It's so important that we are competing at those levels to inspire our younger players.\n\"Guernsey have produced lots of high-quality squash players in the past, and we've got a world-class facility over here, but we need the events to inspire our young players.\n\"I think we're doing that with our PSA event, now becoming part of the European and World Squash family, and hopefully Commonwealth Games going forward as well.\"\nJersey squad for the European Team Championships: Nick Taylor, Scott Gautier, Ian Furness, Mark Le Roux, Sarah Taylor, Kate Cadigan, Beth Garton.", "More than 1,300 people from about 70 Commonwealth countries will compete in the biggest sporting event to be hosted in the Caribbean archipelago.\nThe Isle of Man Commonwealth Games Association said the team will compete in swimming, cycling and athletics.\nThe Games, first staged in 2000, will take place from 19-23 July.\nSwimmers Joel Watterson, Kazia Whittaker, Emma Hodgson and Euan MacMurchie will be in the Manx team.\nThomas Bostock, Will Draper and Tara Ferguson will represent the island in cycling, and athlete David Mullarkey will compete in the 1,500m.\nAn IOMCGA spokesman said those selected had met \"strict qualification criteria in order to gain their place\".\nThe Commonwealth Games is the biggest international multi-sport event in which the Isle of Man is allowed to compete as an independent state.\nIOMCGA president Basil Bielich said: \"Not only is it a fantastic experience for these young athletes to be able to compete at international level but is also a great honour to be representing the Isle of Man.\n\"I'm sure they will do us all proud.\"\nThe number of officials who will travel with the team has yet to be finalised.\nThe Isle of Man has won four medals at previous Commonwealth Youth Games, three of them in 2011 when it hosted the event.", "Well, whatever your view, you might be watching them in the 2020 Olympics.\nThe genteel pursuits are among 26 sports to apply for inclusion in the Tokyo Games.\nAir sports, floorball, flying disc, tug of war, sumo, polo, orienteering, korfball, dance sport, racquetball, roller sports, wakeboard and wushu have also put in a formal request to be part of the programme.\nFloorball is a type of floor hockey featuring six players, while wushu is derived from traditional Chinese martial arts.\nMore mainstream sports to apply include American football, karate, squash, netball and bowls, which proved so popular at last year's Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.\nThe inclusion of bridge or chess would pave the way for people of more advanced years to compete at the Olympics.\nThe oldest Olympian is Swedish shooter Oscar Swahn, who was 72 when he won silver in the double shot running deer contest at the 1920 Games in Antwerp.\nTug of war was part of the Olympic programme between 1908 and 1920 with Great Britain winning five medals, including two golds.\nThe combined bid from baseball and softball, dropped after the 2008 Beijing Games, is considered a favourite because of the popularity of those sports in Japan.\nA shortlist will be announced on 22 June with finalists making a presentation in Tokyo in August, before organisers make recommendations to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) by 30 September.\nThe IOC will make a final decision in August 2016, when it meets ahead of the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.\nToshiro Muto, chief executive officer of the Tokyo organising committee, said that sports \"must be popular with young people, give momentum to Tokyo 2020 and meet IOC standards\" to be considered for inclusion.\nUnder the IOC's 'Olympic Agenda 2020' reforms, host cities can propose the addition of one or more sports for their Games.\nThe 28-sport cap for future summer Olympics has been dropped but they will be restricted to 10,500 athletes and 310 events.\nThe full list of 26 sports to apply is: Air Sports, American football, baseball-softball, bowls, bowling, bridge, chess, dance sport, floorball, flying disc, karate, korfball, netball, orienteering, polo, racquetball, roller sports, sport climbing, squash, sumo, surfing, tug of war, underwater sports, waterski and wakeboard and wushu.", "Miller Hendry said use of the Games symbol and all official branding associated with the event was regulated by law.\nSome words, phrases and mottoes are also covered - including generic terms such as 2014, Gold, Silver and Bronze.\nThe law firm said companies should make themselves aware of the restrictions.\nAlan Matthew, a partner with Miller Hendry, which has no connection to the Games, said: \"From 23 July until 3 August, we expect to see many businesses and organisations attempting to take advantage of the incredible hype surrounding the Commonwealth Games by running Games-related promotions, advertising campaigns and events.\n\"But, before they do, they need to make sure they are fully aware of what is, and what is not, permitted to ensure they are not exposing themselves to serious commercial risk.\n\"With the exception of official sponsors, businesses and organisations certainly cannot use any of the official branding on any advertising or promotional material or on any of their products, but they also can't use any key terms - many of which are broad and fairly general.\n\"It is also unlawful to falsely represent any association or affiliation with the Commonwealth Games.\n\"This poses a significant commercial risk to small businesses wishing to run Commonwealth Games-themed promotions during the events and the organising committee have already confirmed they intend to enforce their rights to protect their big-name sponsors.\n\"Scottish businesses who may have 'chanced' it during the 2012 Olympics will find the policing of the Commonwealth Games branding right on their doorstep this year.\"\nHowever, Mr Matthew said the Commonwealth Games' regulations were not as clearly defined as those for the Olympics, \"creating the potential for confusion\".\n\"An example of this is where the Olympics made a very clear provision for small businesses, like pubs, bars, lounges and hotels who were screening the events live on TV as an 'event',\" he said.\n\"For the Olympics, they had clear guidelines and official posters which could be downloaded to promote the events.\n\"For the Commonwealth Games, there is no provision for this type of activity, which largely implies that anyone writing \"See the Commonwealth Games Live Here\" on a poster and popping it outside their local may be getting themselves into potentially murky legal waters.\"\nMr Matthew said businesses and organisations were entitled to show support and enthusiasm for the Games \"so long as this is done in a way which does not associate promotion of the business or organisation with the Games\".\n\"For example, businesses can display flags or national colours to show support for home or visiting nations, or hold an office party to celebrate the Games,\" he pointed out.\nA Glasgow 2014 spokeswoman said the event was a major opportunity for Scotland and Scottish business \"to showcase itself to the world\".\n\"Since the Glasgow Commonwealth Games (Trading and Advertising) (Scotland) Regulations 2013 came into force last year, we have been working with businesses locally in and around our venues to make sure they can get the most out of the Games, be clear on what the regulations will mean for them and how they can be part this fantastic event,\" she added.\n\"Glasgow 2014, in conjunction with legal advisers Harper Macleod LLP, have held a series of events and seminars letting business organisations know how they can prepare for the Games and maximise their engagement without infringing legislation or regulations.\n\"It will be a special time and we want people to enjoy the Glasgow 2014 experience as much as possible.\"", "While there was Scottish 10,000m gold for Liz Lynch, now Liz McColgan, the Games came at a heavy financial cost due to the boycott by 32 out of the 59 competing nations.\nTeams withdrew after being angered by the British government's attitude to apartheid-era South Africa.\nOne of the nations that pulled out was Bermuda.\nAs Scotland prepares to host the Games once more, memories of the Edinburgh Games were brought back this week when the Queen's Baton Relay - the main curtain raiser for the Games - passed through the North Atlantic island.\nFor Bermudian swimmer Victor Ruberry and 100m runner Bill Trott, 1986 was a farce.\nIt is an episode of their lives which still causes frustration.\nBefore the Games, Ruberry and Trott were gravely concerned like thousands of others about apartheid in South Africa. They remember discussions on the island about boycotting, but no decision was made and the athletes made their way to Scotland.\nThey just wanted to compete. However, the Bermuda Olympic Association (BOA) - the governing body of the team - was still considering what to do.\nWhen the athletes arrived in Edinburgh, there were reports of safety concerns for the Bermudians. According to team manager John Morbey, this was one of the reasons given behind the team's eventual withdrawal.\n\"The night before the opening ceremony, a teammate and I caught a taxi and we went to a disco,\" recalls Trott, who was looking forward to his first Commonwealth Games having competed in the 1984 Olympics.\n\"There was no-one supervising us, and that is how safe we felt. As we came back late at night, we bumped into John Morbey and he had just found out that the Bermuda Olympic Association had pulled us out.\n\"That is when all the drama started. I was deflated.\"\nTrott and Ruberry woke up on 24 July, the day of the opening ceremony, with no idea what was going on.\nAfter a day of discussions, Trott remembers a call was eventually made to Bermuda's leader John Swan while the opening ceremony was taking place on television screens behind them.\nSwan offered his support, and Trott and his teammates frantically got dressed into their Panama hats, blue blazers and beige shorts and rushed to Meadowbank Stadium to take part.\nHaving missed their slot, they marched on just before the host nation and received one of the biggest cheers of the night, with Scottish fans - facing a Commonwealth Games without half the Commonwealth - showing their delight.\nRuberry, meanwhile, missed the ceremony as he prepared to take part in his 100m breaststroke the following day.\nHe remembers Morbey coming into his room around midnight to confirm he would be swimming in the morning. By the time he had reached the pool, Ruberry knew it was all in vain.\nThe BOA had finally decided to remove the team from the Games.\nRuberry was disqualified for keeping his head under water at the end of his race.\nHe said: \"Your mental state was not one where you were focused on competition.\n\"It was an abysmal swim. It was nowhere near what I was prepped to do prior to that. I am not making excuses, I just did not feel ready. At one point we were packing our bags, the next moment we were unpacking our bags.\"\nAfter the team's withdrawal, Morbey went on television in disgust over the BOA's decision while the athletes hung their bed sheets out the window with 'Bermuda wants to stay, don't penalise our athletes' written on one.\nWhen the Bermudians returned home, Trott remembered an island sympathetic towards the athletes but behind the decision to boycott.\nTwenty-eight years later, the athletes still reflect on what the 1986 boycott meant for them.\nTrott said: \"It was unfortunate that we were put in a situation like that. What I learnt from all of that was politics can play a role in some cases that it shouldn't.\"\nAdventurer Mark Beaumont reports on the Queen's Baton Relay as it makes its way to 70 nations and territories of the Commonwealth. He makes regular reports online, on radio and on television\nBBC Queen's Baton Relay: Glasgow 2014\nFollow Mark Beaumont on Twitter\nFor Ruberry, the Edinburgh Games were the second time his dreams had been shattered by a political boycott after missing out on the 1980 Moscow Olympics.\nHe gave up swimming, believing the countless hours of training were not worth it when it could all be scuppered by a boycott.\nHe returned to the pool for the 1988 Olympics, and now works as a swimming coach on the island.\nHe said: \"Any sporting event brings people together. Boycotts serve to divide.\n\"They are a huge disappointment for the athletes who have been training so hard for something like that, and all of a sudden you take away the goalposts.\n\"I still to this day don't believe there is a place for boycotts in sport. There is so much more that can be accomplished by the positives - the healthy competition, people coming together.\n\"If you are going to do something political, then don't use the athletes as pawns.\"", "The international baton relay aims to demonstrate the unity and diversity of the Commonwealth of Nations.\nThe Commonwealth Games begins in Glasgow on 23 July 2014.\nIt is the Commonwealth Games's version of the Olympic Torch Relay.\nGlasgow 2014: Queen's Baton Relay route\nThe Commonwealth Games may come second to the Olympics when it comes to the world's biggest multi-sports events, but the baton relay is actually far more extensive than the torch relay.\nThe International Olympic Committee decided to scrap the international element of its torch relay after the protests over China's human rights record, which dogged the Beijing flame.\nThe torch for the London Olympics toured the UK extensively but was brought to Britain straight from Athens.\nIn contrast, the Commonwealth baton relay will start from Buckingham Palace on 9 October before heading to each of the countries which are sending teams to the games in Glasgow next year.\nIts first international port-of-call will be India on 11 October.\nThe baton will then make its journey from Delhi - which was the host of the 2010 Games - along a route detailed in the map above.\nThe relay will culminate in a 40-day tour of Scotland in the summer of 2014.\nThe eight-month relay will cover 190,000 km before it reaches Scotland in the weeks before the 20th games, which begin on 23 July 2014.\nThe design of the Glasgow baton and the route around the UK will be released later in the year.\nIt depends what you call a country, but there are 70 \"nations and territories\" who are scheduled to be represented when the Glasgow games get under way.\nNo, there are 53 members of the Commonwealth of Nations. The Gambia has recently withdrawn itself from the Commonwealth.\nBut 70 teams participate in the Commonwealth Games because a number of British overseas territories, Crown dependencies, and island states compete under their own flag.\nThe UK nations - Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland - compete separately in the Commonwealth Games. As do the smaller home territories such as Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.\nThe big Commonwealth countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, South Africa, Malaysia, Australia, Kenya, Ghana, Jamaica and Canada will be there.\nAnd then there are smaller ones such as Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, St Kitts and Nevis and the Falklands Islands.\nNot to mention Tuvalu and Nauru, which both struggle to have populations of 10,000 people.\nPeter Murphy from the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) says: \"The baton is transported by every method of transport from quad bike to camel.\n\"It is the longest relay and the biggest logistical event. I can't think of anything that comes close for the number of countries it visits and the different modes of propulsion.\n\"When it goes to St Helena it takes a mail ship because that is the only way to get there. And places such as Nauru are some of the most isolated places in the world.\"\nSee below for a full list.\nThe Queen, as head of the Commonwealth, sends the baton on its way carrying a message inside it.\nIt will visit 70 nations and territories of the Commonwealth before returning to Scotland for an extensive tour.\nIn 2010, it spent 100 days touring the 28 states of India before it arrived at the opening ceremony in Delhi.\nThe final relay runner hands the baton back to the Queen at the opening ceremony.\nThe Queen then reads aloud the hidden message and officially declares the Games open.\nThe honour of being the final relay runner in 1986, when the Games was held in Edinburgh, was given to sprinter Allan Wells, who had won gold at the Moscow Olympics six years earlier.\nIn 2002, in Manchester, footballer David Beckham ran the final leg with Kirsty Howard, a young girl who had been born with a heart defect and was raising money for a hospice.\nIt was introduced at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff.\nBut before 1998, the relay would only travel through England and the host nation.\nBy 2002, in Manchester, it was covering 100,000km and visiting 23 nations.\nMelbourne 2006 was the first baton relay to visit all the nations which sent teams to the Games.\nThe Delhi relay in 2010 continued this.\nThere is only one baton so it has to be quite \"robust\", says Peter Murphy of the CGF.\nHe says the Olympic flame is passed from torch to torch, so there can be an unlimited number of them.\n\"It is quite tricky with baton,\" he says. \"Because the Queen puts a message in the baton, it has to be the same one which is relayed from runner to runner.\n\"By the end is sometimes quite battered because it is bound to get dropped a few times.\"\nIt was first held in 1930 as the British Empire Games.\nThe event has taken place every four years since 1950 and changed its name to the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in 1954.\nBy the time it was held in Edinburgh in 1970, it was known as the British Commonwealth Games.\nGlasgow 2014 will be the 20th games.\nIt will see 4,500 athletes compete for 261 medals in 17 sports, held in 14 venues around Glasgow and beyond.\nHampden Stadium in Glasgow will be used for the track and field events, with the Emirates arena being used for badminton and the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome for cycling.\nThe venues at the SECC, including the new Hydro arena, will play host to gymnastics, boxing, judo, wrestling, weightlifting and netball.\nSquash and table tennis will take place in Scotstoun, swimming at Tollcross and lawn bowls at Kelvingrove.\nIbrox stadium will be used for the rugby sevens and Celtic Park will host the opening ceremony.\nOutside Glasgow, the Royal Commonwealth Pool in Edinburgh will host the diving, the Barry Buddon Centre in Angus will be the venue for the shooting and the triathlon will take place at Strathclyde Country Park in Lanarkshire.\nAfrica: Botswana; Cameroon; Ghana; Kenya; Lesotho; Malawi; Mauritius; Mozambique; Namibia; Nigeria; Rwanda; Seychelles; Sierra Leone; South Africa; Swaziland; Uganda; United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia\nAmericas: Belize; Bermuda; Canada; Falkland Islands; Guyana; St. Helena\nAsia: Bangladesh; Brunei Darussalam; India; Malaysia; Maldives; Pakistan; Singapore; Sri Lanka\nCaribbean: Anguilla; Antigua & Barbuda; The Bahamas; Barbados; British Virgin Islands; Cayman Islands; Dominica; Grenada; Jamaica; Montserrat; St. Kitts & Nevis; St. Lucia; St. Vincent & The Grenadines; Trinidad & Tobago; Turks & Caicos\nEurope: Cyprus; England; Gibraltar; Guernsey; Isle of Man; Jersey; Malta; Northern Ireland; Scotland; Wales\nOceania: Australia; Cook Islands; Kiribati; Nauru; New Zealand; Niue; Norfolk Island; Papua New Guinea; Samoa; Solomon Islands; Tonga; Tuvalu; Vanuatu", "Carlin might have become a double Olympic silver medallist in Rio last year, but just like anyone else this week she has to book a place in the World Championships which take place in Budapest in July.\nThe Commonwealth and European champion competes at the six-day British Championships in Sheffield which start on Tuesday, 18 April.\nAlong with Welsh rising star Chloe Tutton, Carlin and Davies have various Olympic, Commonwealth, European and World Championships appearances between them, but the hard work has to start all over again.\n\"It is about getting a place on the team for the World Championships,\" said Carlin.\n\"I am looking for some good races. When you are racing the best in Britain you want on to put a good race and it's tough competition.\"\nCarlin was crowned European and Commonwealth champion in 2014, and two silver medals in the 400m and 800m, behind American sensation Katie Ledecky, ensured she achieved an Olympic dream.\nCarlin is now planning how to follow on from the most memorable year of her career in Rio and at the age of 26, with 11 years of swimming on the international stage behind her, it seems her appetite for success remains undiminished.\n\"I spoke to some other athletes who said they knew they were done as they weren't enjoying it anymore,\" reflected Carlin.\n\"I never had that. That never came across my mind. I still enjoy what I do, love competing and racing. That has always had a big part in my heart.\n\"It's still tough getting up early for training and de-icing the car and diving into a freezing pool, but it makes it all worth it the end when you have the highs.\"\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\nThe long-term goal after the World Championships is a fourth Commonwealth Games on Australia's Gold Coast next April after her previous appearances in Melbourne, Delhi and Glasgow.\nTwo medals in India in 2010 were followed by two more in Glasgow, which included an 800m freestyle gold.\n\"The prize of a fourth Commonwealth Games was always a driving force,\" said Carlin.\n\"That has always had a big part in my heart, the Commonwealths was the start of my career.\n\"I missed out on London 2012 Olympics, so Glasgow felt like the home Games I never had.\"\nCarlin was joined on the top step of the podium in Glasgow by fellow Welsh swimmer Davies who won the 50m backstroke.\n\"I have fond memories of the Commonwealths,\" said Davies.\n\"It is the one time I have a chance (to swim for) for Wales on an international stage which is my favourite thing and I am so passionate about that.\n\"Maybe other people don't see it as the ultimate thing to do with the Olympics and the World Champs slightly higher up, but I love it.\"\nDavies, also 26, reached the semi-final of the 100m backstroke in Rio and was part of the 4x100m medley relay squad which reached the final. She also has not considered quitting.\n\"It wasn't always the intention to carry on (after Rio) but I didn't want to go into the Olympics thinking this would be my last ever swim,\" Davies added.\n\"That would have added extra pressure. When I went to Rio and swam a personal best time, I couldn't leave the sport when I love what I do and am still improving.\"\nThis is despite Davies not being included for funding by British Swimming which also happened after the London 2012 Olympics.\nThe Swansea swimmer, who has spent part of the off season training in Turkey, was philosophical about her funding exclusion.\n\"Funding is a big support when it comes to having pay your mortgage,\" said Davies.\n\"You need money to get by and support your training.\n\"But I don't swim for money. I never have and don't think many people do.\n\"It's not known to be a big earning sport. We do it because we love it and want to be as good as we can be.\"\nFind out how to get into swimming with our special guide.", "Flanker Davies, 25, was a key player for Team GB rugby 7s who won a silver medal at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.\nBut the Commonwealths will be held on Australia's Gold Coast on 4-15 April, during the rugby season.\n\"It will be difficult for James because it's the middle of the season,\" said John.\n\"It's different to the Olympics which was at the end of the season.\n\"If James became available [Wales 7s coach] Gareth Williams would take him like a shot. He is an outstanding player with sevens and 15-a-side pedigree.\n\"We know that [Scarlets head coach] Wayne Pivac and the Scarlets will want to continue the success after winning the Pro12 title.\n\"So it would be doubtful James would be available for the Commonwealth Games.\n\"We hope to have a more experienced Sevens squad than we have had before.\n\"Gareth Williams is in discussions with the regions about what players could be available and added to the squad nearer the time as well.\n\"We want to see which players might benefit from being at the Commonwealth Games and Gareth has an excellent relationship with the regions.\"\nJohn believes Wales can finish on the podium in Australia next year.\n\"The aim is to medal,\" said John.\n\"That is majorly difficult because the Commonwealth Games is as close to a world tournament as you can possibly get.\n\"Last time in Glasgow, Wales lost right at the death in the quarter-finals to Australia who I was coaching.\n\"The aim now is to go the other way and we have developed a lot of players over the last 24 months.\"\nTeam Wales will send a team of around 150 athletes to the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia which will be held between 4-15 April.\nTheir target is to surpass the 25 medals they won in Auckland 1990, their best haul from a game outside the UK.\nTeam Wales have confirmed the participation of the men's 7s team, plus the netball team, for the Gold Coast.\nThe women's 7s team have also qualified and are expected to be confirmed officially in early autumn.\n\"The women competed exceptionally well in Rugby Europe where they finished fifth,\" John added.\n\"Outside of England this was the highest in terms of Commonwealth Games teams.\n\"That was the criteria to qualify, to finish above Scotland, which we have done.\n\"We are just waiting from the Commonwealth Games Wales Board to say that the girls will be in.\n\"We have planned for it but won't celebrate it until we have that confirmation letter.\"", "We've created a list of popular activities with helpful tips, links and information to get you started.\nBrowse our fully-inclusive collection and get inspired to try something new today:\nAdventure Sports\nAdventure Snow Sports\nAdventure Watersports\nAmerican Football\nArchery\nAthletics\nBadminton\nBaseball & Softball\nBasketball\nBeach Volleyball\nBiathlon\nBobsleigh\nBowls\nBoxing\nCanoeing\nClimbing\nCoaching\nCricket\nCurling\nCycling\nDance\nDarts\nDisability Sport\nDiving\nEquestrian\nExercise at Home\nFencing\nFigure Skating\nFootball\nGaelic Football\nGolf\nGymnastics\nHandball\nHockey\nHorse Racing\nHurling\nIce Hockey\nKorfball\nLacrosse\nLuge\nMartial Arts\nMass Participation Events\nModern Pentathlon\nMotorsport\nNetball\nNordic Combined\nOrienteering\nPetanque\nRoller Sports\nRounders\nRowing\nRugby League\nRugby Union\nRunning\nSailing\nShinty\nShooting\nShort-Track Skating\nSkeleton\nSkiing\nSled Sports\nSpeed Skating\nSquash\nSnooker & Pool\nSnowboard\nSwimming\nTable Tennis\nTennis\nTriathlon\nVolleyball\nVolunteering\nWalking\nWater Polo\nWeightlifting\nWrestling\nYoga\nWant to know about an activity that isn't listed here? Get in touch with us via twitter or email getinspired@bbc.co.uk.", "Unsurprisingly, the traditional sporting powerhouses of Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Canada joined England and, to a certain extent, the other home nations in the upper echelons of the medals table.\nBut hang on, we thought, isn't this all a bit unfair on the smaller nations? How on earth, for example, is it realistic to compare a tiny Caribbean island with India, for example, when the latter has more than a billion people from which they can select their teams?\nSo we did a lot of number crunching and produced a population-adjusted medals table.\nWe should point out that while traditional medals tables rank each country first by the number of gold medals, then silvers and then finally bronzes, we decided to factor in their relative worth by awarding three, two and one points respectively.\nThis produces something we are calling \"medal points\".\nOur alternative league table is calculated by dividing each nation's population (an average worked out by examining the population in each Commonwealth Games year between 1990 and 2010) by medal points.\nNauru - a tiny and remote Pacific island which has a population of less than 10,000 - was the surprise winner.\nA large portion of the credit for that must go to Marcus Stephen, who claimed seven golds and five silvers in four Commonwealth Games between 1990 and 2002.\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\nThe weightlifter, who despite standing only 5ft 3in (160cm) tall and tipping the scales at less than 9st 10lb (62kg) during his competition days, managed to lift 172kg - nearly three times his own weight and only 3kg off the then world record.\nA more detailed population-adjusted league table reveals that the hugely populous South Asian giants of Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh did pretty poorly, ranked 38th, 39th, 42nd and 43rd respectively, while Kenya (27th), South Africa (28th), and Nigeria (34th) also struggled.\nWhen it came to the nations and territories of the British Isles, the results were equally interesting.\nEngland fans no longer had the bragging rights - their country instantly went from top of the pile to bottom of the heap.\nSo that was how things have traditionally been - but is the picture any different at the Games which ended on Sunday?\nThis is how the top of the Glasgow 2014 medals table looks - and it is dominated by the usual sporting giants:\nWhat about the other teams from around the British Isles?\nThat's all well and good, but what happens once populations are again taken into account?\nSo although there are honourable mentions for Grenada (who won a gold and a bronze thanks to Kirani James in the men's 400m and decathlete Kurt Felix) and Pacific island nation Kiribati (giant weightlifter David Katoatau won gold before memorably busting some moves as if he was on the dancefloor) we're left with a familiar name as the winner of BBC Sport's alternative medals table - Nauru.\nThe island - which only takes 20 minutes to drive around and has been covered with thousands of years' worth of bird droppings - only had a 10-strong team but continued their fine weightlifting tradition in Glasgow.\nItte Detenamo took silver in the men's +105kg division to maintain Nauru's record of having won at least one medal at each of the seven Commonwealth Games they have entered since making their bow back in 1990.\nAnd, being the world's smallest republic, they are likely to be top of the tree in future Commonwealth Games and Olympics.\nLet's take a look at how the British Isles' biggest four Commonwealth Games teams fared in Glasgow, along with some selected others.\nSome cheer, then, for hosts Scotland, who won the battle of the Celtic nations between them, Wales and Northern Ireland.\nDespite handsomely winning the conventional medals table, our research suggests England has actually punched below its weight, and that, relatively speaking, the Scots have been three times as successful.\nWith the 2016 Rio Olympics in mind (notwithstanding any constitutional implications of next month's Scottish independence referendum) the UK will again come together as Team GB.\nThe UK population currently stands at 64.1 million - a year-on-year increase of around 400,000.\nFor want of argument, let's assume it increases by a similar number in each of the next two years, making a rough total of 65 million in 2016 compared with Nauru's 10,000.\nIn Rio, Team GB would therefore have to win (an utterly impossible, of course) 2,167 golds to trump a single Nauruan bronze medal in order to finish higher than them in our population-weighted table.", "Their application was unanimously approved, meaning they can now compete in the European Team Championships.\nThe Sarnians have followed in the footsteps of fellow islanders Jersey, who made their debut last year.\n\"It will inspire players to improve their game, get on court and train,\" Watts told BBC Radio Guernsey.\n\"It's very easy on an island to become a little bit stagnant and not have the interest from players, but if you have something for the top players to aim for that filters down through the system.\"\nGuernsey will enter a men's and women's team into division three of the European tournament in April, where they could face the likes of Italy, Greece and Portugal.\nChris Simpson, the island's highest-ranked player, won division one with England in Romania this year and must now choose whether to represent them or Guernsey.\n\"Chris is a professional athlete so we've got his best interests at heart as well,\" added Watts.\n\"It's the next level down really, for the guys that are looking to possibly aspire to Chris' standard in the future.\n\"The reason we've done it is squash isn't always in the Island Games and it's becoming much harder for our players to get into the Commonwealth Games, so we need something for our elite players to aim for.\"", "The baton contains the Queen's hand-written message to the Commonwealth and will visit all 70 competing nations and territories over the next 288 days.\nIt will travel to Scotland on Thursday before heading to India for its first international stopover on 11 October.\nThe baton's journey will end at the opening ceremony on 23 July 2014, when the Queen will read the message inside.\nThe empty baton was escorted to Buckingham Palace by pipers and cyclist Sir Chris Hoy, a six-time Olympic Gold and double Commonwealth Gold medallist.\nDuring the launch ceremony, the President of the Commonwealth Games Federation, Prince Imran of Malaysia, said the relay had power and meaning.\n\"The relay unites two billion citizens of the Commonwealth in a celebration of sport, diversity and peace,\" he said.\n\"It will also bring the 70 nations and territories of the Commonwealth together.\n\"Every time the baton is passed it will cement the Commonwealth friendship and reinforce the ways in which we are connected.\"\nThe ceremony also heard from Lord Smith of Kelvin, chairman of games organiser Glasgow 2014.\nQ&A: What is the Queen's baton relay?\nHe said: \"The spirit of friendship that will be displayed as the baton is passed from hand to hand reflects the warm welcome that nations and territories of the Commonwealth can expect when they come to Glasgow and to Scotland next summer.\n\"This is a historic moment for Glasgow 2014. We will treasure it and we look forward to following closely the Queen's baton relay on its momentous journey.\"\nFollowing the speeches, the Queen placed the hand-written scroll, which contains her message to the Commonwealth, inside the baton.\nIt was then sealed for its journey of more than 190,000km through Commonwealth territories in Asia, Oceania, Africa, North and South America and the Caribbean.\nThe first baton bearer was Alan Wells, the Scottish sprinter who won gold in the men's 100m at the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games.\nHe said: \"As the final runner of the Queen's Baton Relay (QBR) at the last Commonwealth Games on Scottish soil in Edinburgh in 1986, the baton and what it symbolises is incredibly special for me.\n\"It is a real honour for me to now be named as the first baton-bearer for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.\"\nWells handed the baton on to Scottish swimmer Caitlin McLatchey, who won two gold medals at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games.\nA short relay then took place up and down The Mall involving Scottish athletes Cara Kennedy (artistic gymnast), Morgan McKinnon (triple jump) and Ruairi Kirkwood (swimming).\nOther participants included Izzy Conway, a volunteer or Clydesider at the games, Aamir Meymood, the 13-year-old Shawlands Academy pupil who designed the Glasgow 2014 tartan, games ambassador Julie McIlroy and 12-year-old Beth Gilmour, who will be accompanied by games mascot Clyde, whom she designed.\nGlasgow 2014: Queen's Baton Relay route\nThose attending the ceremony included Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond.\nHe said: \"The start of the Queen's Baton Relay, with two of Scotland's greatest-ever athletes, is another step towards what will be a momentous year for Scotland.\n\"2014 promises the greatest-ever Games and the relay will provide a fantastic celebration of sport and culture across the Commonwealth, with Glasgow and Scotland at its heart.\"\nDuring its international journey the baton will spend an average of one to four days in each nation, with an extended duration of seven days in Wales, two weeks in England and 40 days in Scotland.\nIt will not stopover in the Gambia, which last week withdrew from the Commonwealth, saying it will \"never be a member of any neo-colonial institution\".\nThe baton has a lattice design, made from layers of titanium fused together by laser, which means the message is visible.\nThe baton's journey around the globe will be documented by adventurer and broadcaster Mark Beaumont for the BBC.\nQueen's baton relay blog\nThe designers said the message from the Queen was \"pivotal\" and they were keen it should not be \"hidden away\".\nThe parchment, handmade in Glasgow using linen and plant fibre, is also \"dramatically\" illuminated by LED lights within a transparent cylinder to make the sealed scroll easier to see.\nThe brief for designers stated that the baton should be easily handed from person to person, should weigh no more than 2kg and must be able to withstand all weathers for the 10-month relay.\nThe baton's handle is made of elm wood sourced from the grounds of Garrison House on the Isle of Cumbrae and was constructed using a boatbuilding technique called bird-mouthing, which means it is light, strong and durable.\nThe top of the baton contains a granite \"gemstone\" which will be detached by opening a puzzle mechanism and given as gift to each nation and territory.\nThe gems are made of water-resistant granite unique to Scotland and were sourced from Ailsa Craig in the Firth of Clyde.\nGlasgow 2014 will be the 20th Commonwealth Games and will feature 17 sports in 11 days of competition, with 261 medal events.\nThe Commonwealth of Nations has 54 members, but 70 teams participate in the Commonwealth Games because a number of British overseas territories, Crown dependencies and island states compete under their own flag.\nThe UK nations - Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland - compete separately in the Commonwealth Games, as do the smaller home territories such as Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.\nThe first Queen's Baton Relay was staged for the 1958 Commonwealth Games in Cardiff and has been the curtain raiser to the Games ever since.\nBut until 1998, the relay would only travel through England and the host nation.\nBy 2002, in Manchester, it was covering 100,000km and visiting 23 nations.\nMelbourne 2006 was the first baton relay to visit all the nations which sent teams to the Games.\nThe baton's journey around the globe will be documented by adventurer and broadcaster Mark Beaumont for the BBC.", "The 28-year-old won the Chengdu event in China and will now compete in her first World Series triathlon of the season in Yokohama, Japan on Saturday.\n\"For me the weekend was about getting back into racing and refocusing more than the victory itself,\" she said.\n\"Winning gives me a bit more confidence going into the World Series.\"\nSaturday's event is raced over an Olympic distance which includes a 1.5km swim, 40km bike ride and 10km run - four times the distance of the race in Chengdu.\nThe 2013 world champion will compete alongside fellow Briton Vicky Holland, who pipped her to Olympic bronze in Rio, and 2016 world champion Flora Duffy of Bermuda, who are also competing in the World Series for the first time this season after overcoming injuries.\n\"The level at the World Series is that much higher than the World Cup,\" said Stanford.\n\"The field is pretty stacked and that's exciting that you go out there and actually get to test yourself against the best that triathlon has to offer.\n\"It's definitely going to be hard and not as easy as it was at the weekend. I don't think the victory will come quite as smoothly.\n\"I just want to go out there and do an Olympic distance, see where I'm at and what we have to work on for the rest of the season.\"\nThe Chengdu event consisted of two events held over two days and Stanford, who had not raced on the World Cup circuit since 2011, did not expect victory.\n\"The format of the race was unusual and I wasn't sure at all how I would do. You could have finished first or last in that situation.\n\"I made some smart decisions whilst I was racing. I stayed quite calm which is important in that sort of race which is so fast.\n\"It's very quick decisions in the heat of the moment and I managed to make good decisions at the right time and that helped me to the top of the podium.\"\nSwansea-born Stanford, who finished fourth at last summer's Olympic Games in Rio, has endured a difficult few months.\n\"I got a small tear in my Achilles back in November and recovery from that hasn't been straightforward,\" Stanford told BBC Wales Sport.\n\"I didn't do any proper running until end of February, so it hasn't been smooth at all. It hasn't been my best winter of training and that's why I really surprised myself at the weekend.\"\nStanford missed out on the 2014 Commonwealth Games through injury and has her sights set on the Games at the Gold Coast next April.\n\"The main aim for this season is to make sure I confirm my selection for the Commonwealth Games next year,\" Stanford said.\n\"I was absolutely devastated to miss out on the Commonwealth Games in 2014. To sit on the sidelines and watch was pretty tough.\n\"It's been a lifelong ambition of mine to represent Wales at the Commonwealths.\n\"It definitely came onto my radar before the Olympic Games ever did.\n\"It will be a special moment to put on the Welsh kit and get the flag flying for us.\"\nSign up to My Sport to follow triathlon news and reports on the BBC app", "The 25-year-old, who will race for Austrian team Hrinkow Advarics next year, last took part in the event in 2011, winning five silver medals.\n\"I'd have loved to have done it, any opportunity to represent Guernsey is something I'm very proud to do.\n\"But unfortunately my professional commitments won't allow me to do that,\" he told BBC Radio Guernsey.\nNext year's Island Games take place at Gotland in Sweden.", "Media playback is not supported on this device\nThe IOC announced mixed-gender events in athletics, swimming, table tennis and triathlon have been approved for Tokyo.\nStanford could link up with the Brownlee brothers for Team GB in Japan in three years.\n\"It's fantastic and something I am excited about,\" said Stanford.\nThe 29-year-old was fourth in the Rio Olympics individual event after finishing behind her house-mate Vicky Holland.\n\"The team relay has proved to be a very popular event with the athletes and spectators and audiences,\" said Stanford.\n\"The team element is not something we see a lot with triathlon very often, so to be able to compete genuinely as a team will be fantastic.\n\"It's another medal event for triathlon in the Olympics and the more medal events we can get the better.\"\nIn the meantime, she competes in the World Series event in Leeds on Sunday.\nStanford could be one of a number of Welsh sportswomen to benefit from changes to mixed gender events.\nDouble Olympic swimming silver medallist and Commonwealth Games champion Jazz Carlin could target the 1500m freestyle after previous 400m and 800m success.\nFellow swimmers Georgia Davies and Chloe Tutton might be contenders for the 4x100m medley mixed relay, while Olympic athlete Seren Bundy-Davies would be in line for a place on the track in the 4x400m mixed relay.\nThe introduction of the Madison in the cycling programme could benefit Olympic team pursuit champion Elinor Barker, while mixed team events in the judo could benefit 2014 Commonwealth Games champion Natalie Powell.\nTokyo will have five more sports than Rio, taking the total to 33, but the existing sports have been given 15 more events.\nFind out how to get into triathlon in our special guide.", "The 11 Glaswegian days in between were similarly in character - sometimes noisy, sometimes controversial, but seldom dull.\nCommonwealth Games often begin as apologetic events. There is as much talk about what they're not - principally the Olympics, but also uniformly world class, or the most important event in that year's sporting calendar - than what they could be.\nFor them to feel successful they need three things: big names, big performances and big crowds.\nGlasgow had all three. In doing so it confirmed something else about the Commonwealth Games: that what makes them special is precisely the fact they aren't like anything else.\nSo it was that the most memorable performances came as much from unknowns as the superstars. For every gold medal won by Olympic champions such as Kirani James,Alistair Brownlee and Anna Meares, new names emerged who could only have been brought forth by a Commonwealths.\nThere was 16-year-old gymnast Claudia Fragapane - 4ft 5in, hoping merely to make a few finals, leaving as the first Englishwoman to win four gold medals at a single Games in 84 years.\nThere was Ross Murdoch, overshadowed by poster-boy favourite Michael Jamieson before their 200m breaststroke final, a new Scottish hero after it, having not only snatched gold but done so by improving his personal best over the day by six seconds.\nNo wonder he swore afterwards. And there was rhythmic gymnast Frankie Jones, almost singlehandedly dispelling the pre-Games gloom about Wales' medal prospects by winning five of them on her own and another as part of the team, which won silver.\nSometimes there were wild mismatches. That's what happens when 71 nations and territories of vastly contrasting size and wealth come together.\nThere were also great contests. South Africa handed New Zealand their first defeat in Commonwealth rugby sevens. Australia's women stole hockey gold from England by equalising in the last 10 seconds and then polishing them off on penalties. A far smaller distance separated gold and silver in the men's 10,000m won by Moses Kipsiro than in the 100m strolled by Kemar Bailey-Cole.\nNeither were the outstanding performances reserved for gold medallists.\nThe loudest noise of the Games came when Hampden Park roared Lynsey Sharp to 800m silver after she had spent the previous night in the clinic in the athletes' village, drip in arm and vomit in mouth.\nA day later, England's Jo Pavey fought her way to 5,000m bronze less than 10 months after giving birth to her second child. In a month's time she will turn 41.\nA Commonwealths can sometimes feel like the FA Cup to the Champions League that is the Olympics - bolstered by its long history as much as its future, defined by the quirky and the outsider, weakened by big boys putting out weaker teams.\nGlasgow had its fair share of unlikely underdogs. Kiribati teenager Taoriba Biniati had never been in a boxing ring before arriving to fight in Scotland. Her national boxing club consists of a punch bag hanging from a breadfruit tree.\nKenya's Vincent Onyangi had never swum in open water before diving into Strathclyde Loch for the triathlon. Twenty minutes later he was bobbing around doing breaststroke while the leaders were onto their bikes.\nIt also had its tear-jerkers: Scotland's Euan Burton coming out of retirement to fight his way to judo gold, two years and two weight categories on from losing in his first bout at London 2012; Jazz Carlin becoming Wales' first female swimming gold medallist in 40 years, having missed the Olympics through illness; 13-year-old Shetland islander Erraid Davies, trained in a 16m pool, winning SB9 100m breaststroke bronze and celebrating with the best smile of the fortnight.\nHer fellow teen, Nigerian weightlifter Chika Amalaha, provided one of the darker moments when a failed drugs test led to her being stripped of her 58kg title. Former 400m world champion Amantle Montsho was another thrown out of the Games for doping. Welsh team captain Rhys Williams failed to even make it to Scotland after news of his own positive test at the Glasgow Grand Prix on 11 July.\nFor the home nations it has been a happier time.\nIn going from third on the medal table in Delhi four years ago to the top in Glasgow, England ended as the most successful nation at a Commonwealth Games for the first time in 28 years.\nScotland's biggest team secured their best medal haul, Northern Ireland's brilliant boxers propelled them to new heights. Wales, with Geraint Thomas's road-race gold on the final day a fitting finale, overcame a series of big-name withdrawals to sprint past their previous best of 31 medals.\nHow good was the overall quality? More than 140 Commonwealth records were broken in Glasgow. The record number of Para-sports events integrated in the programme was very welcome.\nEqually there were signs that the financial clout of the richest nations is making some of the competition worryingly uneven.\nAt the 1990 Games, to give one example, home nations won four boxing golds. Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria all won two apiece. Even in 2002, Nigeria, Pakistan, Zambia and India all won golds, while home nations won three.\nNow, with high-performance centres in Ireland and Britain backed with serious resources, those former strongholds are struggling to keep up.\nEngland, Scotland and Northern Ireland won nine boxing golds between them in Glasgow. Not one African or Asian country won a title. It was the same story in cycling, gymnastics and triathlon. Even the Friendly Games require competition.\nThey also require generous hosts, and in that Glasgow was outstanding.\nIf Delhi was memorable mainly for the fact that few athletes turned up and were watched by even fewer, Glasgow filled stadiums and rattled eardrums.\nApproximately 1.2 million tickets were sold, while 171,000 attended the rugby sevens at Ibrox, a new record for the sport. Hampden Park was a sell-out even for morning sessions. Only London 2012 of recent big athletics meets can also boast that.\nThe enthusiasm was unrelenting. On the first full morning, almost the entire stadium stayed to watch the latter stages of the decathlon shot put. This just doesn't happen. Neither does a women's discus final usually bring the same roars as a sprint final. Hampden managed both.\nGetting there and back could be a pain. Long queues for trains at Glasgow Central station and longer waits for shuttle buses meant some ticket-holders missed sessions and connections. En masse karaoke sing-songs to the Proclaimers - the constant soundtrack in every venue - ensured the atmosphere was seldom marred.\nIt all made you wonder why the Diamond League two-dayer at Hampden last month took place in front of three empty stands. If Glasgow turned out in force for some world-class athletes, why did it not bother when there were many more?\nMaybe this is the way it is post-2012: as much about \"I was there\" as \"So were X, Y and Z\". Less important than the quality on display is the fact that you were part of it.\nAnd part of it Glaswegians were, as 15,000 volunteers gave up their time and holidays to direct, advise, wave giant foam hands and sometimes just smile. It gave venues a convivial feel and the city a sense of enthusiastic unity, even as other residents struggled to see what benefits their £563m outlay had brought them.\nIt meant too that the Games, something of a sickly old man after Delhi, will head to Australia's Gold Coast in 2018 reinvigorated and revived.\nBeyond that their fate is less certain. But Glasgow, to the Commonwealth movement's long-term gratitude, has played its part.\n\"In my view, they are the standout Games in the history of the movement,\" said Commonwealth Games Federation chief executive Mike Hooper. Such praise is as much a tradition of the final day as the closing ceremony. It is also more than empty hyperbole.\nThe final word, fittingly, should come from the Games' biggest star.\nUsain Bolt looked like he might not make it to Glasgow. When he did, he found himself having to deny newspaper reports he had described the city in unflattering terms.\nBy the end - dancing round Hampden to the Proclaimers, completing his lap of honour after anchoring the Jamaican quartet to sprint relay gold in a tartan tam o'shanter, stopping again and again to make sure no high five was left hanging or selfie left unfilled - both city and athlete were united in admiration and exuberance.\n\"The people make a Games a Games, and the people really came out and supported,\" said the incorrigible showman afterwards.\n\"The stadium was always full, the energy was always up. For me that's a Games. Everything was perfect.\"", "Media playback is not supported on this device\nTheir target is to bring back more than 25 medals - the number they won in Auckland 1990, their best haul from a game outside the UK.\n\"We want to have more medals than we've ever had in an away Games,\" said chef de mission Professor Nicola Phillips.\nWho are the athletes hoping to help chase that target? BBC Wales Sport has been out to meet some of them.\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\nMedia playback is not supported on this device", "The Manx gymnasts dominated proceedings in Visby to claiming eight gold, four silver and three bronze medals.\nThe team finished the day with 28 medals and 32 in total.\nThe Games, which act as an Olympics for smaller islands, will see 2,500 competitors from 23 different islands around the world compete in 14 sports.\nTara Donnelly claimed a hat-trick of golds in the individual floor, beam and vault, while Nicholas Harvey claimed both the individual high bar and parallel bars titles.\nDonnelly said: \"We've been working as a team for so long. It is great. It is brilliant to hear the Manx national anthem so many times.\"\nCallum Kewley (individual vault) and the women's team also claimed gold.\nThe island's other gold medals came from swimmer Guy Davies, who won the men's 100m breaststroke, and the women's tennis team.\nFurther medals came in the pool, tennis, athletics, cycling, badminton and shooting.", "Media playback is not supported on this device\nIf you want to find out how to get into athletics, take a look at our special guide.", "The 20-year-old, who fights for Meadowbank Boxing Club, has won through to the finals of next month's Scottish Boxing Championships, where he'll face Jack Turner of Hayfield Boxing Club, which is based in the Gorbals.\nAnd, despite professional offers that might turn the head of many a young boxer, his focus is clear.\n\"I'm already getting noticed,\" he told BBC Scotland. \"But I've got the right people around me keeping me grounded and they'll guide me down the right path and then obviously, when the time is right, we'll get a good offer and we'll take on the world.\"\nBefore global domination, next month's national finals await and the chance to retain his Scottish bantamweight title.\nSuccess will take him to the British Elite Championships in May and, from there, further chances to accumulate Commonwealth Games qualifying points.\n\"I won the championships last year and I just want to win it again this year and then just push on from here and qualify and get over to the Gold Coast and get to these Commonwealth Games,\" said McGregor.\n\"It's 100% my aim. It's all that's on my mind every day in training. Obviously I take each fight as it comes, but what's in my head 24/7 is the Commonwealth Games.\"\nMcGregor was too young to compete in his home Commonwealth Games in 2014, but it inspired him to pursue his dream of competing four years on.\n\"I was on a young achievers' team and we got to go to the athletes' village in Glasgow for a week, just to experience the whole thing, so it's not a shock to us if we get to the go to the Gold Coast next year.\"\nMcGregor has also been part of the GB boxing programme for the past two years and says he's \"improving all the time\".\nHe admits the Olympics in Tokyo in 2020 is also on his mind, but it's the Gold Coast that's occupying all his thoughts at the moment.\nMaking the Scotland team isn't his sole aim.\n\"I believe I'll medal,\" he says confidently.\nWhile McGregor might be tempted to turn professional after the Commonwealths, following the example of the likes of Charlie Flynn and Josh Taylor, the same can't be said of John Docherty, from Bryon Boxing Club in Aberdeen.\nThe 19-year-old is also part of the GB boxing set-up, but he's on the podium programme, which means he's training full-time down in Sheffield with the GB squad.\n\"It's tough going,\" Docherty admitted. \"I live in Montrose, but I'm down in Sheffield Monday to Friday every week.\n\"But it's massive for me. I've been moved up from podium potential to podium, so I have people thinking that I'm good enough to go to the Olympics. I've just got to go and qualify now.\"\nDoherty also missed out on Glasgow 2014 because of his age, but the following year, he competed at the youth Commonwealth Games, where he won a gold medal and views the \"senior Games\" as a crucial stepping stone towards the Olympics.\nHe'll defend his Scottish middleweight title next month against Darren Johnstone, of Forgewood Boxing Club in Motherwell.\nRetaining the title will take him to the British Championships, where he won a silver medal last year.\nQualifying for the Gold Coast will set him up nicely as he looks to realise that Olympic dream and a trip to Tokyo.", "The international butterfly swimmer competed for Wales in Commonwealth Games and the 2008 and 2012 Olympics.\nIn total Lowe competed at two Olympics, four World Championships, three Commonwealth Games and was part of the world record-setting 4x100m mixed medley relay team in 2014.\n\"It's been a tough decision but I feel the time is right to move on to the next stage of my life,\" she said.\n\"Making the Olympic Games in 2008 and 2012 are certainly two of the highest points of my career. It means so much when you achieve something you have dreamed of as a child and worked so hard for.\nThe 26-year-old says she will always cherish the memory of competing in London at her home Olympics as she reflects on more than a decade dedicated to the sport.\n\"It is a memory that I will treasure forever,\" said Lowe, who was born in Hartlepool. \"It was the chance of a lifetime and I will never forget the home crowd support - the noise and the passion was immense.\n\"Swimming will always be part of my life.\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\n\"When I look back at my swimming career I'm thankful for so much. I've travelled the world and met so many amazing people that will be friends for life.\n\"Swimming has made me the person I am today.\"\nBritish Swimming Head Coach Bill Furniss says Lowe's longevity is a due to her professionalism.\n\"Jemma has had a long career and has reaped hard-earned success along the way. For someone to have been at the top for 10 years is impressive and is testament to her attitude,\" he said.\n\"She is one of only a few swimmers to win medals at Commonwealth, European and World (25m) level and rounded off her international haul with a world record relay swim.\n\"Jemma has had a distinguished career. She has been a pleasure to have on the team and gave everything. She is a great example to others as someone who is dedicated and applied.\"\nFind out how to get into swimming with our special guide.", "South Africa's sports minister Fikile Mbalula said the government had been forced to have a rethink due to financial restraints.\nLiverpool, which is bidding to host the 2026 games, has now offered to step in if Durban cannot host.\nThe Commonwealth Games Federation will make the final decision over Durban.\nLiverpool Mayor Joe Anderson has written to Sports Minister Tracey Crouch to express the city's interest after Commonwealth Games officials hinted another host might be needed.\nA Liverpool City Council spokesperson said: \"Liverpool is interested in hosting the games in 2022.\n\"We had heard rumours that Durban might be unable to deliver the Commonwealth Games in 2022 and have already indicated to the government that we are very willing to host them instead.\"\nDurban was awarded the Games in 2015 after being the only city to make a confirmed bid.\nBut the South African government has been unable to come to agreement with the Commonwealth Games Federation over paying for the tournament.\nMr Mbalula said: \"It does not look like we will find each other.\n\"We have given it our best shot, but we cannot live beyond our means.\"\nBirmingham is also bidding to host 2026 but as yet has not offered to stage the games in 2022.\nCllr Ian Ward, deputy leader of Birmingham City Council, said: \"We are aware of the comments coming from Durban.\n\"Here in Birmingham we are producing a feasibility study on what would be needed for a 2026 games in the city.\n\"That is due to be completed in April, at which point we will be in a position to decide what we want to do.\"", "She handed the baton to two-time Olympic champion cyclist Anna Meares on Monday as it started its journey to host country Australia.\nThe relay will span 388 days, 71 countries and more than 200,000 miles before reaching the Gold Coast.\nThe Queen and other Royals marked Commonwealth Day with a service at Westminster Abbey.\nThe games begin on 4 April 2018.\nAustralian Paralympian Kurt Fearnley brought the baton to the palace before it was given to the Queen.\nAfter placing a message inside, the monarch then handed it on to his fellow countrywoman Meares.\nShe was joined by her former rival and now friend, Team GB champion cyclist Victoria Pendleton, to start the first leg of the relay.\n\"Being a former athlete, the Commonwealth Games are very special,\" said Meares. \"They are something that you work very hard for, but you only get the chance to compete once every four years. When the Queen's baton starts, you get a little flutter in your chest as you knew it was getting close.\n\"The Gold Coast, with its iconic beaches and the Australian lifestyle, they are just waiting and itching to welcome the world there. It is the biggest sporting event of the decade for our country and the anticipation is building.\"\nBy Peter Hunt, BBC diplomatic and royal correspondent\nAs she stood on the makeshift stage in the Buckingham Palace forecourt, the Queen might have been tempted to reflect on one of the benefits of longevity.\nHer commitment to the Commonwealth has been unwavering; that of her ministers, in the past, less so.\nTake Ted Heath. For him, in the 1970s, the Common Market trumped the Commonwealth.\nOther prime ministers have been wary of a loose affiliation of nations that battled against apartheid in South Africa but which have, sometimes, struggled to uphold principles of accountability and respect for human rights.\nBut post-Brexit, the club of 52 countries is taking on greater significance for the UK government.\nThe Commonwealth makes up a relatively small part of UK trade. As we leave the European Union, Number 10 wants to increase exports to these countries.\nWhere the baton is headed over the next 388 days, will British goods, in greater numbers, one day follow?\nPendleton added: \"It is an honour to be recognised and be asked to participate in something like this. There will be lots of people on the route who have volunteered... and it will be their way of connecting with the whole Commonwealth Games and what it means to people.\n\"It is the first time I have been part of a Queen's baton relay so for me it was... a massive honour.\"\nSchool children from all of the countries represented at the games were also at the event and there was a performance from Australian singer Cody Simpson.\nThe Commonwealth Day service at the abbey was also attended by the monarch, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Harry, the Duke of York and the Earl of Wessex, as well as Prime Minister Theresa May.\nOlympic gold medallist Jessica Ennis-Hill brought the baton into the abbey at the start of the ceremony.\nThe multi-faith service saw performances from a range of musicians from across the Commonwealth, along with speeches from religious leaders.\nThis year's theme was \"a peace-building Commonwealth\".\nIn a message to the 2.4 billion Commonwealth citizens, printed in the order of service, the Queen wrote: \"The cornerstones on which peace is founded are, quite simply, respect and understanding for one another.\n\"Working together, we build peace by defending the dignity of every individual and community.\n\"As members of the Commonwealth family, we can find much to be thankful for in the inheritances we have received from those who came before us. Through consensus and co-operation, great things have been achieved.\"\nCommonwealth secretary general Baroness Scotland also gave her own Commonwealth Day message, read at flag ceremonies around the country.\nShe said: \"By linking governments and institutions - both public and private - and bringing together in a spirit of goodwill people of all ages and from all walks of life, Commonwealth gatherings and networks lay foundations of respect and understanding that enable lasting peace to be built.\"", "He edged out his club-mate, David Weir, while Commonwealth silver medallist Frank Baines won the bronze medal despite only competing in five of the six apparatus at the Perth event.\nThe same club produced the women's all-round winner, Shannon Archer.\nThe 18-year-old finished ahead of Sofia Ramzan (Dundee), while Carly Smith won the bronze medal.\nDan Purvis, the London 2012 Olympic Games team bronze medallist and winner of the national title for the last three years, finished fourth, having only competed on three of the apparatus - the floor, pommel and parallel bars.\nThe result was no real surprise to the 26-year-old, who is focusing on the bigger picture.\n\"It was a bit of a warm up,\" Purvis told BBC Scotland. \"The last time I competed was last year so I wanted to get back into it.\n\"There's a new cycle and a new code (scoring method) and the idea is to get my three pieces up for the start of the year. Then the other three later on in the year so by the Commonwealth Games (2018) I'll be back on all six.\"\nScotland's men won team silver at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games and Purvis is positive about the nation's prospects for the Gold Coast 2018 event.\n\"The whole of Scottish gymnastics has improved so much,\" he said. \"From years ago when I was here to now, the difference is fantastic and it's all looking good for the Commonwealth Games.\n\"There will be a lot of pressure riding on this new team but the talent is coming through. We saw Frank Baines today doing fantastic and a lot of the gymnasts are doing really well. Kelvin Cham and Liam Davis too.\n\"The set-up in Scottish gymnastics is fantastic, the coaches are just so much on the ball with it and it's great to see.\"\nHaving not made the final team for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, going as a reserve only, Purvis is determined to compete at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, and will not rule out aiming for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.\n\"It was very difficult (not making the team for Rio),\" he said. \"But speaking to my coach Jeff Brookes, he's supported me through my whole career and we just thought we owe it to ourselves to go all out at the Commonwealth Games and hopefully do the best we can there and see what happens.\n\"I'd love to carry on (after the Commonwealth Games), but it'll be two years before the next Olympics so we'll have a good feeling of where we're at then.\"", "5 February 2017 Last updated at 14:05 GMT\nNot sure what the sport is? Well have a watch of one of the competitors taking part.", "Media playback is unsupported on your device\n18 September 2015 Last updated at 17:12 BST\nMartin's been there all day talking to excited fans ahead of the first match, England vs Fiji.\nWatch this clip of fans telling him what they've been doing in the build up to the competition.", "The Welsh 400m hurdler, 32, met the Olympic qualifying time in May, but failed to win automatic Rio selection at the British Championships.\nWilliams failed in his appeal, which he said was \"a bitter pill to swallow\".\n\"Sport requires so much dedication... It's whether I've still got that drive and motivation,\" he told Newyddion 9.\nThe 2012 European 400m hurdle champion said, at the moment, his love for the sport is not there, but added: \"hopefully in the coming weeks it will be.\n\"I'm not going to make any rash decisions because I want to see Wales, off the back of this Olympics, springboard into the Commonwealth Games... and I've always wanted to be one of the main Welsh athletes there.\"\nAsked if athletics fans would see him at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, the 2012 Olympian replied: \"I hope so, we'll see.\"\nWilliams was left out of the Team GB squad for Rio after missing out on a place in the top two at the British Championships in June and finishing fifth at the European Championships in July.\nThe British Athletics selection panel did not feel that he would win a medal in Rio or at a future Olympic Games.\nWilliams, who received a four-month ban for doping in 2014 and missed that year's Commonwealth Games, admitted watching the Olympics from home \"has been tough\".\n\"When you've just fallen short over a selector not thinking you're quite good enough, even though you're much better than some of the athletes they've taken, it's a bitter pill to swallow.\n\"But that's life, that's sport and you've just got to get on with it.\n\"I really wanted to almost end my athletics career on a high, and I almost did that and I just fell short.\"\nSeren Bundy-Davies was the only Welsh track and field athlete named in Great Britain's team for the Olympics.\nIt means Wales has just one athletics competitor at an Olympics for the first time since the 1952 Helsinki Games.\nWilliams fears Wales might struggle to send a larger athletics contingent to future Games unless more talent starts coming through the system.\n\"Sport is up and down and Welsh Athletics have got actually a great system in place and a great head coach.\n\"What they haven't got is enough athletes coming through, they get lost to rugby, football, hockey, [and] netball so until that's sorted, it's not going to change much.\"", "Media playback is not supported on this device\nYou can watch the full coverage of the event here.\nAvailable for UK users only.\nInspired to take up swimming? Find out how with Get Inspired's handy guide.", "Media playback is not supported on this device\nFor more information about golf and opportunities to play near you, go to bbc.co.uk/getinspired and have a look at the page on golf." ]

[ "How can you stop young people from Western Europe setting off for Iraq and Syria to fight for the group calling itself the Islamic State? It&#8217;s a question that lots of people are trying to answer in many European countries, including France, where new laws have been just been passed. The BBC’s Lucy Williamson reports on the challenge facing the French authorities. Note: This BBC interview can be heard in the Here & Now podcast or with the WBUR app. Reporter\n\nLucy Williamson, correspondent for the BBC. She tweets @LucyWilliamson." ]

[ "This week a young man in Texas became the first American to plead guilty to terrorism charges related to the recent fighting in Iraq. Michael Wolfe, 23, was arrested just before he boarded a plane. He was on his way to join ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the Sunni extremist group that has been storming its way across Iraq for the past two weeks. ISIS and hundreds of other rebel groups in Syria have inspired thousands of young men around the world to leave their homes and join the fight. As Westerners find their way to the battlefield, officials are worried that the militants will use their new skills when they return home. An Elaborate Recruitment System The road to violent jihad has never been so smooth: All aspiring fighters have to do is get to Turkey. \"It's easy to hop on a commercial fight, or even drive from anywhere in Europe,\" says Bruce Hoffman, who heads the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University. Once young men arrive in Turkey, Hoffman says, hundreds of rebel groups are there to greet them. Recruitment centers line the border with Syria, and various groups process the young men and send them down the line. Hoffman says ISIS, which now controls about a third of Iraq, has a sophisticated program in northern Syria. \"Around Raqqa, [Syria], and elsewhere, they've established very large training camps that are capable of absorbing these foreign fighters and putting a gun in their hand and giving them the kind of training and experience and confidence that puts them into battle very quickly,\" he says. The last great call to arms for Muslim fighters was in the 1980s, after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. About 20,000 foreign fighters traveled there, most of them from the Gulf states. This time, while many of the volunteers are coming from the Middle East, thousands of Westerners are showing up, too. The largest portion is coming from Britain, U.S. officials say. The French government puts the French total at 700 to 800. The latest tally of Americans: about 100. As ISIS gains territory, the recruiting momentum grows, Hoffman says. \"Of course, no one joins a failing or a fading prospect, so the victory of ISIS, or the success that they've experienced in the past few days, acts as almost an amplifier, as a clarion call to those who want to be part of the struggle,\" he says. The Bigger Threat: Bringing The Fight Home So far, little has been done to try to stem the flow of volunteers to ISIS and other groups through key transit points like Turkey. Steven Cook, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations, visited the country last week. The Turkish government is trying to figure out how to slow the tide of recruits, Cook says. Turkey had initially hoped that the foreign fighters would help topple the regime in Syria, he says, so the government let the travelers pass through. Now the Turks are rethinking their approach. \"The Turks weren't thinking very strategically about this issue, and now they have a much larger threat on their hands,\" he says. That larger threat is the real possibility that battle-hardened fighters will eventually set their sight on targets at home — in Europe or the U.S. Last month, a Frenchman who had been fighting with ISIS in Syria returned to France and just weeks later went to Brussels to launch an attack. He opened fire on a Jewish museum there, killing three people. Officials fear more returnees may do the same.", "One Muslim man in Minnesota is on his own personal mission to undermine ISIS. Mohamed Ahmed works as a gas station manager in Minneapolis. But he's dedicated much of his time to creating cartoons that explain Islam — and why ISIS is wrong. He's the creator and voice of a cartoon character he calls Average Mohamed. For the past four years Ahmed has been producing these online cartoons to try to counter the ISIS message. In Minnesota in particular, with its large Somali community, ISIS has had the most success in finding recruits. The state leads the country in the number of people seeking to join the terrorist group. Ahmed, who came to the U.S. from Somalia 20 years ago, is betting that plain-speaking Average Mohamed can help stem the flow. He spoke with NPR's Rachel Martin about why he's so dedicated to this cause. Interview Highlights On how he came up with the character Well it's simple, I'm an average guy with four children, a wife ... and a mortgage. And what is it that the average people know that basically can help in this process? Because it is average people recruiting each other and becoming extremists. So we felt like it's the same way we need an average guy espousing the values of majority Muslims. So Average Mohamed was a no-brainer because Mohamed is the most common name in the world. On the message and people's response Well it's a counter-ideology. The whole platform is a counter-ideology platform. And the message is about the values: three principles. One is peace, second one is democracy and the third one is anti-extremism. So it is a way to talk to the youth without veils. And we try to connect with them. [We're getting an] enormous amount of support across faiths, gender, race. On reaching the right people with the anti-extremist message Well I've actually accomplished that. Where a kid comes up to me and says — like for example the concept of suicide bombing. They said, \"Well suicide bombers go to heaven,\" I said, \"No, go back to your teachings.\" Who's got to be lying, is it the teachings of the prophet himself who's lying, or is it the teachings of Islamic State, al-Qaida and whoever these outfits are? And it starts bothering them. These people are curious. Because I do outreach with the kids — I actually go to schools, mosques, madrasas. And the kids, they're looking at Syria. These are mostly Minnesota Sunni Muslims and they have a side they support. And they're wondering, how can we do something about that? Well I tell them, \"You don't have to pack your bags and go join with ISIS. You can join the U.N. club, you can write to your senator, you can start a food drive.\" We give them options. And we say, \"Look, this is within democracy. These are the powers and the choices you have.\" And we drill down that message. We drill it down by speaking plainly. What world do we want? I want a world without extremism. And I'm willing to work on it. I'm willing to talk about it, I'm willing to put my money on it. So there's a clear and present choice between the voice of democracy and the voice of extremism. And democracy should stand up on its values and that's what I believe in.", "More Somali-American young people have disappeared from the Twin Cities, and community leaders fear the missing have joined the self-declared Islamic State. The news comes as the Somali community remains divided on how to stem the flow of potential fighters for battlefields in Syria. AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: More Somali-American young people have disappeared from the Minneapolis area. Community leaders there fear the missing have joined the terrorist group ISIS in the Middle East. As Minnesota Public Radio's Laura Yuen has found, Somalis living in the Twin Cities remain divided about how to stem the flow of potential fighters to battlefields in Syria. LAURA YUEN, BYLINE: Reports about yet another batch of disappearances have been circulating in the Somali community here for weeks. A group that calls itself the Somali American Task Force has been warning elders and parents to be vigilant. At a recent town hall meeting in Minneapolis, task force member Abdirizak Bihi took the mic and confirmed to the crowd that the stories were true. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) ABDIRIZAK BIHI: (Foreign language spoken). YUEN: He told the crowd, \"we're now telling you that a number of Somalis, including women and men, have left in previous weeks. It's news we're telling you today.\" Bihi emphasized that this group was in addition to the young Minnesotans who traveled to Syria about a year ago. But the details are slim and federal authorities haven't commented. BIHI: We don't know how many left. There were some concerns from the community that more young people might leave. What we all know is that we all share a heightened sense of urgency. YUEN: Some people here think Bihi may be exaggerating the problem. But others in the community have confirmed these latest disappearances. The task force that Bihi sits on is aligned with the U.S. attorney's office in Minneapolis in a joint effort to prevent Somali youth from being radicalized. They're promoting things like after-school programs, job training and mentoring. But that effort has faced a backlash from other leaders in the Somali-American community. Back in April, following the arrests of six men on charges of conspiring to travel to Syria to join ISIS, families and friends held protests. They waved the American flag and wore T-shirts saying Free Our Boys. They distanced themselves from the brutal extremists in the Middle East, chanting we're not terrorists. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: We're not terrorists. We're not ISIS. We're not terrorists. We're not ISIS. YUEN: Many Somali-Americans say they don't entirely trust law enforcement and worry about being singled out because they're Muslims. And that makes attempts to find an antidote to radicalization so challenging. Federal authorities are offering to bolster social services and community outreach for Somali kids at the same time they're investigating terrorism. Jaylani Hussein heads the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations. He says some of his fellow Somali-Americans fear the program will be used to spy on the community. Several dozen Muslim groups have signed a statement opposing the outreach program. JAYLANI HUSSEIN: Sometimes when you're dealing with a department that investigates you, you should know that there is obviously some concerns there. You know, it's not like the Department of Human Services is providing you a grant to do after-school programming. I mean, the human services does not investigate people for crimes. YUEN: But critics of the government outreach efforts haven't offered their own detailed plans to try to prevent radicalization. Aside from the most recent departures, the FBI says at least 20 Minnesotans have joined ISIS in the Middle East. At least five are believed dead. Abdisalam Adam, a local imam and public school teacher, says he's left with little choice but to work with law enforcement. ABDISALAM ADAM: One thing is clear - the need for resources is obvious and it will address some of the issues relating to economic deprivation, upward mobility in a sense of being involved and engaged and becoming part of the American dream. YUEN: But it's also clear that even as the community struggles with how best to address terror recruitment, young Somali-Americans are still being lured overseas. For NPR News, I'm Laura Yuen in Minneapolis.", "As candidates hit the campaign trail, NPR looks at four major issues the next president will face from Day 1 in office. This week, the FBI arrested a 20-year-old Texas man named Asher Abid Khan on allegations that he intended to join the self-proclaimed Islamic State. He joins more than 60 young American men and women who have been lured to Syria by the group, also known as ISIS. What makes Khan's case a little different, though, is the way in which he was arrested by authorities. He had been in Australia and then traveled to Turkey and was about to cross into Syria when his parents sent him a frantic message. They claimed his mother was in the hospital and was desperate to see him. The ruse worked. He left Turkey, flew to Texas and was finally arrested Tuesday, nearly a year after his return. It is unclear whether his parents' participation in convincing him to come home will have some bearing on any eventual sentence — he has been charged with material support to a terrorist organization and faces up to 15 years in prison. Khan's case is important because it is an indication of the creativity law enforcement officials are starting to employ to stem the flow of American Muslims to ISIS; and it foreshadows the scope of the problem facing the next president from his or her first day in office. In the past two years, nearly 200 Americans have either tried to travel to Syria and were stopped, are actively considering going, or have actually made it to the ISIS battlefields there. Al-Qaida has never had that kind of attraction and appeal in the U.S. The threat of prison clearly isn't solving the problem. So law enforcement officials are starting to entertain alternatives, and that means the next president will likely have to do so as well. The one thing everyone seems to agree with in regard to ISIS is that it is fundamentally different from al-Qaida. Its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, sees himself as a religious figure, a descendant of the prophet who has been chosen to create a homeland, or caliphate, for the world's Muslims. Osama bin Laden, the founder of al-Qaida, fancied himself a warrior, locking horns with the West. A caliphate, he said, could come later. Similarly, ISIS' goals — at least at this point — are different. While bin Laden and his successor Ayman al-Zawahiri are focused on attacking the U.S.; ISIS is endlessly creative in trying to get young men and women to leave home to create a state in Syria and Iraq. If you don't want to fight, its recruitment videos say, not to worry, you can be a plumber or an electrician or a traffic cop in the new caliphate. ISIS doesn't lure young men and women from around the world with the long audio diatribes bin Laden and al-Zawahiri have always favored, instead the group has been more creative. For example, it re-created its own version of the popular video game Grand Theft Auto. Download the game and you can shoot up Syrian troops, or local police, and get a dose of ISIS propaganda at the same time. \"I don't think al-Qaida ever had that kind of talent,\" says Tony Sgro, the CEO of a San Francisco company called EdVenture Partners which, among other things, markets to exactly the kind of people who are attracted by ISIS' sales pitch. \"I personally don't remember them being such a world-class employment, branding and recruiting agency. But ISIL is.\" Sgro is the man behind \"Peer 2 Peer: Challenging Extremism,\" a university-based program that is focused on competing with groups like ISIS or ISIL. The initiative brings together college students from all kinds of disciplines — from marketing to international relations to computer science — and creates a college class that gets them to dream up social media campaigns that will challenge groups like ISIS online. \"You know universities are like dense pockets of humanity and it's been fascinating to see the way these faculty, and more importantly the students, view the challenge with different optics,\" Sgro said. The program is premised on the idea that the 50-year-olds at the State or Defense Departments don't know what animates 20-somethings attracted to ISIS, but their peers do. The question is: Will it work? And will the next president, looking for creative solutions to counter ISIS, pursue this kind of strategy? Ground zero for another experiment — an attempt at deradicalizing young men and women seduced by ISIS' social media campaign — started just this year in Minnesota. Until recently, U.S. counterterrorism officials dismissed the efficacy of deradicalization programs. The number of Americans who radicalized and embraced groups like al-Qaida was so small, there was little enthusiasm for developing a program to change their mindsets. The thinking was that prison time could do that. Then ISIS happened, and with dozens of Americans leaving for the Middle East, law enforcement officials, particularly at the Justice Department, seem more open to the idea. According to federal law enforcement officials, the Twin Cities", "Names, addresses and phone numbers of some 22,000 ISIS recruits — and information about the network that recruited them — are reportedly part of a trove of data that Sky News says it received from a former member of the extremist group. The identities of people from more than 50 countries, including Britain, European nations, the U.S. and Canada, are purportedly in the data, which Sky says it has shared with government authorities. \"Some of the telephone numbers on the list are still active,\" Sky reports, \"and it is believed that although many will be family members, a significant number are used by the jihadis themselves.\" It's not yet clear how many of the thousands of people named in the documents might have traveled to join ISIS, and how many may still be in their home countries. Among the most intriguing elements said to be in the data trove: 23-line recruitment forms filled out by sponsors that begin with recruits' \"name\" and \"fighter name\" and then include their mother's maiden name and their blood type. Education and job experience are also covered; so are combat experience and \"date and place of death\" — implying that the paperwork was meant to follow the recruit once they'd joined ISIS. The forms also reportedly include the question, \"Who recommended him?\" — which may help the authorities establish a crucial link between the terrorist organization and far-flung recruiters. Some of the recruits listed in the files are Westerners who are known to have traveled to join ISIS, Sky reports, citing several cases of high-profile British recruits who have either been killed or whose whereabouts are unknown. When Britain's Home Secretary Theresa May was asked about the leaked documents today, she replied, \"I don't comment on specific national security matters, but I have seen the reports. Daesh poses a severe threat. The threat level in the UK is at severe and we have seen the attacks that have been perpetrated on mainland Europe over the last year.\" May then added that she's urging Britain's allies to share information and to restrict the movement of firearms within Europe. The news comes days after German media outlets reported having obtained a similar set of documents. According to Deutsche Welle, a representative of Germany's federal police says they have the documents and that they're authentic. It's unclear whether the sets of data are the same. NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reports from Berlin that Germany's Interior Ministry \"says the files could also undermine the ability of ISIS to recruit and inspire new fighters.\" \"It's not known how many ISIS fighters are in Syria and Iraq, but estimates range between 30,000 and 100,000,\" Soraya adds. Sky News said it obtained the data via a memory stick provided by a former member of the Free Syrian Army using the name Abu Hamed, who joined ISIS but then quit because he believes the group stopped following Islamic law and is too heavily influenced by former members of Iraq's Baath party. \"It's far from Islam,\" the man tells Sky News' Stuart Ramsay, during an interview in Turkey in which he wore a scarf to obscure his face. When asked whether the information might be used to destroy ISIS, the man answers, \"God willing, if we give it to those who will use it, of course.\" Once the administrative forms were filled out, Ramsay reports, they were given to ISIS' head of internal security, who then put the data on the memory stick. Ramsay also says his contact told him that ISIS is in the process of moving its headquarters from Raqqa, Syria, to the desert and then to Iraq. He also claimed that in Syria, ISIS has collaborated with President Bashar Assad's government and other groups to fight the country's moderate opposition forces.", "After the deadly attacks in Brussels this week, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said in a statement that police should patrol Muslim neighborhoods to prevent radicalization: &#8220;We need to immediately halt the flow of refugees from countries with a significant al Qaida or ISIS presence. We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized. We need to secure the southern border to prevent terrorist infiltration. And we need to execute a coherent campaign to utterly destroy ISIS.&#8221; The plan came under attack from Democrats and New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton. Here & Now&#8217;s Robin Young gets reaction from Osama Siblani, the publisher of the Arab American News in Dearborn, Michigan, which includes a large population of Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent. Interview Highlights: Osama Siblani On Ted Cruz’s comments “I was just listening to a radical person who is radicalizing Americans. We are facing some serious issues in the world, including ISIS, and what we need, we need serious leaders and Ted Cruz is not one.” On Muslims in America who would commit violent acts “We have sick people, and the Muslim community is no different than in the Christian community or the Jewish community or any other community. We had a guy that was going around killing people in Kalamazoo, he killed six people and he drives an Uber. He is not a Muslim. And the guy from the Dearborn Heights, he’s still in court and according to the affidavit, I’m not going to defend them or anything like this but I can explain to you what I have known, but the guy is suffering from mental illness. That is for sure.” What do you say to people who question why there are insular communities of people of Middle Eastern descent in the U.S.? “This is America. America is nation of nations, and nothing is going on in Dearborn other than the great American dream is being realized every day by people who are working very hard to provide to their families. The thing is that we are being terrorized instead of being worked with to fight this animal called ISIS.” Do people in Arab communities want more help to keep their children safe from ISIS recruitment? “Our kids are not being recruited by ISIS, especially in this area because if you know the politics of the region, most of the people here are Shia in Dearborn and they are being targeted by ISIS. So when we hear of ISIS, people in here get scared like any other American. The fact is, Muslims overseas are fighting ISIS. They are dying every day to protect their countries and fight the terrorist organization and what we need to do is we need to help them rather than scare them and terrorize them.” Do you welcome government programs aimed at rooting out the mentally unstable? “Absolutely. They don’t need my permission to do that, however it would be nice if they did that with our cooperation. In fact, the day before yesterday, we had a big meeting about what happened in Belgium and also we talked about what will happen here in the United States and what we can do. We are in constant touch with the intelligence agencies and the federal officials here to counter any kind of radicalizations in our society. But for us, to listen to a presidential candidate profiling the entire Muslim community, it is absurd.” Guest\n\nOsama Siblani, publisher of Arab American News. He tweets @OsamaSiblani.", "After the Paris terror attacks back in January, mystery swirled around one of the gunmen's partners, Hayat Boumedienne, a young French woman who's believed to have fled to Syria. Since then, three British schoolgirls and a Colorado woman are among those who apparently traveled to Iraq or Syria to join the self-declared Islamic State, or ISIS. All these cases have prompted authorities to examine how ISIS recruits women. Analysts estimate some 20 percent of ISIS recruits are women, and their roles are changing: They're not just jihadi brides, but active recruiters and sometimes even attackers. In Ceuta, a tiny Spanish territory in North Africa, several women have been arrested for allegedly recruiting other women to join ISIS. Spanish officials say they've uncovered Europe's first all-female jihadi ring. At its center, they say, are two friends from high school: Loubna Muhamed, 21, and Rahma Yarmak, 18. This is their story. \"Loubna comes from a middle class family — I know them well,\" says Laarbi al-Lal Maateis, president of the Union of Islamic Communities in Ceuta. \"Her father owns a big taxi company. Her grandparents are retired shopkeepers. The girl wore a headscarf, but dressed in a modern way. She liked all the popular brands.\" Maateis, a Muslim scholar who oversees Ceuta's mosques, has counseled both girls' families. He says Loubna and Rahma were normal teenagers, constantly on Facebook, texting and chatting via WhatsApp on their smartphones. The girls grew up together in Ceuta, which is separated from the rest of Europe by the Mediterranean Sea, and separated from neighboring Morocco by a huge fence. Ceuta is part of Spain and thus the European Union. The residents have Spanish passports. But they live in limbo between two continents. The territory has no airport, only a helipad, and a ferry is required to go back and forth to the Spainish mainland. Half of Ceuta's residents are of European descent, but the faster-growing half are Arabic-speaking Muslims, whose ancestors came from Morocco. The territory has a jobless rate of more than 30 percent, one of the worst unemployment problems in Europe. Experts say Ceuta's mix of religion, poverty and isolation make it fertile ground for a new type of jihadi recruitment: for women, by women. Loubna was the first of the two friends to go. \"She'd just started a new job teaching nursery school [last November.] She worked seven days and then went missing,\" Maateis recalls. \"She phoned her parents from Turkey, on her way to Syria [to join ISIS]. I often speak to her father, her grandfather and uncle. They're all traumatized.\" NPR was unable to reach Loubna on Skype or social media. From ISIS territory, Loubna contacted her teenage friend Rahma, on WhatsApp, almost daily. Rahma was engaged to be married to a young man from Ceuta. Maateis performed a religious ceremony for the couple in his office in December, and they were planning a wedding party within weeks. Then Rahma disappeared. But Spanish authorities had been monitoring her WhatsApp messages to Loubna, and knew her plans. En route to Syria, Rahma was arrested on the Turkish border in early January. What's unique about these girls is that according to Spanish officials, they were not aspiring ISIS brides — but rather, master recruiters for the militant group. Spain says intercepted communications show that Loubna and Rahma were members — perhaps even the leaders — of an all-female jihadi ring — recruiting fellow Ceuta women to become militants. They were the perfect tools for ISIS. They're obsessed with social media and have easy access to fellow women, says Carola Garcia-Calvo, a terrorism expert at Madrid's Elcano think tank, who has studied Loubna and Rahma's case. \"They used their blogs and WhatsApp and stuff. They were very persistent,\" Garcia-Calvo says. \"So this is why the role of women to attract more women [to ISIS] is huge — and they use it, they use it.\" The all-female jihadi network that Loubna and Rahma were allegedly part of was overseen by men in Morocco, but staffed exclusively by women, García-Calvo says. They recruited fellow women via social media, but also in person, in their densely-populated hometown of Ceuta, she says. \"In spite of the Internet, face-to-face radicalization still occurs. In my opinion, the radicalization process in Spain is a mix of the Internet — the virtual world — and the real world. Contact with people still matters — especially friends, colleagues and family,\" García-Calvo says. \"We can see how social environment is very important.\" In Ceuta, like many conservative Muslim enclaves, women are often less likely to work outside the home, more likely to socialize online or in all-female groups, and in private rather than in public. This makes their networks more difficult for intelligence agencies to penetrate. A senior Spanish defense official said police have infiltrated mosques across Spain with undercover male agents — but have had trouble recruiting any female one", "The debate over how to combat the self-declared Islamic State is increasing in the wake of the Paris attacks. There are calls for more airstrikes or putting troops on the ground in Syria. But the U.S. military says it launched an attack this week that hit the Islamic State right where it hurt. On Monday, U.S. warplanes flew low over an area in eastern Syria controlled by the Islamic State, or ISIS. The target was roughly 300 trucks used to transport crude oil for the terrorist organization, says Col. Steve Warren, the U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. \"We flew over with F-15s and we dropped leaflets we had developed, written in Arabic, that essentially said, 'Hey, run away, we're about to strike your trucks,' \" he says. The U.S. dropped the leaflets about an hour before the strikes. Many — but not all — drivers left their trucks and ran away, Warren says. \"There was a few hangers-on, and for those, we did strafing runs nearby to convince them once and for all that it wasn't a good idea to stay in the area,\" he says. \"Some of them actually ran and hid in a tent, which is not good protection against bombs and bullets.\" Warren says 116 trucks were destroyed and many more were damaged in the strikes. None of the truck drivers were killed, he says. Cutting off ISIS financing is an important element of strategy against the group. The U.S. has targeted ISIS oil infrastructure — wells, pipelines and the like — for more than a year, but these are often quickly repaired by militants. The U.S. bombed ISIS oil facilities last year, but waited until now to make its first attack on the trucks that actually move the crude. Warren says they're an important part of the distribution chain: \"We've looked at these trucks for some time and decided finally it's time to strike those trucks.\" It's hotly debated how much ISIS makes from illicit oil sales. Estimates range as high as $1 million a day. Regardless, Hassan Hassan, with Chatham House, a London-based research center, says targeting the oil trucks signals a shift in U.S. strategy to stem the flow of an important income stream for ISIS. \"Oil has been a key source of income for ISIS. It helps it fund not only its military activities but also its ability to provide electricity, and it's part of its ability to govern and to govern effectively on the ground,\" he says. As NPR's Deborah Amos reported in July, the group controls 80 percent of Syria's prewar oil. The regime, under Bashar Assad, controls about 8 percent. Amos says ISIS has become a kind of militant OPEC, setting the price of crude. ISIS sells crude to the regime, to anti-Assad rebels, even indirectly to international aid agencies because often it's the only oil available. ISIS controls oil fields in both Syria and northern Iraq, but its main producing region is in Deir Ezzor province, in eastern Syria. The Financial Times followed the progress of one barrel of oil from extraction to end user. The British newspaper said ISIS sells most of its crude to independent traders at oil fields, and that Syrian and Iraqi buyers can wait with their trucks for weeks to fill up. Much of it is sent to refineries and then transported through Syria or across Turkish or Iraqi borders. Launching attacks on oil trucks may have an impact on the distribution of oil, but it also deprives many people of fuel — and civilian truck drivers of badly needed income. The drivers use well-established smuggling routes, says Elizabeth Rosenberg, director of the Energy Economics and Security program at the Center for a New American Security. \"This is a way of life for people who make a living moving stolen goods across this territory. Not everyone involved is a supporter of ISIS or connected to ISIS directly or ideologically. This is the kind of informal economy that has existed long before ISIS was present,\" she notes. Hassan, the co-author of ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror, says stemming oil revenue may hurt ISIS, but there are other ways to fill its coffers. \"Now they have to rely more on taxes, on extortion, on the confiscation of properties,\" he says. Not to mention kidnapping and looting antiquities.", "The Islamic State's activities in Iraq and Syria are well-known, but the group is gaining a toehold elsewhere in the world as well. In a chilling new documentary, a long-haired fighter claims that an ISIS-run \"school\" teaches all local children from the age of 3 in Afghanistan's Kunar province. In the documentary, produced for PBS/Frontline and Al Jazeera, Afghan-British journalist Najibullah Quraishi highlights efforts by ISIS to indoctrinate young children. In one scene, after herding a ragtag group of boys and girls into a room (girls are ordered to sit in back), the fighter conducts a grim lesson. \"What is this word?\" he says, and answers his own question: \"Jihad.\" \"Jihad,\" the children repeat. \"God says do jihad until intrigue, idolatry and infidelity are gone from the world.\" He tells a boy to stand up. \"What is this?\" he says, indicating his rifle. \"Kalashnikov.\" \"Why do we use this?\" \"To defend the faith.\" \"And whose heads will we hit with this?\" \"Kafir [infidels],\" says the child. \"This is a hand grenade, meaning hand bomb,\" the fighter continues. \"Hand bomb,\" the child repeats. Then he hands an unloaded gun to a boy, coaching him to \"fire it from a standing position.\" One by one, the other boys (no girls, it must be said) handle the weapon. ISIS Moves Into Afghanistan \"The thing which really, really shocked me was to see those children at the school,\" Quraishi told NPR's Renee Montagne this week. \"So I thought maybe they get some proper lesson at their school, like some grammar, maybe some math or something like this or even to learn about proper Islam. Then they start, 'What is jihad?' Teaching children 3 or 4 years old, up to 9 or 10 years old, what is jihad. \"And then later on that day, they were watching some beheadings, some torturing videos, which they were receiving from Syria and Iraq in front of the children... They were inviting the children to watch this.\" Later in the film, Quraishi speaks with two tough-talking but scared-looking teenagers, in training to be suicide bombers. \"I'm ready now, God willing,\" says one. While Quraishi's film provides a deeply troubling glimpse into a wretched situation, it's unclear how common or widespread such scenes may be throughout Afghanistan — which, since January, has been included formally in a new Islamic State chapter called \"Khorasan,\" covering the Central Asia region. In a survey of Afghan attitudes released on Tuesday, the Asia Foundation reported that 74 percent of Afghans said they'd heard of ISIS, and more than half of them consider it a local security threat. In July, the Pentagon warned that ISIS was looking to expand in Afghanistan, and two months later, a U.N. report found that ISIS was recruiting in 25 of the country's 34 provinces. Disaffected Taliban For now, its main activities appear to be concentrated in just a few of those provinces. The movement, analysts say, is attracting disgruntled, midlevel Taliban commanders. But \"The network is dynamic and changes occur weekly, if not more frequently,\" writes Don Rassler of West Point's Combating Terrorism Center. \"The leadership ... consists of a handful of commanders,\" but some \"appear to have never really fit into the Taliban or were ousted from it.\" More may also have abandoned the Taliban following news over the summer of Taliban leader Mullah Omar's death, and others may have been lured by the relatively high salaries offered by ISIS. Some fighters may have entered from neighboring countries, such as Pakistan or Uzbekistan. But it's important to note that the emergence of the Islamic State in Afghanistan stems from different factors than in Syria or Iraq. \"The decision to extend IS into 'Khorasan' does not seem to have sprung from any strategic consideration or natural flow of events on the ground,\" writes Borhan Osman of the Afghan Analysts Network, a think tank in Kabul. \"It was also not driven into existence by the same factors — the desire to get rid of tyrannical, sectarian and chauvinistic regimes — which helped IS take roots in its native land.\" In addition, Osman suggests, the group's appeal may be more ideological than operational. Limited Appeal So Far If the appeal of ISIS is limited thus far, its brutal tactics are increasingly on display. Earlier this month, the government blamed Afghan fighters loyal to ISIS for the murders of seven hostages, including a 9-year-old girl, all members of the Shiite Hazara ethnic minority, The New York Times reported. In a separate episode, ISIS filmed its own execution of hostages accused of supporting the Taliban; men were forced to kneel on the ground and were blown to bits by explosives buried beneath them. (Part of this video appears in Quraishi's documentary). \"They are more vicious than the Taliban, than any group we have seen,\" an elder told The Washington Post. But for the moment, though the ISIS threat should not be disregarded, it is not Afghanistan's biggest problem, says Andrew Wilder of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a longtim", "This week officials are gathering in Washington to discuss how to counter extremist messages, particularly those from the self-proclaimed Islamic State. ISIS has been luring thousands of Westerners to the battlefields of Syria and Iraq. The number of Americans who have traveled to Syria is still relatively small — in the neighborhood of 150 people — and a thin slice of that group, perhaps as many as two dozen Americans, are thought to have joined ISIS. In the discussions at the White House this week, one city has focused minds: Minneapolis-St Paul. It had been ground zero for terrorist recruiters in the past, and is fast becoming the center of ISIS' recruitment effort in the United States. \"I know one guy who tweets the community all the time,\" said Abdirizak Bihi, the director of Somali education at a local advocacy group. \"He left with my nephew 2008, and he's still alive. And he's been tweeting about who died in ISIS and where they come from, kind of maybe the new spokesman.\" From Americans To Jihadists To Evangelists Bihi's nephew was a Minneapolis teenager named Burhan Hassan, who joined a handful of young men from the Twin Cities and traveled to Somalia to join a terrorist group there called al-Shabab. Hassan died there several years ago. Between 2006 and 2011, some 27 Somali-Americans from the community disappeared to fight in Somalia. That's important to what's going on now because officials believe that prior connection to jihad is one reason why ISIS has been so successful at recruiting in Minnesota today. Since the end of 2013, law enforcement officials say, eleven men and one woman with ties to the Twin Cities have traveled to Syria. Another dozen or so either have tried to travel there before authorities intercepted them, or are believed to be preparing to go. What's more, officials say, the ISIS travelers are young: 15 and 16-year-olds are signing up. Parents in the community are frightened. They have experienced this before, and there is a sinking feeling among parents that they'll be losing their children again. \"They are more afraid now than ever before because ISIS is something worse than anything we have ever seen,\" said Bihi. Officials believe ISIS is taking advantage of the recruiting infrastructure al-Shabab developed almost a decade ago. Back then, the departures came three or four friends at a time. They would suddenly vanish. Eventually parents would get text messages from their sons saying they had gone to Somalia to fight in the civil war. Bihi's nephew, Burhan Hassan, left with a handful of other young men on election night 2008. Bihi and Hassan's mother thought he hadn't come home because he was out celebrating the election of America's first black president; instead he was boarding a plane to Africa. Authorities never captured a mastermind in those al-Shabab cases. Instead, they managed to arrest someone they believed was a midlevel player — a local janitor who had connections to al-Shabab. He was convicted of, among other things, helping recruit the young men and financing their trips. In the latest recruitment cases, law enforcement officials believe that a page has been torn from al-Shabab's playbook, and that there is someone — or a group of people — on the ground in Minnesota recruiting for ISIS. Bihi says nothing else makes sense. \"I do not believe that a kid gets up in the morning — a normal kid — and decides not to go to school, but decides to open a Google and Google al-Shabab or ISIS, and to self-radicalize,\" he said. \"There has to be someone helping them on the ground. These kids don't know how to make plans to travel, they don't have money, but somehow they are managing to leave anyway. Someone must be helping them.\" A Teen Tries To Make The Trip One morning in May 2014, an 18-year-old Somali-American named Abdullahi Yusuf had his dad drop him off at school, but never made it to class. He waited until the car was out of sight, then walked to a mosque that was just two short blocks up the street. What Yusuf didn't know was that the FBI was watching him. They had staked out the school because they were convinced that Yusuf intended to board a flight to Turkey that afternoon. They had been tipped off because he had gone to the Minneapolis passport office days earlier and a passport officer got suspicious. According to the criminal complaint, Yusuf told the passport officer where he was going. The officer asked if Yusuf was traveling with someone, and the question seemed to flummox him. First he said he was going alone; then he said his mom couldn't afford to go. He changed his story a third time and added that he hoped to join up with a friend he'd just met on Facebook. \"A girl?\" the officer asked. No, Yusuf allegedly said, a guy. Days later, the FBI says, Yusuf opened a bank account and made a series of small deposits totalling $1500. Then he bought a plane ticket to Turkey. It took Abdullahi Yusuf just a couple of weeks to get everything he needed to leave home. Jean", "They connect via online services — especially Twitter — and in everyday life. Their ages range from 15 to 47, and their roles range from cheering attacks to plotting violence. And curbing their growth is a dynamic challenge without a simple solution: There are currently 900 active investigations into ISIS sympathizers in every American state. Those are some of the findings of a new study that glimpses life \"inside the bubble of American ISIS sympathizers, a diverse and diffuse scene that the FBI estimates include hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals.\" Titled \"ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa,\" the report by Lorenzo Vidino and Seamus Hughes focuses on around 300 people who have been identified as American recruits or supporters of ISIS. While it's not new for Americans to join jihadist groups, Vidino, who directs the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, says, \"the size of the ISIS-related radicalization and mobilization is unprecedented.\" NPR's Carrie Johnson reports: \"The report reviewed social media accounts and legal cases against Islamic State recruits. The study says the highest number of recruits have been charged in New York and Minnesota, though the FBI has open investigations in all 50 states. \"The report's authors say the average age of the ISIS sympathizers is 26 — and more than half have traveled or tried to travel abroad. \"About 40 percent of the cases George Washington reviewed involved converts to Islam, and a small fraction, about 1 in 10, are women.\" The group is very diverse — both in their demographics and in what motivates them. \"While some seek to join the self-declared caliphate in ISIS-controlled territory, others plan attacks within the U.S.,\" Vidino says in a statement accompanying the report. \"It's a growing and disturbing phenomenon.\" Describing the ISIS sympathizers, he says, \"We have seen cases in big cities and rural towns. The individuals involved range from hardened militants to teenage girls, petty criminals and college students.\" Looking at 71 people who've been indicted in the U.S. for ISIS-related activities, Vidino and his colleagues say that except for seven suspects whose legal residency status hasn't been determined, \"the vast majority of individuals charged are U.S. citizens (58) or permanent residents (6), underscoring the homegrown nature of the threat.\" The pace of arrests is increasing, with the researchers saying that the 56 arrests made in 2015 are already the most in one year since September of 2001. As for how to combat ISIS's reach in the U.S., the report's authors recommend boosting funding to create dynamic programs; helping non–law enforcement groups take people off the path to radicalization; and encouraging American Muslims to engage with ISIS supporters without fear of becoming a target of a federal inquiry. Describing how ISIS has used technology to reach into U.S. society, the report says: \"Several thousand Americans consume ISIS propaganda online creating what has been described as a 'radicalization echo chamber.' \" Twitter is \"by far the platform of choice\" for American activists to connect. Other routes include Facebook, Google+ and Tumblr, along with messaging services like \"Kik, Telegram, surespot, and the dark web.\" On Twitter, many of the most popular pro-ISIS accounts are \"shout-out accounts,\" which the researchers call \"a unique innovation and vital to the survival of the ISIS online scene.\" The accounts introduce new activists — but even more important, they promote the new accounts of users who've been suspended by Twitter. \"American accounts, like the larger ISIS echo chamber, tend not to tolerate dissent and silence attempts at nuance. Muslim religious leaders, particularly those living in the West, who condemn ISIS are routinely dismissed as 'coconuts,' a derogatory term used to insult those accused of denying their Muslim identity. Many U.S.-based Muslim scholars and activists, even those from conservative backgrounds, are subject to routine death threats.\" The Internet isn't always the main point of contact, the researchers say. In some cases, people became radicalized by in-person meetings with \"preexisting social contacts who already embraced jihadist ideology\" — and over time, a cluster of like-minded individuals forms. Most of the sympathizers who are engaged in an ISIS \"counter-culture\" will never \"make the leap from talk to action,\" the report says. But it adds that some will turn to real militancy — whether that means attempting to take violent action overseas or at home in the U.S. Citing the wide range of people who've been identified as ISIS activists, the report states, \"Because there is no standard recruit profile, there is also no silver bullet that will blunt ISIS's allure. Recognizing this complexity is a vital initial step for policymakers, law enforcement officials, civic leaders, teachers and parents when crafting effective solutions.\"", "Donald Trump is demanding an apology from Hillary Clinton, after Clinton, during Saturday night&#8217;s debate, claimed Trump had become the &#8220;best recruiter&#8221; for the terrorist group ISIS because of his anti-Muslim comments. \nHillary said at debate ISIS is &#8220;going to people showing videos in order to recruit more radical jihadistst.&#8221; She made up story-want apology! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2015 And South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham is dropping out of the crowded field of candidates running for the Republican presidential nomination. Here & Now&#8216;s Jeremy Hobson discusses the latest in the race to 2016 with Democratic Party strategist Angela Rye. Guest\n\nAngela Rye, Here & Now&#8216;s political analyst and a democratic party strategist. She tweets @angela_rye.", "The Islamic State's claim of responsibility for a trio of major attacks, including the assault on Paris, has led to a rapid reassessment of the extremist group and its aspirations. Until a couple of weeks ago, ISIS appeared focused on building its self-declared caliphate, or Islamic empire, in its core areas of Syria and Iraq. But it now says it was behind attacks in France, Egypt and Lebanon that killed nearly 400 people in a two-week span. Basic questions — like the group's goals or whether it's getting stronger or weaker — are being examined anew. \"We have only recently grown accustomed to thinking of the Islamic State as an actual state, much less a state sponsor of terrorism,\" writes William McCants, author of The ISIS Apocalypse. \"It has been called a 'proto-state' and a 'quasi-state.' Whatever the terminology, it's much more than an insurgent group now — and it has millions of dollars at its disposal to fund its military adventures at home and abroad.\" ISIS has become many different things to different people. And since its leaders operate in the shadows, trying to make sense of the group can be like the proverbial group of blind men describing an elephant. Experts on Islam focus on the group's Islamic postings. Terrorism analysts points to its organizational skills and reach in recent attacks. Oil experts stress the financial resources the group has accumulated from oil sales. Middle East analysts point out how ISIS has exploited local political grievances. Let's sort through some of the issues surrounding ISIS in the wake of the Paris attacks. What Does ISIS Want? Until very recently, ISIS appeared to have a clear focus on building its caliphate at home. ISIS' leaders openly rejected the al-Qaida model of attacking the West on the grounds that could galvanize those countries to attack the group in the Middle East. But in the wake of the recent ISIS attacks in Paris and elsewhere, the group appears to be taking a fundamentally different approach. \"The international community could take some small comfort from the Islamic State's domestic focus — better it spend its money on infrastructure than on financing terrorist plots abroad,\" writes McCants. \"But if the Islamic State has now added foreign operations to its government spending, as the recent attacks suggest, the prospects are frightening,\" he adds. \"It has the wealth of a state, the ambition of an imperial power and an enemies list that reads like the roll call of the United Nations.\" What's Life Like In The Caliphate? It has been impossible to gain a clear picture of life in ISIS territory since the group consolidated its hold on large parts of Syria and Iraq last year. Occasional fragments point to harsh rule with ISIS imposing its extreme version of Islam on all under its rule. The Daily Beast has been running a series this week based on conversations with an ISIS defector who says the group has been facing mounting problems, including a sharp drop in foreign recruits, who previously flowed in. Foreign fighters have often been sent directly to the front lines and have been killed or wounded by the thousands, said the defector, identified as Abu Khaled. The author of the series, Michael Weiss, writes: \"This sudden shortfall has led to a careful rethinking by ISIS high command of how inhabitants outside of Syria and Iraq can best serve the cause. 'The most important thing,' Abu Khaled said, 'is that they are trying to make sleeper cells all over the world.' The ISIS leadership has 'asked people to stay in their countries and fight there, kill citizens, blow up buildings, whatever they can do. You don't have to come.'\" Is ISIS Getting Stronger Or Weaker? Some analysts have long warned that ISIS was likely to carry out spectacular attacks abroad, and that President Obama and other leaders have consistently underestimated the group. And attacks outside its core area are not new for ISIS. The group has been linked to nearly 100 actual or planned attacks outside of Syria and Iraq since the fall of 2014. But most appeared to be of the \"lone wolf\" variety and were not on the scale the group has claimed since Oct. 31: the downing of a Russian plane (224 dead), a pair of suicide bombings in Beirut, Lebanon (44 dead), and the Paris attacks (129 dead). Some see these actions as the work of a group that's on the defensive and is feeling squeezed. \"The Paris assault appears to be the Islamic State's response to its recent territorial losses and the slowly growing coalition against it, which includes France. Its leaders are trying to show anti-Islamic State countries that there is a price for trying to take it down,\" writes Harvard professor Stephen Walt in Foreign Policy. He argues that Western countries have a habit of overreacting to such attacks, which can play into the hands of groups like ISIS. \"If the Islamic State can get France and other countries to crack down on their Muslim citizens and also get the West to reoccupy large swaths of the Middle E", "The Iraqi military and its allies have been pushing for a week toward the city of Mosul, held by the Islamic State. For people fleeing the fighting, a few thousand so far, it's been an unbelievably frightening seven days. In the Debaga camp for displaced people, about 50 miles southeast of Mosul, which is becoming more crowded, I sit with a family who tell me about leaving the village where they lived under ISIS more than two years. \"We left at sunrise, around 4 a.m., and there was no ISIS around. The [Iraqi] security forces were on the outskirts, but hadn't gone in,\" said a heavily pregnant woman, surrounded by her cousins and their small children, asleep or listless in the hot sun. The army said it would wait until the civilians were out before attacking ISIS. The extremists banned cellphones on pain of death but secretly some villagers spoke to the army and agreed on an escape route. But as they were leaving, \"ISIS appeared out of nowhere...They were firing at us,\" said the pregnant woman, who told her story on condition of anonymity because she is afraid of ISIS. They ran for their lives. And no wonder she is afraid: the men firing were her neighbors – people from the same small village. By her estimate, about half the men in her village pledged allegiance to the extremists. All politics is local. In her village, the same woman explained, you have to understand there are two tribes — the Shammout and Qufaa. \"It's half the Shammout tribe and half the Qufaa tribe. And the Qufaa joined ISIS. And the Shammout – before ISIS came — they were recruits in the security forces,\" she said, adjusting the mattress she and the children were clustering under for shade. Reading between the lines, it seems perhaps one tribe held the security forces jobs and cut the other tribe out of them. When ISIS came along, they exploited that rift. And now the tribesmen they recruited are hardcore ISIS fighters. \"They have tunnels that go all the way to other areas. They are able to smuggle weapons, food and fighters,\" she said. She says ISIS members are like rats, living underground. They can melt away and then come back. The fighters have sent their families to other ISIS-held areas for safety. And she thinks it will be very difficult to defeat them. Across the courtyard, another family is willing to talk, but are also too afraid of ISIS to be identified. I'm speaking only to women because the men are detained, undergoing checks for possible links to ISIS. These women are from a different village, Ibrahim al-Khalil. But, clustered together around a matriarch with traditional face tattoos, they tell a similar story. The Iraqi army is in their village now, but they won't go back home anytime soon. They say they're still afraid of ISIS. They won't say which tribes in their area are with ISIS, but they do say some of their relatives are still under the control of the extremists. \"Families are still besieged by ISIS in Mosul,\" says one of the women, \"We have our aunts there, our cousins. We are afraid they will kill them.\" Officials from Iraq, and from the U.S., which is supporting the offensive, say ISIS is losing territory and much of the population has turned against the group. But the Iraqi army is still fighting around the villages where these women lived – about 20 miles from the outskirts of Mosul. And if these accounts of local support for ISIS are anything to go by, it's going to be a tough fight.", "According to law enforcement officials, ISIS and other terrorist organizations are increasingly adept at using social media to recruit from abroad. Last year alone, the FBI reports, around 20 American citizens were detained trying to travel to Syria to join militants fighting for the so-called Islamic State. Social media companies like Facebook and Twitter face complex criticism. The companies are being asked to do more to stop the terrorists, yet they are also being asked to let some of the propaganda remain to help officials track jihadis. Among the Americans recently caught leaving the country to join ISIS are 19-year-old Mohammed Hamzah Khan and his two younger siblings. No one was more surprised that they planned to join ISIS in Syria than their mother. The three siblings were caught by the FBI at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago as they were about to leave the country in October. Mohammed Khan has been charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization. He pleaded not guilty during an appearance at the federal court in Chicago. Afterward, his mother, Zarine Khan, standing with her husband, spoke to reporters as her voice quivered with emotion. \"We condemn the brainwashing and recruiting of children through the use of social media and the Internet,\" she said. \"And we have a message for ISIS: Mr. Baghdadi and his fellow social media recruiters, leave our children alone!\" Only a few details of how social media were used to recruit the Khan children have been made public. But Khan's lawyers say that Twitter and a messaging service called Kik were crucial. Clinton Watts, a former FBI special agent who focuses on terrorism as a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, shows me how this kind of recruiting works. \"When al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula put out their video message taking claim for the [Charlie] Hebdo attack, it quickly had its own hashtag,\" says Watts as he enters it into Twitter and a whole world of tweets and links appears. \"If you pan down on that account ... you'll see there's video, there's Storify, there's like every social media platform that's out there,\" Watts says. \"They use all of the platforms or link to it from there.\" The hashtag takes us down a rabbit hole of propaganda from al-Qaida and ISIS. There's a video of al-Qaida taking credit for the recent attack in Paris. It's a leader simply giving a speech. But Watts says many of the recent ISIS messages are slickly produced to attract the young. \"They actually showed young men who joined the fight — young foreign fighters in Iraq, conducting military operations, conducting violence, showing these guys as heroes, and that really resonated with the target audience,\" Watts says. The videos even use music to dramatize violent acts in the real world. J.M. Berger, a researcher at the Brookings Institution working on a book about ISIS, says if someone feels sympathy toward ISIS, it's fairly easy to follow a like-minded Twitter account. \"You find somebody you're interested in,\" he says. \"You start following them. You might interact with them and then if the person's serious about joining the Islamic State or joining another group, they'll take it to a more private forum.\" The forum used by Khan and his siblings appears to have been Kik — a social media app that allows private conversations. \"A lot of times English-speaking jihadis on Twitter and on Facebook and other platforms will list their Kik address right in their profile ... to encourage people to approach them in a more private way,\" Berger says. He says the jihadis also use WhatsApp, a similar service that is owned by Facebook. One thing all of these social media platforms have in common is that they would not comment on the record about the issue. \"Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are all trying to address this problem to some degree,\" Berger says. \"But none of them stepped up or volunteered to do it. They all responded to outside pressures, whether it was negative news coverage or congressional hearings or stern letters from people in government.\" All of these companies could choose to ban pro-ISIS and al-Qaida propaganda because the First Amendment does not apply to privately owned websites like Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. They do have terms of service, and all of these companies ban violent threats. But for the most part they rely on other users to report violations. Watts says it isn't really in the DNA of these companies to take down content unless they are forced to do it. \"Doing takedowns or removing content goes very much against what they want their platform to do, which is to bring on as much content and discussion as possible because the more content that's there, the more discussion that's there, the more revenue they can generate for their business,\" he says. But here's the catch for social media companies: Watts and Berger agree that taking down all the terrorist content might not actually be the right thing to do either. \"There are way", "There have been mixed results in the fight against the self-proclaimed Islamic State, or ISIS. Iraqi government forces and their Iranian allies are fighting to retake the central city of Tikrit, but it's unclear how much longer this will take. Meanwhile, ISIS has established a foothold in Libya. They also recently accepted the allegiance of Boko Haram, a Nigerian terrorist organization. Where did the group come from, and why are their efforts so successful? Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger, two experts on terrorism, explain the rise of ISIS and what it will take to defeat the group in their new book ISIS: The State Of Terror. They believe that this group has succeeded where Al-Qaeda failed by presenting itself as a powerful force, instead of just an extremist threat. \"It's holding territory. It's attacking local regimes that it believes to be apostate instead of lobbing grenades at the West,\" Berger tells NPR's Arun Rath. \"Their whole narrative's really based on this — on this projection of strength instead of weakness.\" Interview Highlights On the apocalyptic vision of ISIS, which has resonated with people Stern: I would say that was one of the biggest surprises to me. I've talked to a lot of apocalyptic groups, Christian groups, and I really wasn't anticipating the extent to which ISIS has its own ... philosophy of the end times. They believe that if they carry out the signs, it's not that the end of times will come more quickly, but they get very excited that they are actually manifesting the end times. On how ISIS reaches out to new recruits Berger: I think one characteristic that we see from ISIS is that they pursue every avenue. They have a specific recruitment for women' they have specific recruitment for different countries, different languages. They're really unusually large for a terror group. On how people can fight back against the terrorist group's ideologies Berger: There are a lot of different approaches you can take, but the coalition against ISIS is mostly united by the fact that it's against ISIS. We don't have a one country or one system of government or one set of values that we could be promoting as an alternative and that creates a kind of sticky situation. Stern: I would add to that that we do have the opportunity to amplify the messages of clerics who have really taken ISIS on in terms of its interpretation of Islam. There are so many clerics who are doing this and yet their arguments are not getting the attention that they deserve. And I think we need to hear a lot more from people who leave ISIS. Somebody who says, \"Gosh, I joined, I thought I was going to be making the world a better place and it turned out that it really wasn't what I imagined. That there were atrocities that I didn't want to be involved in.\" There are people who are saying that. We need to amplify those messages. On who should amplify those messages that counter ISIS Stern: The State Department has been trying to counter ISIS's message. The problem is no matter how good of a job they do, it is the State Department. I think it's going to be very important for private sector people and NGOs to respond. I think it's going to be very important for clerics to get more serious about ensuring that their message gets to the right people. On the reaction that ISIS videos receive from the public Berger: I think that ISIS wants the backlash. I think the backlash is the point of these videos. ISIS, as part of its apocalyptic vision and part of its strategy, it wants to polarize populations. It doesn't like fence-sitters. So videos like this are not necessarily meant to win popular support. They're meant to alienate and anger other countries and other people's populations. Part of that also is the hope that they can provoke people into doing something rash. Stern: Like sending in ground forces. They'd like to see a sectarian battle and they'd like to see the West right there fighting it out. On whether ISIS has been weakened by the U.S. air campaign Berger: I think they're stale-mated right now and for them that's really a win. All they have to do is hold on to the territory that they have, particularly the major population centers, Raqqa and Mosul. It's lost some territory around the edges and every time it does it opens up a new front. So they took a hit in Tikrit this week and so they opened up an attack in Ramadi. At the same time they're also expanding overseas. So even as they're being forced to contract a small amount in Iraq and Syria, they're able to add a giant chunk of territory in Nigeria with the pledge of allegiance to Boko Haram. On how long the battle against ISIS will take Stern: I think it's hard to imagine this will take less than years. ... No matter how much headway we make in Iraq and Syria we're going to have to fight this idea that is attracting people, unfortunately, all over the world.", "Hillary Clinton's and Donald Trump's responses to the weekend bombings in New York and New Jersey, as well as a mass stabbing in Minnesota, were markedly different. Trump on Monday morning called on law enforcement to embrace increased racial and religious profiling as they sought out terrorism suspects, while Clinton said it's \"crucial that we continue to build up trust between law enforcement and Muslim-American communities.\" Here's what the candidates vying to be the next commander in chief said about key topics, as law enforcement tracked down suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami. Trump spoke to the morning news program Fox and Friends. Clinton held a brief news conference in Westchester County, N.Y. On profiling Trump: \"Our local police, they know who a lot of these people are. They're afraid to do anything about it because they don't want to be accused of profiling and they don't want to be accused of all sorts of things. You know in Israel, they profile. They've done an unbelievable job, as good as you can do. But Israel has done an unbelievable job. And they'll profile. They profile. They see somebody that's suspicious, they will profile. They will take that person and they'll check out — do we have a choice? Look what's going on.\" \"This is one group. This is one group. But you have many, many groups. Because we're allowing these people to come into our country and destroy our country, and make it unsafe for people. We're allowing these people to come in. We don't want to do any profiling. If somebody looks like he's got a massive bomb on his back, we won't go up to that person and say, 'I'm sorry, because if he looks like he comes from that part of the world, we're not allowed to profile.' Give me a break.\" Clinton: \"It is crucial that we continue to build up trust between law enforcement and Muslim-American communities.\" \"We're going to go after the bad guys, and we're going to get them. But we're not going to go after an entire religion and give ISIS exactly what it's wanting, in order for them to enhance their positions.\" On how to confront ISIS on the ground Trump: \"We're going to have to do something extremely tough over there. Like knock the hell out of them. And we have to get everybody together and we have to lead for a change. We're not knocking them, we're hitting them every once in a while. We're hitting them in certain places. We're being gentle about it. We're going to have to be very tough.\" \"If we would have taken them out we couldn't have it. [ISIS is] very strong. They're in 28 countries right now. These were started by Hillary Clinton and her policies, and Obama. When they got out of Iraq, this is what happened. This is the remnant of it. And it's much more than a remnant. They started in a small area, now they're in 28 countries. And I listened to Obama say we're winning the war. We're not winning the war. They're winning the war.\" Clinton: \"We have to smash ISIS's strongholds with an accelerated coalition air campaign, more support for Arab and Kurdish forces on the ground, and intense diplomatic efforts in Syria, Iraq and across the region.\" \"I am prepared to, ready to, actually take on those challenges. Not engage in a lot of irresponsible, reckless rhetoric. But to do the hard work, as I've done before. To put into place the strategies for local and state law enforcement, for an intelligence surge. For the kind of preventive actions that we need to take at home, and to intensify our efforts to fight ISIS.\" \"You don't hear a plan from him. He keeps saying he has a secret plan. Well the secret is, he has no plan.\" On vetting immigrants Trump: \"We can't let any more people come into this country. We have people going over, fighting for ISIS, and coming back. And we know they're fighting for ISIS, and we take them.\" \"I've been saying this is going to be like the Trojan horse. We're letting tens of thousand of people flow into this country. They're bringing in, in many cases, vicious cancer from within.\" Clinton: \"Let us remember there are millions and millions of naturalized citizens in America from all over the world. There are millions of law-abiding peaceful Muslim Americans. \"I am absolutely in favor of, and have long been an advocate for, tough vetting. For making sure that we don't let people into this country — and not just people who come here to settle, but we need a better visa system. Let's remember what happened on 9/11. These are not refugees who got into airplanes and attacked our city and our country.\" On combating terrorist recruitment Clinton: \"The recruitment and radicalization that goes on online has to be much more vigorously intercepted and prevented. I have been saying this for quite some time and I believe it's an important part of our strategy.\" \"We've got to do a much more intentioned effort, and that's why I mentioned Silicon Valley in my (initial) remarks. Not only to take down terrorist propaganda, but to do everything we can to intercept and prevent radicalizat", "The NCAA, the organization that oversees college sports, is making changes to stem the tide of sandals in men's college basketball. The FBI is investigating college recruiting fraud.", "After Isis Anchalee, was used in a recruiting ad by her tech firm, people online debated if she really was an engineer. Her defense went viral and got more women to stand up as faces of engineering.", "B360 is a STEM program in Baltimore that uses dirt bikes to get kids interested in engineering while also recruiting riders as instructors and diverting them from the justice system.", "In a Minneapolis federal courtroom, three Somali-Americans are on trial for allegedly plotting to join the Islamic State in a case that's expected to offer the most detailed public accounts yet of how the extremist group recruited nearly a dozen young men from the Twin Cities. Six Somali-Americans arrested in connection to the case have already pleaded guilty to conspiring to travel to Syria to join ISIS, making this the largest American investigation and trial related to ISIS since the terrorist group seized large parts of Syria and Iraq and declared a state nearly two years ago. Nationwide, more than 80 Americans, mostly young Muslim men, have been arrested for seeking to join the group. Most of those arrested have said they were seduced by ISIS recruiters on social media. According to the FBI, some 200 Americans have traveled to Syria and a small fraction of those people have joined ISIS. The Twin Cities area has been especially hard hit by these terrorist recruiters. This is home to the largest Somali community in the U.S., where there are many single-parent homes and high unemployment. Nearly a decade ago, the Twin Cities were rocked by the departure of more than two dozen young men who flew to Somalia to join an al-Qaida arm there, called al-Shabab. The FBI says some of those young men now with al-Shabab persuaded friends and relatives in Minnesota to go to Syria to fight. A Larger Network Prosecutors allege that the trio now on trial were part of a larger conspiracy that involved not just relatives fighting in Somalia, but high school and college friends who helped persuade each other to travel to Syria to join the terrorist group. The FBI arrested the young men, all from the Twin Cities, last year after a yearlong investigation. \"It's terrorism and everyone's heard of that and everyone has certain thoughts about that,\" U.S. District Judge Michael Davis told prospective jurors when jury selection began Monday. \"I need to know how you feel. This may not be the case for you to sit on.\" Ten prospective jurors were dismissed after they told the judge that they had already made up their minds about the defendants. One woman said she had been following news coverage of the case and knew that six co-defendants had already taken plea deals. She said she thought the three men on the docket were probably guilty, too. \"When I first walked in, I already had the mind-set of them being guilty,\" she told the judge. Another woman stood up a short time later. \"To be honest,\" she told the judge, \"I'm kind of uncomfortable being in the room with them.\" She was quickly told she wouldn't have to serve on the jury. On the first day of the trial, Judge Davis told more than half the people in a pool of 50 potential jurors that they would not be part of this case. As one after another was dismissed, the three men on trial — Abdirahman Yasin Daud, 22, Mohamed Abdihamid Farah, 22, and Guled Ali Omar, 21 — hardly registered a reaction. Emptying Out College Funds Most ISIS cases in the U.S. have involved one or two people who have contacted the group online and then tried to board flights that would eventually take them to Syria. Prosecutors say Daud, Farah, Omar and the six others arrested met over the course of a year to talk about how they could get to Syria to join ISIS. The criminal complaint says the meetings began in March 2014. According to the complaint, the men helped each other get passports and raided their college funds and savings accounts to get money for the group to travel. The three on trial this week are charged with providing material support to ISIS, essentially offering themselves as fighters, and planning to commit murder outside the United States on behalf of the group. The latter charge is the most serious and carries the possibility of life in prison. The Minneapolis case is the third ISIS-related case to go to trial in the U.S. Some of those who have already pleaded guilty in this case are expected to be called as witnesses. As a result, the trial is being closely watched because it could offer a rare public account of how ISIS recruits and radicalizes people in this country. The six who have already pleaded guilty said they watched ISIS videos on YouTube together and came to the conclusion that it was their duty to protect fellow Muslims who were under attack by Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime. The parents of the defendants have claimed their sons are innocent. \"All the negative things you hear outside, don't pay attention to them,\" Daud's mother, Farhiyo Mohamed, told reporters through an interpreter on Monday. \"These are very young men who have their whole lives ahead of them.\" Opening statements are expected to begin Wednesday, and the judge told jurors that he thought the trial would last about four weeks.", "New York Times reporter Rukmini Callimachi is known for her in-depth reporting on terrorism and the Islamic State. Her recent jailhouse interview with Harry Sarfo, a German citizen who joined ISIS and trained in Syria before disavowing the group, revealed the organization's particular interest in recruits from Europe. \"[Harry] was very much a desirable target for them, given his German passport and his experience living in London — two countries that they're still trying to infiltrate,\" Callimachi tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. In addition to her on-the-ground reporting, Callimachi follows ISIS' encrypted social media channels and communicates through social media with people connected to the terror group. She says that the group's recruiting efforts are widespread and focus on both the \"mentally unwell\" and those who have been \"radicalized since birth.\" Callimachi says the individual motivations of the recruits don't really matter as long as they contribute to the Islamic State's primary objective. \"The purpose of this group is to spread terror, to spread it all over the world, to make the kaffir, the infidel — which is us — feel as if they're not safe anywhere,\" she says. \"That's their end goal.\" Interview Highlights On what she learned from a German man who joined ISIS in Syria Harry [Sarfo] is approached as soon as he arrives. ... They ask him if he wants to be a suicide bomber right away, in Germany. He says, \"No.\" At that point they then funnel him to ISIS' special forces, which is this very grueling training program — 10 levels. He makes it through part of the first level when they come to him again and say, \"Would you like to go?\" He again turns them down. He goes to the second level. He's again approached. So my impression — again, this is single-source, it's his experience — but my impression is that if you have the chops, meaning the passport, the criminal background, etc., to be one of the people that they would like to send back, they aggressively recruit you throughout the process that you're in Syria, and the training is not that important. I think the reason for that is that they've realized that with an automatic weapon, you can cause a lot of harm, even if you're not a trained commando. On Sarfo's radicalization and manipulation by jihadists in Germany He gets radicalized in prison. He comes out and he starts going to an extremist mosque, and he goes pretty deeply into this ideology, but he actually pulls himself out before he goes to Syria. The reason he pulls himself out is it's at the point in time when they're making the point to him that he's now part of the Muslim ummah, the Muslim community, and that it was inappropriate for him to have any kind of ties with anybody who was not a good Muslim. He grew up Christian, and most of his friends in Germany happen to be Christian. And so he explained to me how he remembered thinking that that was stupid, that that just doesn't make sense. Why should these guys who are his drinking buddies and the people that he's hung out with since childhood, why should they be considered the enemy? And he talks about how he pulled away, and he tried to pull out of the group. But unfortunately, because he had been going to this well-known radical mosque, at that point he was already in the database of German intelligence, and German police began raiding his apartment. So the police would come in, they'd kick down the door, it would be incredibly embarrassing, the neighbors would see this kind of fuss. And at that point, the people from the mosque came back to him and said, \"See? They hate you because you're a Muslim. You're not safe here. This is a country where you will never be able to live in peace as a Muslim.\" On how she discerns if an attack is connected to ISIS It's clear that when somebody has pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, especially when they use this formal language and these long honorifics for him, it's clear that they've been steeped in the propaganda. There's at least that level of connection. There's a second level of connection that I'm trying to understand right now, which is that in the last, I would say, six or so months, we're seeing that when people pledge allegiance to the Islamic State, they're also able to get those pledges via video, via a print statement or photographs, they're able to find a means to get them uploaded to Amaq News Agency, which is ISIS' premier propaganda channel. What we don't yet know is -- are these fighters directly in contact with Amaq? Which means, at that point, to me it almost becomes an ISIS-directed attack, because if you're in touch with Amaq, which is their premier propaganda channel, you're really in touch with the ISIS core. Or is there something else happening? Is there an intermediary? Are they passing this video to an intermediary who was then passing it to Amaq directly, or through a series of intermediaries? That to me is the next question, because that will explain the level of", "To prevent future terror attacks in America, work is needed at the grassroots level. Consultant and terror expert Mustafa Tameez talks with Here & Now&#8217;s Jeremy Hobson about how local police forces can work with Muslim communities to build trust and identify early warning signs of violent extremism. Interview Highlights: Mustafa Tameez What did you think of President Obama’s address? “I think the president put down a comprehensive plan. Unfortunately, we didn’t hear anything new in the plan, so the American public didn’t feel comfortable.” What did you want to hear? &#8220;The real threat is radicalizing on the Internet.&#8221; “I think that the public wants to hear what are the tangible steps we’re taking in order to combat violent extremism, and part of that is really understanding the real threat. If you think of ISIS and al-Qaida recruiters, it’s much easier to understand how they operate if you think of how they’re operating [compared] with sexual predators, they do the exact same thing. They build a relationship with disaffected youth, and once they’ve built that relationship, they try to take them out of the safety of their home and create an illicit rendezvous. And so, thinking about ISIS and al-Qaida recruiters is very much like thinking about how sexual predators recruit our young people and how gangs recruit people into criminal action.” Could something have been done to prevent what happened in San Bernardino? “A lot of information is coming out now, so I don’t think we have all the pieces yet. But in general, what you saw was that a relationship was created online with someone overseas and then that relationship turned into an extremist action here at home. The real threat is radicalizing on the Internet. Someone sitting in front of a computer screen who’s disaffected, feels like they don’t belong, and someone like ISIS tells them that they matter and they’re important.” What is the wrong way for law enforcement to interact with the Muslim community? &#8220;There’s an assumption that Muslim communities understand how to deal with ISIL and the likes of al-Qaida and they really don’t.&#8221; “If we see ISIS and al-Qaida like we see gangs, like Crips and Blood or Chinese gangs and Vietnamese gangs, we don’t go into those communities and say ‘You the community have a culture that is breeding the gangs.’ We basically go in, into those communities, to say ‘We’ve got to protect and give you the tools to prevent these kids from joining these gangs.’ So it’s not that &#8216;This is coming from your culture or your faith.&#8217; These are criminal acts that are trying to prey on your young people and we’re going to teach you how to protect them.” What specifically can police do to try and build trust within a Muslim community? “I think more than building trust, it’s creating programs that show the community where the risks are. There’s an assumption that Muslim communities understand how to deal with ISIL and the likes of al-Qaida and they really don’t. Most people that live in the West have normal lives. They have jobs, they go to schools, and local law enforcement has an important role to play to say ‘This is where and how your kids could be recruited. This is where and how you can protect your young people.’ And I don’t think we’re thinking about it in those terms so the specific actions that I would like local law enforcement to do is to engage the local community, not as people of suspect, but true partners, and teach and train them how to push back against ISIS and how to protect their kids from being recruited online.” Are you worried about the lone wolf terrorists who don’t have much engagement with the community? &#8220;It’s a big effort and it’s a big fight and it can only be done at every single level of government and community.&#8221; “One thing that we’ve seen consistently is that lone wolf actors basically drop out of the society prior to them taking action. So somebody knows that all the sudden that this young person that seemed a little troubled, all the sudden not showing up at the mosque, they’re not showing up at community activities, and so there has to be an effort that says ‘Let’s reach out to this person and see what’s going on with them.’ And that’s what I mean about the role of local law enforcement educating the community on what happens because there’s been so many incidents now that we have a learning. We know how lone wolf radicalization takes place. The assumption is that local communities don’t understand that and that’s not true. Law enforcement understands that, but their learning is not being shared with communities in a way that the communities can build resiliency.” Do you think this fight will be won by local law enforcement rather than the feds? “We talk a lot about that ISIS controls land space larger than Indiana. Well, if you look at the digital land space it covers, it’s far bigger than that. It has no boundaries. It’s not separated by oceans. So it’", "As the oil leak continues, BP officials are trying yet again to stem the flow. They're working on a plan that would cut the riser and cap it. Even if successful, officials admit they won't be able to totally stop the flow of oil into the Gulf.", "Life changed as Sadiik Yusuf knew it about two years ago, when the FBI appeared at his front door in Minneapolis to tell him his son Abdullahi had been stopped at the airport, suspected of trying to board a flight that would take him to Syria to fight with ISIS. \"My job has always been to drop Abdullahi off at school and to pick him up,\" Sidiik told a group of community leaders last week during a meeting at the U.S. Attorney's Office. \"But that day, around noon there was a knock on the door. It was the FBI and I was asked if I was Abdullahi's father and the FBI agents held out a picture.\" That's how it all began for Sadiik Yusuf and his family: with a knock, a photograph, and the sudden realization that their son, now 20, was being lured to Syria by a shadowy group few at the time realized was targeting young Muslims in Minneapolis. \"As a family it was a very difficult day, it was a shocking and horrifying day,\" he said through an interpreter, speaking publicly for the first time about what his family has endured. NPR was the only news organization present. The meeting where Yusuf spoke out is part of a a broader effort by the Justice Department to convince parents of young people who might be radicalizing not to keep the changes they are noticing to themselves. If they see something, they should say something. Attempt To Curb Recruiting Justice Department officials, like Minnesota's U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger, are convening meetings like this to see if they can spark a grassroots push to curb ISIS recruiting efforts. Law enforcement sources tell NPR that dozens of young people from the Somali community in Minneapolis have been lured by ISIS and have either left Minnesota, been stopped trying to leave, or are under investigation for possibly planning to do so. The Yusufs are the first family in the community to speak publicly about the experience. And they are going a step further. They are asking parents in their position to tell authorities if they suspect kids are falling under ISIS' spell. In a matter of months, Abdullahi Yusuf went from normal senior in high school to pleading guilty to wanting to help a terrorist group. He is still awaiting sentencing and is the only young man in America to have been enrolled in a jihadi rehabilitation program aimed at getting him to understand why he fell under ISIS' spell in the first place. Given the turn of events, it wouldn't be surprising if Sadiik Yusuf and his family harbored resentment toward the people who have put his son behind bars. This is the twist: Yusuf is not angry. He went before the community to say he believed the FBI saved his boy's life. \"One hundred percent for sure, if he was not stopped or arrested that day he might not have lived today,\" the elder Yusuf told the group. \"One hundred percent for sure.\" Suspicion In Somali-American Community As a general matter, the Somali-Americans in the Twin Cities are suspicious of the government's intentions. Some have told reporters that they believe the ISIS cases in Minnesota are drummed up, the result of aggressive FBI racial profiling and elaborate entrapment schemes. Others say they don't believe terrorist are recruiting in the U.S. All this, in spite of the fact that earlier this year half a dozen young Somalis from the Twin Cities – including Sadiik's son – pleaded guilty to trying to go to Syria to join ISIS and a jury found three of their friends guilty of terrorism crimes related to their efforts to go and fight. \"Communities like the Somali community in Minneapolis have a history of troubled and distrustful relationships with law enforcement,\" says Quintan Wiktorowicz, one of the founders of Affinis Labs, a company that, among other things, works to counter violent extremism in communities. \"So for one of the fathers and his family to come out in that kind of meeting is a very unique experience. It's important. There are a lot of possible lessons other families can glean from this. Countering Extremism At Home Counter-terrorism officials have come to the conclusion that the best way to defeat ISIS recruiters isn't on the battlefields of Syria, it is in communities in the U.S. That means that instead of rounding people up and arresting them, authorities are looking at alternatives to lengthy jail terms and testing prevention programs. \"This has got to be about more than identifying potential prosecutions,\" President Obama's top terrorism advisor, Lisa Monaco, told NPR. \"If we don't have trusted relationships with communities there's no way a family, a brother, a sister, a coach, a teacher are going to be able to say, this kid looks like they are going down the wrong path, how do I help?\" Monaco says the Obama administration is stepping up funding for local programs that give parents, and kids, options before they go so far down the path of radicalization that bringing them back is more difficult. Sadiik Yusuf, for his part, considers himself lucky. Two of his son's friends who managed to leave M", "A 20-year-old Eagan, Minn., man could become the second person to enter the country's only jihadi rehab program. Abdirizak Mohamed Warsame pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy to provide material support to the Islamic State, and while he awaits sentencing, three sources familiar with the case tell NPR that he is likely to join a defendant named Abdullahi Yusuf in the emerging de-radicalization program in the Twin Cities. Until recently, U.S. counterterrorism officials had seen building a curriculum to defuse extremist ideology as unnecessary — there weren't enough young men and women seeking to join terrorist organizations to make rehabilitation a priority. Instead, incarceration seemed like enough of an answer. The Islamic State's incredible hold on young Muslims in America has changed all that. Dozens of young men and women from the Twin Cities area have either tried to travel to Syria to join ISIS or have been arrested while seeking to do so. That's what happened in the Warsame case. According to his plea agreement, throughout 2014 he and a group of his friends got together to discuss going to Syria to join ISIS. They talked about pooling funds to pay for the plane tickets and potential routes from Minnesota to Syria, the plea says. Warsame admitted to applying for an expedited passport to travel overseas to join the terrorist group. He also admitted that he was the leader, or \"emir,\" of the group of ISIS travelers and said he had been in contact with someone who was in Syria fighting for ISIS to plan the trip. \"ISIL recruiting in Minnesota is an ongoing problem,\" said U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger in a statement. \"Federal law enforcement and our local partners remain dedicated to ending terror recruitment in our state. One of the important factors we believe will help stop the recruiting pipeline is for those who have been charged to take responsibility for their crimes. I am encouraged that today Mr. Warsame is doing just that. He has now taken the first step to help himself begin the process of rehabilitation and help our entire community begin to heal.\" Luger's statement hints at what is likely to happen next for Warsame. A nonprofit organization called Heartland Democracy has been building a curriculum for Yusuf, the only other young man in the jihadi rehab program. The group has only just started helping with terrorism offenders, but in the past it has worked with \"turnarounds,\" people who are in the criminal justice system for one reason or another who want to get their lives back on track. There are a number of international programs that are seeking to do the same thing, working with young men and women who are attracted by the romance and adventure of jihad. In Denmark, mothers in Odense are trying to turn kids around before they radicalize. Germany has a hotline for families so they can get professional help to prevent their children from traveling to Syria to join ISIS. It is unclear when Warsame might take the next step and start meeting with Heartland Democracy counselors. The judge in his case will have to approve any rehab program before it can start.", "As many as 1,700 bodies are believed to be in mass graves that have been unearthed near the site of a massacre of Iraqi soldiers manning a former U.S. military base. The killings took place last summer, when fighters from the self-proclaimed Islamic State seized Tikrit. Soldiers and forensic teams are sifting through the graves; so far, they have found more than 10 different burial sites that hold what are believed to be the bodies of soldiers and recruits who had been captured at Camp Speicher. The men were then machine-gunned in front of mass graves. From Baghdad, NPR's Alice Fordham reports: \"The graves are in different areas close to the city of Tikrit, retaken from ISIS last week. \"Iraqi state television is broadcasting scenes of officials uncovering bodies buried since the recruits were rounded up and killed in June last year. Many relatives of the soldiers are also looking on. \"A survivor of the attack told NPR that ISIS were supported by Sunni local people in their attack on the mostly Shiite soldiers. The area remains fraught, with many Sunni residents afraid of revenge attacks by Shiite-dominated forces who now have the upper hand again.\" Several sites are reportedly in what had been the presidential compound of Iraq's former leader, Saddam Hussein, in his hometown of Tikrit. The mass killing became notorious soon after it took place, with ISIS fighters bragging about their actions online. Last October, the massacre was the centerpiece of a U.N. report that listed a \"staggering array\" of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity by the extremist group.", "In the first use of government powers enacted after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, the French Interior Ministry on Monday ordered five websites blocked on the grounds that they promote or advocate terrorism. The action raises questions about how governments might counter groups such as the self-declared Islamic State on digital platforms. MELISSA BLOCK, HOST: And we turn now to France where for the first time the government is using strict new antiterrorism laws to censor the web. The government tried to block five websites it says condone and glorify terrorism. It gave local Internet service providers, or ISPs, 24 hours to make the sites unavailable in France. As NPR's Dina Temple-Raston reports, the move raises questions about how governments can combat groups in cyberspace without trampling civil liberties. DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: If you're in France and type the words al-Hayat Media Center into your search engine, you could be greeted by a graphic of a large red hand signaling you to stop. A message says you have been redirected to an official page of the interior ministry because you were about to access a site that promotes terrorism. The interior ministry said it planned to target dozens of sites in the coming days. RICHARD BARRETT: I think it's one of those examples of a government reaching out for the bits of the Islamic State that it can see and feels that it can do something about rather than the bits that are really having the most impact. TEMPLE-RASTON: Richard Barrett is a vice president at the Soufan Group and a former intelligence officer with MI5. He's skeptical the French move will have much effect. BARRETT: Because I'm not sure that there's very much evidence of people being radicalized purely through watching things on the Internet. I think, generally speaking, most people agree that there have to be other people involved as well. TEMPLE-RASTON: According to the French government, the number of people who left France to join the Islamic State, or ISIS, is around 1,500 - more than any other European country. Paris is trying to stem the exodus any way it can, and its Internet strategy is part of that effort. And last month, the European Union called for member countries to exercise more control over the Internet to battle ISIS's online recruiting and radicalization efforts. Barrett says that's easier said than done. There are technical issues. BARRETT: If you're hitting the host site, that's one thing, like the al-Hayat Media, for example. But if you're hitting the ISPs, which are just sort of repeating the host site - just sort of messaging it on - then I think you've got a huge job of A, attacking them all, and B, of course, preventing people from getting access to ISPs which are outside your jurisdiction. TEMPLE-RASTON: The French Interior Ministry is in fact having problems. Shortly after it announced the ban, four of the five sites targeted by the government were still available in France. WILL MCCANTS: You know, I would prefer to see the Internet providers themselves apply their terms of service and take these websites down. It does make me uncomfortable when the government does it by fiat. TEMPLE-RASTON: Will McCants directs the project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution. MCCANTS: It sets a bad precedent in terms of free speech, but then again, I'm an American, and we have different standards of free speech in this country than they do in Europe. TEMPLE-RASTON: There was a time soon after the 9/11 attacks that the U.S. tried to take a number of so-called terrorist websites down, and it didn't have much success. It was like a game of Whac-a-Mole. As soon as a website was taken down in one place, it popped up in another. U.S. authorities came to the conclusion that there was a lot to be learned by leaving the websites up and watching who visited them. Experts say leaving up websites to learn about who ISIS wants to recruit could provide a different way to compete with them on the Internet. Dina Temple-Raston, NPR News.", "The International Committee for the Red Cross is urging countries to handle captured ISIS fighters according to international legal standards, in the wake of the extremist group's loss of its so-called capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa. The flow of foreign fighters to Syria, where thousands of would-be ISIS fighters flocked in recent years, has shown signs of reversing. The group once had tens of thousands of fighters at its command; last week, U.S. officials estimated that 3,000 to 7,000 were continuing to fight in Iraq and Syria. NPR's Ruth Sherlock reports: \"In a call with journalists, Patrick Hamilton, the [ICRC] deputy regional director for the Near and Middle East, urged countries to deal with nationals who joined ISIS according to the rules of international humanitarian law. \"Many countries have not yet found a clear mechanism by which to determine the fate of returnees. Hamilton noted that there is 'extremely tense' and 'emotional' rhetoric around this question. But, he said, the 'law does offer a sober mechanism for dealing with this.' \" Hamilton's remarks came days after Brett McGurk, the top U.S. envoy for the coalition fighting the terrorist group, was quoted by multiple news outlets saying, \"Our mission is to make sure that any foreign fighter who is here, who joined ISIS from a foreign country and came into Syria, they will die here in Syria.\" McGurk has also spoken about the importance of controlling the flow of fighters back to other countries — and tracking their motions. In a briefing with McGurk this week, Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, mentioned anecdotal evidence of there being \"as many as 40,000 foreign fighters from 120 different countries\" in Iraq and Syria at one time. In a newly released report on foreign fighters, security experts at the Soufan Group say that at least 5,600 people have now returned to 33 countries from ISIS-held territories. The report adds, \"this represents a huge challenge for security and law enforcement entities.\" As The New Yorker's Robin Wright writes, \"On average, twenty to thirty per cent of the foreign fighters from Europe have already returned there—though it's fifty per cent in Britain, Denmark, and Sweden. Thousands more who fought for isis are stuck near the borders of Turkey, Jordan, or Iraq, and are believed to be trying to get back to their home countries.", "The crowded room was awaiting one word: \"Fire.\" Everyone was in uniform; there were scheduled briefings, last-minute discussions, final rehearsals. \"They wanted to look me in the eye and say, 'Are you sure this is going to work?' \" an operator named Neil said. \"Every time, I had to say yes, no matter what I thought.\" He was nervous, but confident. U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency had never worked together on something this big before. Four teams sat at workstations set up like high school carrels. Sergeants sat before keyboards; intelligence analysts on one side, linguists and support staff on another. Each station was armed with four flat-screen computer monitors on adjustable arms and a pile of target lists and IP addresses and online aliases. They were cyberwarriors, and they all sat in the kind of oversize office chairs Internet gamers settle into before a long night. \"I felt like there were over 80 people in the room, between the teams and then everybody lining the back wall that wanted to watch,\" Neil recalled. He asked us to use only his first name to protect his identity. \"I'm not sure how many people there were on the phones listening in or in chat rooms.\" From his vantage point in a small elevated bay at the back of the Operations Floor, Neil had a clear line of sight to all the operators' screens. And what they contained weren't glowing lines of code: Instead, Neil could see login screens — the actual login screens of ISIS members half a world away. Each one carefully preselected and put on a target list that, by Operation Day, had become so long it was on a 3-foot-by-7-foot piece of paper hung on the wall. It looked like a giant bingo card. Each number represented a different member of the ISIS media operation. One number represented an editor, for instance, and all the accounts and IP addresses associated with him. Another might have been the group's graphic designer. As members of the terrorist group slept, a room full of military cyber operators at Fort Meade, Md., near Baltimore were ready to take over the accounts and crash them. All they were waiting for was Neil, to say that one word: \"Fire.\" In August 2015, the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, the military's main cyber arm, were at a crossroads about how to respond to a new terrorist group that had burst on the scene with unrivaled ferocity and violence. The one thing on which everyone seemed to agree is that ISIS had found a way to do something other terrorist organizations had not: It had turned the Web into a weapon. ISIS routinely used encrypted apps, social media and splashy online magazines and videos to spread its message, find recruits and launch attacks. A response to ISIS required a new kind of warfare, and so the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command created a secret task force, a special mission, and an operation that would become one of the largest and longest offensive cyber operations in U.S. military history. Few details about Joint Task Force ARES and Operation Glowing Symphony have been made public. \"It was a house of cards\" Steve Donald, a captain in the Naval Reserve, specializes in something called cryptologic and cyber operations, and when he is not in uniform, he is launching cybersecurity startups outside Washington, D.C. He's pale, bespectacled and has the slightly shy demeanor of a computer geek. In the spring of 2016 he received a phone call from the leader of his reserve unit. He needed Donald to come in. \"I said, well, I'm not in uniform [and he said] it doesn't matter — if you have a badge come on in,\" Donald said. \"I can't believe I can actually say this but they were building a task force to conduct offensive cyber operations against ISIS.\" Donald had to find a team of specialists to do something that had never been done before — hack into a terrorist organization's media operation and bring it down. Most of the forces flowed in from Joint Forces Headquarters, an Army cyber operation in Georgia. Donald also brought in experts in counterterrorism who understood ISIS and had watched it evolve from a ragtag team of Iraqi Islamists to something bigger. There were operators — the people who would be at the keyboards finding key servers in ISIS's network and disabling them — and digital forensics specialists who had a deep understanding of computer operating systems. \"They can say this is good, this is bad, this is where the files are located that we're interested in,\" he said. He found analysts, malware experts, behaviorialists and people who had spent years studying the smallest habits of key ISIS players. The mission, he explained to them, was to support the defeat of ISIS — to deny, degrade and disrupt them in cyberspace. This was more complicated than it sounded. The battle against the group had been episodic to that point. U.S. Cyber Command had been mounting computer network attacks against the group, but almost as soon as a server would go down, communications hubs would reappear. The ISIS target was ", "The Department of Veterans Affairs is suffering a shortfall of physicians, especially in mental health. A steady flow of scandals and attempts at strict reform by Congress may be hurting recruitment.", "Mexico's president says President Trump's threat of tariffs will not stem the flow of migrants from Central America. He says Mexico deports tens of thousands of people a month, but the number getting through is larger." ]

[ "FOND DU LAC, Wis. - A former inmate told police that he was a werewolf and could change shapes after he was arrested for breaking into a woman's apartment." ]

[ "Police have issued a public warning after they arrested a man who they say has slept with at least three women without telling them he was HIV positive.", "A man pretending to be a priest was arrested by police as he prepared to baptize a baby in a small town in the north of Portugal.", "INDEPENDENCE, Mo. - Police have charged a man with filing a false police report after he claimed someone tried to carve a slur on his forehead.", "A man who denies murdering two women and attempting to murder two others tells a jury he was depressed and suicidal.", "A 20-year-old man tells a Glasgow court how he attempted to prevent the abduction of teenager Kriss Donald last March.", "A man accused of murdering a police officer tells a jury he was a former US Marine and an \"average\" marksman.", "A man is arrested by police investigating a taxi driver who pretends he has won the lottery and then drugs and rapes passengers.", "NEW YORK - A man who told police he bit the head off a rooster accepted a prosecution offer Monday to drop the case if he is not rearrested within the next six months.", "Prosecutors say a man used fake badges and a car outfitted with lights and a siren to convince people he was a police officer and get them to pay \"fines.\"", "A man accused of murdering Pc Sharon Beshenivsky tells a court he should get £100,000 for helping police catch her killers.", "LOS ANGELES -- A man barricaded himself in a house after telling police he had killed three relatives, then opened fire on a SWAT team Thursday. Five people, including an officer and the gunman, were killed, police said.", "There may be no such thing as perfection but it takes a brave man to tell Hoss-ein Rezazadeh, the world&#39;s st-rongest man, that he is doing it all wrong.", "Police found 23-year-old Jose Romero in his underwear, screaming gibberish and waving a large kitchen knife from his neighbor's porch.", "A man killed his girlfriend, then filleted and cooked parts of her body before calling police to tell them what he was doing, authorities said Sunday.", "A police officer told a court in northern England that an animal lover approached him menacingly with two six-feet long snakes during a search of a house garage packed full of reptiles and rats.", "A man who told police Detroit Tigers pitcher Kenny Rogers grabbed him by the collar during an altercation near Comerica Park last weekend says he wants to drop the matter.", "STEVENS POINT, Wis. - If only all criminals were this helpful. A 24-year-old man called police to tell them he was trying to break into a church, but he wasn't having much luck. Police said the would-be thief's call prompted them to show up at St.", "CRYSTAL, Minn. - Police responding to a report of an Elvis impersonator down with convulsions at a veterans hall soon found themselves in a high-speed chase - of a man dressed as a Blues Brother...", "Ghalab al-Jazaari is the Iraqi police chief masterminding the siege of Najaf. It is an unenviable job by any standards. But, he tells Donald Macintyre, for him it&#39;s also very personal ...", "Police in Austin, Texas, want to question a Yorkshire man over allegations that he had sex with a teenage girl he met in an internet chatroom.", "Man who fell 15 metres with two children, killing boy, tells court he 'did not plan to kill my children'", "A solicitor tells the appeal court he did not act improperly in the case of man convicted of murdering an entire family.", "Police are appealing for witnesses after the death of a man who was attacked while he was treated in an ambulance.", "Authorities are testing the DNA of a man arrested on minor trespassing and housing code violations to see if he has any connection with the BTK serial killings that terrorized the city in the 1970s, state police said Thursday.", "A German cyclist lied to police about being mugged because he was afraid to tell his wife the truth: he rode into a lamppost while drunk and injured himself.", "New Zealand police tell a father who has taken his Welsh baby into hiding he has 24 hours to hand her back.", "A man accused of biting his Jack Russell terrier, Lady, as a form of punishment was arrested on an animal cruelty charge Saturday by Gainesville police officers.", "A South African court fines a man $140 for taking a week off work telling his employers he was pregnant.", "Was Colin Powell angry? He&#39;s so smooth and politic it&#39;s hard to tell. But only a week before, the man President George W. Bush once likened to George C. Marshall had been, in effect, fired.", "A former Irish priest pushed Brazil&#39;s Vanderlei de Lima off the road when he was leading the Olympic marathon on Sunday. The man was arrested and taken to a police station.", "Top that headline and win a Mini Metro Cardiff cops launched a \"major operation\" yesterday after a half-naked Czech man climbed a tree, began \"crying and howling like a wolf\" and then refused to come down from his perch.…", "A man with a history of mental illness is being questioned by police after going on a stabbing spree that left one dead person dead and five injured." ]

[ "今回はx[n+1]=3.8x[i](1-x[i])という関数をプロットしたのですが、gnuplotでは差分方程式を座標などを用いずにシンプルにプロットする方法などはあるのでしょうか？\n\n\n条件次第では可能です。その条件というのは、データの X 値 が全て unique であることです。gnuplot には smooth unique というオプションがあって、これはデータを X 値でソートして、同一の X 値に対応する Y 値を平均化します。X 値が unique であれば、単に X 値でソートされるだけになります。\n\nr = 3.80\nx0 = 0.7\nset xrange [0:1]\nset yrange [0:1]\nplot sample [i=1:100] '+' using (x1=(i==1?x0:x1)):(x1=r*x1*(1-x1)) with lines smooth unique" ]

[ "You must put a dot in all the numbers which are supposed to be floats, so as to be correct while doing division. In gnuplot\n2/3 = 0\nbut\n2.0/3.0 = 0.66666..7\nIn your example, you are suffering from division by zero, but gnuplot does not give good error message.\nHere is corrected version which runs without any error\nB0P = 4.0; B0 = 30.0\nV0 = 36.0; E0 = -535.0; R4 = -535.0\narray A[400]\ndo for [i=1:400] {\n A[i] = E0+(9.0/8.0*B0*V0)*((V0/((((i/100.0)**3)/100.0)**3))**(2.0/3.0)-1.0)**2\\\n + 9.0/16.0*B0*(B0P-4.0)*V0*((V0/((i/100.0)**3))**(2.0/3.0)-1.0)**3\\\n + R4*((V0/((i/100.0)**3))**(2.0/3.0)-1.0)**4\n} \n\nI use Gnuplot daily and like it a lot for plotting. But it is not really designed for computations. Why dont you use python for this ?", "GNUplot has the ability to have 2 x- and 2 y-axes per plot. The additional axes are called x2 and y2. according to GNUplot.info FAQ\n\nHere is a demo of it being used.\n\nAlso have a read of help plot from within the GNUplot program.", "sin uses degrees. You can use gnuplot (needs -shell-escape); note that, for gnuplot, sin expects radians.\n\n\\documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{report}\n\\usepackage{pgfplots}\n\\pgfplotsset{compat=1.15}\n\n\\begin{document}\n\\begin{tikzpicture}\n\\begin{axis}[\n clip=false,\n axis line style = thick,\n axis x line = middle,\n axis y line = middle,\n ticks = none,\n xlabel=$x$,\n xlabel style ={anchor=west},\n ylabel=$y$,\n ylabel style ={anchor=south}\n ]\n \\addplot [domain=-0.05:-0.01,samples=1000] gnuplot {x^2 * sin(1/x) + x/2};\n \\addplot [domain=0.01:0.05,samples=1000] gnuplot {x^2 * sin(1/x) + x/2}\n node [pos = 0.95,above left] {$f(x)$};\n \\node at(axis cs: 0,0) [circle,fill,scale=0.3] {};\n\\end{axis}\n\\end{tikzpicture}\n\\end{document}\n\n\n\n\nOr you can convert into radians:\n\n\\documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{report}\n\\usepackage{pgfplots}\n\\pgfplotsset{compat=1.15}\n\n\\begin{document}\n\\begin{tikzpicture}\n\\begin{axis}[\n clip=false,\n axis line style = thick,\n axis x line = middle,\n axis y line = middle,\n ticks = none,\n xlabel=$x$,\n xlabel style ={anchor=west},\n ylabel=$y$,\n ylabel style ={anchor=south}\n ]\n \\addplot [domain=-0.05:-0.01,samples=1000] {x^2 * sin((1/x)r) + x/2};\n \\addplot [domain=0.01:0.05,samples=1000] {x^2 * sin((1/x)r) + x/2}\n node [pos = 0.95,above left] {$f(x)$};\n \\node at(axis cs: 0,0) [circle,fill,scale=0.3] {};\n\\end{axis}\n\\end{tikzpicture}\n\\end{document}", "The fastest way to generate this graph is probably with gnuplot.\n\nLet's say your data is in a file called data.csv. Then put the following script in a file called graph.gnuplot:\n\nset yrange [0:100000]\nset grid\nset term png\nset output 'graph.png'\nplot \\\n 0.01 with lines lt 1, \\\n 'data.csv' u 0:1:2 with line lt -1 lw 1\n\n\nThen run this command:\n\ngnuplot graph.gnuplot\n\n\nAnd the graph will be generated as graph.png. You will probably need to adjust yrange (and maybe other variables) so give it a try with just a few values first.", "Older versions of Octave used gnuplot as the graphics engine, and you can still fall back on that capability. A StackOverflow post from 2011 illustrates gnuplot's capabilities, including some concentric circles around the origin.\n\nA 2005 mailing list thread discusses Octave commands to \"set\" a polar grid (the phrase I'd rather use than \"polar axes\").\n\nYou'll probably want to know how to get those circles with the high-level interface, so you won't have to rely on the gnuplot commands. However as recently as last year, according to this mailing list thread, support for polar grids in the OpenGL library was still lacking.\n\nThis 2008 Help-octave mailing list thread discusses the missing polar grid but mentions at the end an Octave toolkit, octave-epstk, using encapsulated postscript (EPS), that is supposed to provide the missing polar grid. Unfortunately EpsTk seems to have lost their homepage in Germany, but the toolkit itself is still available in Debian and Ubuntu, and likely in other such Linux distros.\n\nSome documentation for global parameters in EpsTk indicates there are several that affect the polar grid.", "You can't just use TeX syntax unless you are using the TiKZ, epslatex, or another terminal that uses LaTeX to process the labels. You can get some fairly crude math layout, including superscripts and subscripts, by using the enhanced text option to many of gnuplot's terminals, including, sometimes, png. But you will have to use the gnuplot enhanced text syntax, which is unrelated to (La)TeX syntax. Fortunately, some of the syntax happens to coincide, including the basic use of superscripts and subscripts. On my system enhanced text works with the pngcairo terminal but not plain png. If you don't have that, you can try others, such as svg. I have plenty of examples of using both LaTeX and enhanced text in my new book.", "Take a look how plotting programs do this -- for example gnuplot. They also get odd values and need to find ways to display that with a meaningful scale.", "There are various places where that could be done, e.g. at the ledger-cli level, you might be able to convince it to skip the sd part, or to produce a third column, identical to the second as far as the numbers are concerned but omitting the sd part and then having your gnuplot block look at columns 1 and 3. Since I don't know much about ledger, I will not pursue these further. \n\nHere I'm going to add a source block to transform the input table to the form that the gnuplot block expects:\n\n#+Name: ledgercli-table\n#+RESULTS: LedgerCli\n| 2019/12/01 | 12.0 sd |\n| 2019/12/03 | -0.5 sd |\n| 2019/12/05 | -0.5 sd |\n| 2019/12/10 | -1.0 sd |\n| 2019/12/17 | -1.0 sd |\n| 2020/03/23 | -4.0 sd |\n| 2020/04/01 | -0.1 sd |\n| 2020/05/19 | -0.5 sd |\n| 2020/05/26 | -0.3 sd |\n\n#+begin_src python :var t=ledgercli-table :results output drawer\n print(\"#+Name: ledger-cli-table-no-currency\")\n for l in t:\n print(f\"| {l[0]} | {l[1].split(' ')[0]} |\")\n\n#+end_src\n\n#+RESULTS:\n:results:\n#+Name: ledger-cli-table-no-currency\n| 2019/12/01 | 12.0 |\n| 2019/12/03 | -0.5 |\n| 2019/12/05 | -0.5 |\n| 2019/12/10 | -1.0 |\n| 2019/12/17 | -1.0 |\n| 2020/03/23 | -4.0 |\n| 2020/04/01 | -0.1 |\n| 2020/05/19 | -0.5 |\n| 2020/05/26 | -0.3 |\n:end:\n\n#+begin_src gnuplot :var data=ledger-cli-table-no-currency :file gnuplot.png :exports results\n set xdata time\n set style data linespoints\n set timefmt \"%Y/%m/%d\"\n plot data u 1:2\n#+end_src\n\n#+RESULTS:\n[[file:gnuplot.png]]\n\n\n\nAll you have to do is change the gnuplot block to read from the new table. Also, I used a python block to implement the transformation, but it could easily be done in any Org babel-supported language.", "Here's a recent blog post (2013-07-01) that shows how to use tpcc-mysql and graph results:\n\nhttp://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2013/07/01/tpcc-mysql-simple-usage-steps-and-how-to-build-graphs-with-gnuplot/\n\nThis is written by Michael Rikmas, who is a super nice guy, and a long time Percona support engineer.", "One gets this strange result because TeXs limits are reached -- as can also be seen by the dropped coordinates -- and thus the &quot;zigzag&quot; results from precision limits (red line). If you use either gnuplot (green dots) or Lua (blue line) as calculation engine, it works as expected. Of course for the Lua solution you have to use LuaLaTeX as TeX engine.\n\nSidenote:\nIf you want to avoid to use such a high number of samples, consider reformulating the eqution to make use of non-linear spacing. For that see e.g.\n\nhttps://tex.stackexchange.com/a/443731/95441\nhttps://tex.stackexchange.com/a/446727/95441\n\n% used PGFPlots v1.17\n\\documentclass[border={5pt}]{standalone}\n\\usepackage{pgfplots}\n % use this `compat` level or higher to use LUA backend for calculation (if possible)\n \\pgfplotsset{compat=1.12}\n\\begin{document}\n % for gnuplot solution\n \\newcommand*{\\Kw}{1e-14}\n \\newcommand*{\\Ma}{0.1}\n \\newcommand*{\\Mb}{0.1}\n \\newcommand*{\\Va}{0.025}\n\\begin{tikzpicture}[\n % from https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/144778\n /pgf/declare function={\n % for LUA solution\n arcsinh(\\x) = ln(\\x + sqrt(\\x^2+1));\n Kw = 1e-14;\n Ma = 0.1;\n Mb = 0.1;\n Va = 0.025;\n V(\\x) = \\x / 1000;\n p(\\o) = -0.5*ln(\\o)/ln(10);\n },\n]\n \\begin{axis}[\n xlabel={Solution Added (mL)},\n ylabel={pH},\n domain=0:50,\n samples=201,\n ]\n % gnuplot\n \\addplot+ [ultra thick,green,mark size=1pt,only marks,opacity=0.5] gnuplot\n {-0.5*log10(\\Kw) + asinh(1/(2*sqrt(\\Kw)) * (\\Ma*\\Va - \\Mb*x/1000)/(\\Va + x/1000) )/log(10)};\n % Lua(TeX)\n \\addplot [thick,blue]\n {p(Kw) + arcsinh(1/(2*sqrt(Kw)) * (Ma*Va - Mb*V(x))/(Va + V(x)) )/ln(10)};\n % TeX\n \\addplot [red,opacity=0.75]\n {p(\\Kw) + arcsinh(1/(2*sqrt(Kw)) * (Ma*Va - Mb*V(x))/(Va + V(x)) )/ln(10)};\n \\end{axis}\n\\end{tikzpicture}\n\\end{document}", "There are several, much more general, plotting packages that can produce the sorts of plots you are talking about from a data file, as well as many 100s of other layouts:\n\n\nGNUPlot - Gratis &amp; Open Source, cross platform\nThe Python MatPlotLib - Gratis &amp; Open Source, cross platform, python can also be used to extract the data you wish to plot.", "Because I couldn't immediately make the error bars work, I suggest using gnuplot only for the fit, and \"normal\" pgfplots for the points with error bars. \n\nThis does require a change in your data file though, replacing the commas with periods.\n\nThe filecontents stuff below is just to make the example self-contained, you don't need it.\n\n\n\n\\documentclass{scrartcl}\n\\usepackage{filecontents}\n\\begin{filecontents*}{data.dat}\n-15 34 0.5 5.83\n-10 66 0.5 8.12\n-8 87 0.5 9.33\n-6 65 0.5 8.06\n-5 71 0.5 8.43\n-4 97 0.5 9.85\n-3 105 0.5 10.2\n-2 165 0.5 12.8\n-1 389 0.5 19.7\n0 553 0.5 23.5\n1 501 0.5 22.4\n2 288 0.5 17.0\n3 146 0.5 12.1\n4 84 0.5 9.17\n5 90 0.5 9.49\n6 75 0.5 8.66\n8 89 0.5 9.43\n10 73 0.5 8.54\n15 35 0.5 5.92\n\\end{filecontents*}\n\\usepackage{pgfplots}\n\\pgfplotsset{compat=1.15}\n\n\\begin{document}\n\\begin{tikzpicture}\n\\begin{axis}[\n xmin=-16, xmax=16, ymin=0, ymax=600,\n xlabel={$x$ in mm}, ylabel={$N$},\n ylabel style={rotate=-90},\n]\n\n\\addplot +[\n only marks,\n mark size=1pt,\n error bars/.cd,\n x dir=both, x explicit,\n y dir=both, y explicit\n ]\n table[\n x index=0,y index=1,\n x error index=2,y error index=3\n ] {data.dat};\n\n\\addplot gnuplot [\n mark=none,raw gnuplot\n ]{\n unset key;\n set xrange [-16:16];\n g(x) = A/sqrt(2*pi*o**2)*exp(-(x-xc)**2/(2*o**2))+B;\n A = 500;\n fit g(x) \"data.dat\" via A, o, xc, B;\n plot g(x);\n };\n\n\\end{axis}\n\\end{tikzpicture}\n\\end{document}", "An alternative option would be \n\n#+Name: mytable\n|---+--------+-------------+---------|\n| | Grades | Mathematics | Physics |\n|---+--------+-------------+---------|\n| # | Ben | 9.2 | 9.9 |\n| # | Tom | 6.7 | 7.7 |\n| # | Tim | 7.5 | 6.7 |\n| # | Dean | 8.0 | 7.0 |\n\n#+BEGIN_SRC gnuplot :var data=mytable :file output.png :export results\nset title \"Grades in Physics and Mathematics\"\nset style data histogram\nset xlabel \"Student\"\nset ylabel \"Grades\"\nset auto x\nplot data using 2:xtic(1) ti col, '' u 3 ti col\n#+END_SRC", "I think the speed and simplicity of visualizing data is largely dependent on how fluent you are with visualization tools and preprocessing tools. I'm a big advocate of scripting for this purpose, because you can figure out how to do a task once and then copy and repurpose the script on similar tasks, which saves you time.\n\nFor visualization, it really depends on what you mean by \"graph numerical data\" and \"scalability\". If you want to visualize data in 2D or do really simple 3D plots, options like Gnuplot and Matplotlib work well for data sets that don't require any more than a few processors to handle the computations. I give Matplotlib the edge for its outstanding gallery of different plots (and example scripts); Gnuplot has a similar gallery.\n\nIf by \"scalability\", you mean \"larger data sets\", you'll probably want something more along the lines of Paraview or VisIt (or if you have access to them, Tecplot or Ensight), because these tools generally have features that let you use more processors, which can handle scalability if you mean that you're processing very large data sets. If by \"scalability\", you mean, \"generating the same plot for a large number of data sets\", you probably just want to use something that you can script, and then just wrap it in some sort of for loop. You can do something like that in any of the packages I've mentioned; most of them have Python interfaces or interfaces to other languages (with the possible exceptions of Ensight and Tecplot). Creative use of shell scripting may also work for batch processing.\n\nAnother advantage to working with Paraview or VisIt is that they have great postprocessing features for working with data, and multiple types of 3D plots. If you're using a language like Python for scripting, you can do manual postprocessing, too. A similar sort of dichotomy exists when it comes to reading in data; more complex visualization packages like Paraview or VisIt have lots of different built-in converters for reading data from text formats (HDF5, VTK, GMV, Ensight format, FLASH astrophysics data), or you can script that by hand with libraries in your favorite scripting language (mine is Python, and there are Python packages that will read in lots of different text formats).\n\nReally, though, it's up to you what you like. If you don't like MATLAB, then I'd recommend Python for simpler tasks, because I think it's easier to install the necessary packages on a variety of platforms (for quick setups, Python distributions like Anaconda and Canopy Express are great options; you can also install everything manually if you like). Installing anything in Windows is a tremendous pain in the ass, but the Python distributions usually seem to work out better than manual installation or trying to install some sort of package manager like Cygwin that contains Gnuplot. I also think that Python code is more readable than Gnuplot scripts, that you're more likely to find useful Python code snippets you can copy, and that there are more Python users out there that will help you out.\n\nFor more complex stuff, it's really a toss-up between Paraview and VisIt. I've used both. VisIt is more intuitive to me, not having read the documentation; I liked Paraview's documentation better, and I can do more with Paraview.\n\nWhatever you pick, if you like it, stick with it, and become an expert user.", "The usual figure used in this context is, apparently, fractional bandwidth, defined as the bandwidth divided by the center frequency, and therefore having a range of 0 to 2.\n\n$$\n\\text{fractional bandwidth}\n\\,=\\, \\frac{f_{\\text{max}} - f_{\\text{min}}}{f_{\\text{center}}}\n\\,=\\, 2\\frac{f_{\\text{max}} - f_{\\text{min}}}{f_{\\text{max}} + f_{\\text{min}}}\n$$\n\nGiven that definition, and using the United States band edges, here are the fractional (and absolute) bandwidths of all amateur bands:\n\n\n\nThis chart was generated using a gnuplot program which can be found in the source of this answer.", "I personally have come the way from Gnuplot to Matplotlib with PGFPlots as an intermediate step.\n\nI will try to name all aspects of Matplotlib that I like.\n\n\nIt is very versatile. You are not limited to line or scatter plots, you can easily do bar plots, images (matrix visualization!), basic 3D plotting and even some animation.\nYou can use Matplotlib as a GUI for your Python applications.\nLaTeX is supported.\nIt supports many output formats (try to get pain-free PDF with Gnuplot).\nMatplotlib's user base is broad. You get reasonably much help on the internet.\nIt reasonably easy to learn.\nBeing a Python library, you have the power of Python at hand (which means for example that you can easily load text or HDF5 data or, using wrappers such as Cython/f2py, load binary data written by compiled programs written in C/Fortan).\n\n\nHowever, I have always loved figures that integrate seamlessly into LaTeX documents. Here, in principle, PGFPlots excels. However, it is slow and (compared to Matplotlib) limited.\n\nThat's why I have come to prefer a new solution: the (experimental) PGF backend for Matplotlib. Using this, the plots themselves are created by Matplotlib, whereas the axis and labels are set up by PGFPlots and finally drawn by LaTeX. You can use this for either PDF output without an embedding LaTeX document or for PGF output you can include in your LaTeX document.\n\nI have the feeling that the solution I described above is the solution for my use cases (for the time being).", "The main problem is, that you must set output before plotting!\n\nset terminal postscript ps\nset output 'a03e02.ps'\nplot sin(2500*x)/(pi*x)\n\n\nI tested with dvipdf, and it worked for me (TeXLive 2013), but personally I always use the latex -&gt; dvips -&gt; ps2pdf chain.\n\nSome comments to the LaTeX-document:\n\n\nYou must include the graphicx package\nYou cannot use $ inside the equation-environment\nfigure is a floating environment, no need to place a \\\\ before it (BTW: This is also wrong for adding a new paragraph, this is done by an empty line or a \\par).\nAn opened bracket { with a newline is prone for extra spacings.\nWhy do you rotate the image by 270?\nI wouldn't set the width in the LaTeX-document but rather in the gnuplot script, so that you do not have different scalings for different images. Although you have vector images, the linewidth will change and the font size also.\nYou shouldn't set the image extension in the \\includegraphics argument.\nUse \\sin instead of sin.\n\n\nHere is how I would do it:\n\nset terminal postscript eps size 8cm,6cm\nset title \"Dirac Delta-Function\"\nset xrange[-.01:.01]\nset xlabel 'Independent Variable'\nset ylabel 'Dependent Variable'\nset samples 1000\nset output 'a03e02.eps'\nplot sin(2500*x)/(pi*x)\n\n\nThe LaTeX-document:\n\n\\documentclass{article}\n\\usepackage{graphicx}\n\\begin{document}\n\\begin{equation}\n\\delta_n(x)=\\frac{\\sin(nx)}{{\\pi}x}=\\frac{1}{2\\pi}\\int_{-\\pi}^{\\pi}e^{ixt}dt\n\\end{equation}\n\n\\begin{figure}\n\\centering\n\\includegraphics{a03e02}\n\\caption{This is the Dirac $\\delta$-function graphed between $x=\\pm.01$ for $n=2500$.}\n\\end{figure}\n\\end{document}\n\n\nThis gives (using latex -&gt; dvipdf):\n\n\n\nYou could also use the epslatex terminal to get the same fonts and enhanced math in you gnuplot image.", "The short answer is no to using RDP for this, and YES there is a better way. \n\nIf you use ssh sessions, even with X11 enabled, you will find that they are not affected by the screensaver.\n\nThis is described in more depth in the Q&amp;A's at:\n\nHow can I set up my G-Mouse USB GPS for use with Raspbian?\n\nCan I achieve multiple independent sessions into a Raspbian Pi3?\n\nWhen you use ssh like this to connect you will get a terminal window that is not capable of launching leafpad or gnuplot plots or any other graphical output:\n\nssh PRIME\n\n\nbut if you need graphical output you can use it like this:\n\nssh -Y PRIME\n\n\nand you will still get the same terminal window but it will be capable of launching graphical programs from the command line such as \n\ngnuplot\nload \"plot1\n\n\nVoila, no worries about the console screensaver!\n\nThat is the answer.\n\n\n\nBackground on why the ssh command worked so easily:\n\nOpenSSH-server is loaded on both systems:\n\nsudo aptitude install openssh-server\n\n\nOn the MASTER system I ran these commands, ONCE:\n\ncd\nssh-keygen \n\n\nPress enter to the 4 prompts\n\nssh-copy-id -i .ssh/id_rsa.pub PRIME\n\n\nEnter your password for PRIME\n\nIt will then prompt you to try ssh to make sure it worked\n\nWhat it doesn't tell you is that you can have an X11 connection by using \n\nssh -Y PRIME\n\n\n\n\nThis can also be done in Windows with the PuTTY PSSH program. \n\nFirst, I put C:\\windows\\Program Files (x86)/putty in my path using environment variables in the system configuration, advanced screen. \n\npssh pi@PRIME\n\n\nwill do the same as ssh does in Linux.\n\nFor X-11 sessions it takes a little configuration.\n\nHow to make Putty do the equivalent of “ssh -X”?\n\nEXCERPT:\n\n\n @baraboom's answer: You can enable X11 Forwarding in Putty's\n configuration. In the menu on the left, find the Connection tree. In\n SSH, expand it and you will see Tunnels window. Click \"Enable X11\n forwarding\". It is setting the default to X display at \"localhost:0\".\n\n\nI havn't tested this with the screensaver, but included it for completeness.", "The way I understand this question is that you want to project a 3D scatter plot into a 2D density map and then plot it.\n\nI'm not sure if there is a specific software for that but it should be relatively simple, you could always make a routine that computes the sum of all $w_i$ at all $z$ values at a particular $(x,y)$ coordinate and then you would have the density at that particular $(x,y)$, for example:\n\n$f(x,y)=\\sum_k w(x,y,k)$, \n\nwhere $k$ is an index summed across all z coordinates at a particular constant (x,y), and $f(x,y)$ is your density. \n\n$f(x,y)$ now then is a density function of two dimensions so you could plot it with any plotting software, whether gnuplot, matlab, mathematica etc.", "After some investigation, I would say this seems pretty optimal. Please see my gist here.\n\nIn the PHP file in the gist I've generated some nested arrays with unsorted keys using one function, counted the total number of keys (including keys in nested arrays) using the recursive option to count, timed sorting the array using your function above, generated a flat array with unsorted keys and timed sorting this using ksort.\n\nI've done this for a range of different top-level keys, and each 16 times, taken the average and then run the output data through gnuplot.\n\nYou can see from the output graph that your recursive function (purple) is tending towards the ksort of the flat array(blue) to the extent that at greater than 1 million total keys, the recursive sort only takes on average about 1.5x the time of the flat sort for an equivalent number of keys.\n\nNote that this was run on PHP 5.6.10 on ArchLinux, YMMV", "Adding a (org-reload) call at the end of my org mode config got rid of the issue. Reloading org 'upgraded' to Org mode version 9.2.6 (9.2.6-7-g634880-elpaplus @ ~/.emacs.d/elpa/org-plus-contrib-20191125/)\n and this version does not seem to have the issue. I also commented the line :ensure org-plus-contrib.\n\nHere's the full config:\n\n (use-package org\n ;:ensure org-plus-contrib\n :pin org\n :requires use-package-hydra\n :config\n (require 'ob)\n (require 'ob-async)\n (require 'org-agenda)\n (require 'org-compat)\n ; (require 'org-tempo)\n\n (setq org-confirm-babel-evaluate nil\n org-export-babel-evaluate 'inline-only)\n\n (org-babel-do-load-languages\n 'org-babel-load-languages\n '((emacs-lisp . t)\n (ein . t)\n (org . t)\n (makefile . t)\n (latex . t)\n (gnuplot . t)\n (R . t)\n (python . t)\n (shell . t)))\n\n ;; Do not evaluate org-babel source blocks during export\n (setq org-export-babel-evaluate nil)\n\n (setq org-startup-indented t)\n\n (org-reload))", "If you can use C++11 you can use the built-in Poisson distribution\n\n#include &lt;iostream&gt;\n#include &lt;random&gt;\n\nstatic std::random_device rd;\nstatic std::mt19937 gen(rd());\n\nint main()\n{\n std::poisson_distribution&lt;int&gt; pd(5);\n\n for (int i = 0; i &lt; 10000; ++i)\n std::cout &lt;&lt; pd(gen) &lt;&lt; '\\n';\n}\n\n\nI mean, come on, it doesn't get any easier than this. And it's fast!\n\nHere the output plotted with gnuplot\n\n\n\nIf you have to stick with plain C you could write a library which exposes the C++11 Mersenne Twister or use the GSL.\n\n#include &lt;stdio.h&gt;\n#include &lt;gsl/gsl_rng.h&gt;\n#include &lt;gsl/gsl_randist.h&gt;\n\nint main()\n{\n const gsl_rng_type * T;\n gsl_rng * r;\n\n gsl_rng_env_setup();\n T = gsl_rng_default;\n r = gsl_rng_alloc (T);\n\n for (int i = 0; i &lt; 10000; ++i)\n printf(\"%d\\n\", gsl_ran_poisson(r, 5));\n\n gsl_rng_free(r);\n}", "Plotting heatmaps with gnuplot and LaTeX with small file size\nBasically, there are two different ways to draw heatmaps with gnuplot:\n\nPlotting with image\n\nPlotting with pm3d and splot\n\n\nBoth have their advantages and disadvantages, and which one should use\nalso depends on the actual data structure.\nThe following terminals allow typesetting text with LaTeX and also support bitmap images:\n\nepslatex. In the 4.7 development version a terminal option level3 is available, which embeds the bitmap as png. This is my favorite way, because it also gives very good results if the output must be eps (e.g. for a journal). With leveldefault the bitmaps are stored without compression.\n\ncairolatex. Can output either eps or pdf images, no special options required.\n\nlua/tikz. Use with the externalimages terminal option, which stores bitmaps as external png. Otherwise the data is embedded as a raw bitmap into the tex file, which often leads to memory errors, and creates huge files.\n\n\nPlotting `with image`\nThe image plotting style generates a bitmap heatmap, which is\nincluded in the otherwise vectorial image.\nThis is in my opinion the best option if no interpolation is required\n(like it can be done with pm3d) and the x-value and y-values are evenly distributed (otherwise it does not work). Works very good for my experimental data with grids larger than 1000 x 2000 points.\nFor a real data file the plotting script could look like this:\nplot 'datafile' using 1:2:3 with image t ''\n\nTo give a real example, I use pseudo data, which is generated with\n++. This gives the following, compileable example:\nreset\nset xrange[0:5]\nset yrange[0:2]\nset samples 1000\nset isosamples 1000\nset xtics out nomirror\nset ytics out nomirror\nunset key\nf(x) = besj0($1**2 + $2**2)**2\nplot '++' using 1:2:(f(0)) with image\n\nThis gives the image (with epslatex):\n\nPlotting with pm3d\nThis is by far the most flexible and advanced plotting style. But it\ndraws every 'pixel' as a coloured polygon, which can also result in huge\noutput files: The example script above gives pdf output sizes between\n53kB and 315kB with image and 13MB to 23MB for pm3d. This does of\ncourse depend to the type of data, but gives an impression of what we\nare talking about.\nThe gnuplot commands for this are e.g.\nset pm3d map\nsplot 'datafile' using 1:2:3 t ''\n\nIf a 3D view is requested, there is nothing one can do about the file\nsize.\nHowever, for pm3d map one can first plot into a png, which is then\nread in by a second plot command with rgbimage. This requires some fiddling with some options. Here is a gnuplot script which does this:\nset autoscale fix\nRES_X = 2000\nRES_Y = 2000\nbasename = 'output'\n\n# set term push # save the current terminal, if required\nsave('settings.gp') # save the current, default state\n\nset terminal pngcairo size RES_X, RES_Y\nset output basename.'-include.png'\nunset border\nunset tics\nset lmargin at screen 0\nset rmargin at screen 1\nset tmargin at screen 1\nset bmargin at screen 0\n\n# the following block is required only for the pseudo-data\nset xrange[0:5]\nset yrange[0:2]\nset samples 1000\nset isosamples 1000\nf(x) = 0.6*besj0($1**2 + $2**2)**2+0.2\n\nset pm3d map\nsplot '++' using 1:2:(f(0))\nset output\n\n# mapping of the coordinates for the png plotting later \nX0 = GPVAL_X_MIN\nY0 = GPVAL_Y_MIN\nDX = (GPVAL_X_MAX - GPVAL_X_MIN)/real(RES_X)\nDY = (GPVAL_Y_MAX - GPVAL_Y_MIN)/real(RES_Y)\nC0 = GPVAL_CB_MIN\nDC = GPVAL_CB_MAX - GPVAL_CB_MIN\nC(x) = (x/255.0) * DC + C0\n\nload('settings.gp') # restore the initial state\n# set term pop # restore the terminal, if required\n\n# now comes the actual plotting\nset terminal epslatex standalone # level3\n# set terminal lua tikz externalimages standalone\n# set terminal cairolatex pdf\nset output basename.'.tex'\n\nset xtics out nomirror\nset ytics out nomirror\nset title 'Bessel function $J_0^2(x^2 + y^2)$'\n\nset cbrange[GPVAL_CB_MIN:GPVAL_CB_MAX]\nplot basename.'-include.png' binary filetype=png origin=(X0, Y0) dx=DX dy=DY using (C($1)):(C($2)):(C($3)) with rgbimage t '', NaN with image t '' # the hack for getting the color box.\n\n# compilation\nset output\nsystem('latex '.basename.'.tex &amp;&amp; dvips '.basename.'.dvi &amp;&amp; ps2pdf '.basename.'.ps &amp;&amp; pdfcrop '.basename.'.pdf '.basename.'.pdf')\n\nThis gives the same image like the first script, but the image size is bigger, so I don't include it here.\nThis way it works for me quite well, and I hope it can be useful for others, too.", "Let start with p4vasp\np4vasp is postprocessing tool for VASP output written in python and some C++.\nIt is very easy to install and you can check in its official website http://www.p4vasp.at/#/home \nFor ploting band structure or DOS , this package need vasprun.xml as input which is output of VASP. Once we load input, it will automatically show DOS or you can click on DOS menu.\nFor local density of states or bands , drop down menu electronic and select local DOS and band control. You can select different atoms and orbital to add in plot. Export output in dat file or xmgrace file (nice free plotting tool). You can also select each atom for local band and DOS using GUI.\nNice tutorial link: https://youtu.be/RYziHtNFaPs \nhttps://youtu.be/ohDguVFDPlc \n\nVaspkit is another alternative for p4vasp. \nIt is nice package for both preprocessing and postprocessing with VASP.\nWe can generate high symmetry K-Points for band calculation, we can write INCAR, KPOINTS file for input to calculation.\nIt reads PROCAR file as input and gives output in simple form x y column inside dat file which can be used in xmgrace / gnuplot or other.\nKindly check documentation of vaspkit\nhttps://vaspkit.com/", "As you have correctly assumed, the relationship between absorbance and absorbant concentration is linear (law of Lambert-Beer):\n$$ A = \\varepsilon \\, l \\times c$$\n\nThis should give you a straight line through (0,0) and your data.\n\nNow, for a graphical analysis of data, let's not look at the numbers themselves but on what kind of a graph it gives us. So after 2 minutes with gnuplot I get something like this:\n\n\nNow, there are two things that I note here:\n\n\nThe absorbance of the $\\mathrm{IC_{25}}$ value is very very low (nearly 0) which indicates some wrong measurement. Maybe the cells weren't in the pathway of the light beam, only the medium?\nYou have four data points.\n\n\nMy advice is the following:\n\n\nDouble check your measurements (the absorbance and the cell density). It would be even better if you did several measurements for the different inhibitor concentrations and then calculate the mean (and standard deviation if you so desire).\nGenerate more data. It is very wonky to try and justify a linear regression through these 4 data points (although mathematically allowed). However, if all intermittent points are equally chaotically distributed along a straight line the linear relationship still holds (with a fairly high $R^2$). What this does to the interpretation of the data is a completely different story.", "Yes, Rpi3B systems can be run reliably 24x7 for long periods of time.\nNo, there is no mathematical way to predict longevity that I am aware of.\nSo you just begin and do your best to build it well.\nThen plan for how you would recover if one fails. \n\nSuch as using Win32DiskImager to store image backups off your Rpi SD cards.\n\nI suggest you look into PiGPIO:\n\nPiGPIO Examples\n\nto see how the RPi can handle the sensing and controlling.\n\n\n\nYou asked for an example. My solar plant uses a handful of them coupled with Arduinos (for the I/O) as data loggers. I call them Piduinos. It is a hybrid system. \n\nThey produce plots (gnuplot) that I directly access from a large screen using Windows Remote Desktop to monitor the operation of the systems. \n\nThe communications between the Pi and Arduino is a normal USB programming cable and the Arduino IDE runs on the Rpi3B units. All connected by WiFi.\n\nThen I also have also a Ubuntu 16.04 server which periodically (every 15 minutes) collects the latest plot files, puts them together as a montage (using Imagemagick montage). This montage is mated with the proper HTML and uploaded to my hosting service using scp\n\nIt can be viewed at https://www.SDsolarBlog.com/montage\n\n\n\nSome of the RPis have to work in the harsh outside weather conditions yet they have proven to be a whole lot more reliable than I expected.\n\nOne thing you do learn about when assembling such a system is fault-tolerance. Preparing for failure. \n\nBackups, backups, backups. \n\nExtra hardware and Rpi SD card Images saved so if one fails another can be swapped in quickly. It is rare, but can happen. \n\n\n\nMeanwhile, to properly form your question, I suggest you try something. Build something. See how it works. \n\nThen return here if you hit a roadblock - and be sure that you ask a Raspberry Pi-specific question.", "The time to get a confirmation varies by the transaction fee, the transaction priority, and the rate of block creation. In the upcoming Bitcoin 0.10, two new RPCs will be introduced that will help you estimate the number of blocks a transaction will take to get confirmation based on fee and priority (see notes below). The rate of block creation is unpredictable over short spans of time---a single block can be found seconds after the previous block or take more than an hour. Over longer spans of time, it averages about one block every 10 minutes. \nIf the transaction is ever going to get confirmed, it must be in some miner's memory pool. If it was broadcast by a full node which has that transaction in its wallet, it will also be in that node's memory pool. If you have access to either of those nodes, the getrawmemorypool will return the transaction.\n\nAs for whether it's in any other node's memory pool, that depends on whether or not it propagated to that node---assuming it pays a reasonable fee and is a standard transaction, it should propagate to most nodes within a few minutes (see BitcoinStats) and should stay there until the nodes shutdown.\n\n\nAppendix\n\nHere's an example of the new estimatefee RPC from Bitcoin Core 0.10. The argument 6 says \"tell me how much fee I need to pay per kilobyte to make it statistically likely my transaction will be included in the next 6 blocks\":\n\nbitcoin-cli estimatefee 6\n0.00026809\n\n\nHere's an example of the new estimatepriority RPC. The same deal, except priority is based on per-byte. (Here's a SE answer about priority.)\n\nbitcoin-cli estimatepriority 6\n728784383.01282048\n\n\nAnd here's the chance of finding a block within a certain number of minutes:\n\nVariance http://dtrt.org/tmp/en-block-variance.png\n\nThe code to produce that plot in gnuplot is: plot [0:60] 1-exp(-1/(600./60)*x) where 600 is the average number of seconds between blocks (10 minutes) and 60 is the number of seconds in a minute.", "Instead of prompting users and reading the parameters from standard input, you should embrace the Unix philosophy, and use command-line parameters instead.\n\nThe following example is slightly long, because I wanted to show my preferred parameter checking functions. scanf() family of functions does not check for overflow, so strto*() needs to be used. Furthermore, there may occasionally be garbage after the number (say, '12l' -- last being letter L -- instead of '121'), which I personally want to catch.\n\n#include &lt;stdlib.h&gt;\n#include &lt;locale.h&gt;\n#include &lt;ctype.h&gt;\n#include &lt;stdio.h&gt;\n#include &lt;errno.h&gt;\n\n/* Helper function to parse a double.\n * Returns 0 if successful, nonzero otherwise.\n*/\nstatic int parse_double(const char *s, double *v)\n{\n const char *end;\n double val;\n\n if (!s)\n return errno = EINVAL;\n\n end = s;\n errno = 0;\n val = strtod(s, (char **)&amp;end);\n if (errno)\n return errno;\n\n if (!end || end == s)\n return errno = EINVAL;\n\n while (*end != '\\0' &amp;&amp; isspace(*end))\n end++;\n\n if (*end != '\\0')\n return errno = EINVAL;\n\n if (v)\n *v = val;\n\n return 0;\n}\n\n/* Helper function to parse a long.\n * Returns 0 if successful, nonzero otherwise.\n*/\nstatic int parse_long(const char *s, long *v)\n{\n const char *end;\n long val;\n\n if (!s)\n return errno = EINVAL;\n\n end = s;\n errno = 0;\n val = strtol(s, (char **)&amp;end, 0);\n if (errno)\n return errno;\n\n if (!end || end == s)\n return errno = EINVAL;\n\n while (*end != '\\0' &amp;&amp; isspace(*end))\n end++;\n\n if (*end != '\\0')\n return errno = EINVAL;\n\n if (v)\n *v = val;\n\n return 0;\n}\n\n\nOf above, parse_long() supports decimal (987), hexadecimal (0x3DB), and octal (01733) notation.\n\nThe main() is then something like\n\nint main(int argc, char *argv[])\n{\n double min, max;\n long n;\n\n setlocale(LC_ALL, \"\");\n\n /* Require \"command N min max\" -- four parameters,\n * including the executable file name (argv[0]). */\n\n if (argc != 4 || !strcmp(argv[1], \"-h\") || !strcmp(argv[1], \"--help\")) {\n fprintf(stderr, \"Usage: %s [ -h | --help ]\\n\", argv[0]);\n fprintf(stderr, \" %s N min max\\n\", argv[0]);\n return EXIT_FAILURE;\n }\n\n if (parse_long(argv[1], &amp;n) || n &lt; 1L) {\n fprintf(stderr, \"%s: Invalid N.\\n\", argv[1]);\n return EXIT_FAILURE;\n }\n\n if (parse_double(argv[2], &amp;min)) {\n fprintf(stderr, \"%s: Invalid minimum.\\n\", argv[2]);\n return EXIT_FAILURE;\n }\n\n if (parse_double(argv[3], &amp;max)) {\n fprintf(stderr, \"%s: Invalid maximum.\\n\", argv[3]);\n return EXIT_FAILURE;\n }\n\n if (min &gt; max) {\n const double tmp = min;\n min = max;\n max = tmp;\n }\n\n /* ... */\n\n return EXIT_SUCCESS;\n}\n\n\nThe setlocale(LC_ALL, \"\"); tells the C library to examine the current environment, and set up localization to match. This program only uses the LC_CTYPE class, to determine which characters are whitespaces (spaces or tabs). Nevertheless, it is a good practice to get into: if, at some point, you wish to support characters like ä and €, you can switch to wide characters and I/O.\n\nAs a learner, you can omit parse_long() and parse_double(), and replace them in the if clauses with sscanf(), and ignore localization. It saves you a few lines,\n\n#include &lt;stdlib.h&gt;\n#include &lt;stdio.h&gt;\n\nint main(int argc, char *argv[])\n{\n double min, max;\n long n;\n\n /* Require \"command N min max\" -- four parameters,\n * including the executable file name (argv[0]). */\n\n if (argc != 4 || !strcmp(argv[1], \"-h\") || !strcmp(argv[1], \"--help\")) {\n fprintf(stderr, \"Usage: %s [ -h | --help ]\\n\", argv[0]);\n fprintf(stderr, \" %s N min max\\n\", argv[0]);\n return EXIT_FAILURE;\n }\n\n if (sscanf(argv[1], \" %ld\", &amp;n) != 1 || n &lt; 1L) {\n fprintf(stderr, \"%s: Invalid N.\\n\", argv[1]);\n return EXIT_FAILURE;\n }\n\n if (sscanf(argv[2], \" %lf\", &amp;min) != 1) {\n fprintf(stderr, \"%s: Invalid minimum.\\n\", argv[2]);\n return EXIT_FAILURE;\n }\n\n if (sscanf(argv[3], \" %lf\", &amp;max) != 1) {\n fprintf(stderr, \"%s: Invalid maximum.\\n\", argv[3]);\n return EXIT_FAILURE;\n }\n\n if (min &gt; max) {\n const double tmp = min;\n min = max;\n max = tmp;\n }\n\n /* ... */\n\n return EXIT_SUCCESS;\n}\n\n\nbut in my opinion, why learn a way that is not sufficient in practice? I personally know of cases where silly assumptions like \"People's names only contain letters A to Z\" took dozens of hours to work around (a 411 service on a computing cluster with users with non-English names). We live in a global world, and you English speakers better get in line already, and drop your silly assumptions.\n\nIt is not like people seem to be able to learn localization afterwards, either. Most \"experienced C programmers\" that I've encountered do not seem to know, nor care, about localization or character set issues at all. (Well, beyond using UTF-8 everywhere.) That means others have to spend hours and hours to work around their mis-assumptions, wasting time and effort... Disgraceful.\n\n\n\nWhen you have your program in a form that will accept the parameters on the command line, you can use Bash loops like\n\nfor (( i=1; i&lt;=20; i++ )); do ./yourprog $i 0.0 10.0 ; done &gt; output.txt\n\n\nNote that if you output data into space or tab-separated columns, with something like * or - if a column is missing data, you can use gnuplot to plot the data.\n\nFor example, if you have output.txt with\n\n#N result error\n1 3.1 0.04159265359\n2 3.14 0.00159265359\n3 3.141 0.00059265359\n\n\nand so on, you can look at the data using e.g.\n\ngnuplot -p -e 'plot \"output.txt\" u 2:3 notitle w lines'\n\n\nGnuplot ignores lines beginning with a #, so you can use such for comments or headers at the beginning of the file telling what each column is for. See the documentation for further information. I personally prefer to save plots in SVG or PDF format, so that they're small files, but with high quality vector graphics. This is what I recommend for coursework, in particular.", "Not quite an answer but a workaround is using an expression such as:\n\n\\addplot+ table [x expr=\\thisrow{x}-2500000000] {\\mytable};\n\n\nto subtract a large common number from the dataset. This still uses the math engine of pgf and works for your small test case.\n\n\\documentclass[border=1mm]{standalone}\n\\usepackage{pgfplots}\n\\pgfplotsset{compat=1.8}\n\\usepackage{filecontents}\n\\begin{filecontents}{testdata.dat}\n2499999500 0\n2500000000 1\n2500000500 0\n\\end{filecontents}\n\n\\begin{document}\n\\begin{tikzpicture}\n\\begin{axis}[xtick=data, xticklabels from table={testdata.dat}{[index]0}]\n \\addplot+ table [x expr=\\thisrowno{0}-2500000000] {testdata.dat};\n\\end{axis}\n\\end{tikzpicture}\n\\end{document} \n\n\n\n\nFor closely spaced data this still breaks down. The precision of the FPU engine can be shown with \n\n\\pgfkeys{/pgf/fpu=true}\n\\pgfmathparse{2500000400 - 2500000500}\n\\pgfmathprintnumber{\\pgfmathresult}\n\\pgfkeys{/pgf/fpu=false} \n\n\nWhich prints zero as the change occurs at the 8th digit. So I would recommend using either gnuplot as suggested in the pgfmanual or preprocessing the dataset externally.\n\nAlternatively the fp package is more suited to the problem as it operates with fixed point. I do not know how to integrate it with pgfplots.\n\n\n\nUpdate:\n\nWhereas with LaTeX the precision is limited it is not a problem to use LuaTeX for the calculation here and the results are quite nice. If run with LuaTeX the following example produces the correct output:\n\n\\documentclass[tikz,preview]{standalone}\n\\usepackage{tikz,pgfplots,pgfplotstable}\n\\pgfplotsset{compat=1.8} \n\n\\begin{document}\n\n\\pgfplotstableread\n{\nx y \n2499999500 1\n2499999501 2\n2499999502 3\n2499999503 4\n2499999504 5\n2499999505 6\n2499999506 7\n2499999507 8\n2499999508 9\n2499999509 10\n}\\mytable;\n\n\\begin{tikzpicture}\n \\begin{axis}\n \\addplot+ table [x expr=\\directlua{tex.print(\\thisrow{x}-2499999500)},y=y] {\\mytable}; \n \\end{axis}\n\\end{tikzpicture}\n\n\\end{document}", "Choice of $N$\n\nDual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) tones should be of certain minimum duration (40 ms) and quality to be detected (reviewed in ITU TABLE A-1/Q.24). The detection algorithm that you cite uses a block duration of $t=N/f_s,$ where $N$ is the block length in samples and $f_s$ is the sampling frequency. The duration is either 210/(16 kHz) = 13.125 ms or 92/(8 kHz) = 11.5 ms. To ensure that the algorithm functions as expected, the block duration should be kept the same. I don't know why the lengths differ for the different sampling frequencies in the cited algo, but it should be okay to calculate $N$ as:\n\n$$N = t\\times f_s = 11.5\\text{ ms}\\times f_s,\\tag{1}$$\n\nwhich should give the same timing and frequency resolution as with the 8 kHz sampling frequency used in the original sources on Wikipedia by an unknown author.\n\nOther changes needed\n\nThere are some worrisome large hard-coded constants (4.0e5 and 1.0e9) in the source code. Such hint to a lack of normalization:\n\n#Check for minimum energy\nif self.r[row] &lt; 4.0e5:\n msg = \"energy not enough\"\nelif self.r[col] &lt; 4.0e5:\n msg = \"energy not enough\"\nelse:\n\n\n\n\n#AT&amp;T states that the noise must be 16dB down from the signal.\n# Here we count the number of signals above the threshold and\n#there ought to be only two.\nif self.r[max_index] &gt; 1.0e9:\n t = self.r[max_index] * 0.158\nelse:\n t = self.r[max_index] * 0.010\n\n\nThey may require changing if you change $N,$ by the same proportion, I think.\n\nFine-tuning $N$\n\nEven if the Goertzel algorithm is not restricted to frequencies of a discrete Fourier transform (DFT) of length $N,$ (see this answer) there may be reason for tuning $N$ that is not explained by duration specifications. For sinusoidal input of frequency $f$, the magnitude of the same frequency detected by a Goertzel algorithm fluctuates slightly as function of time depending on the combination of frequency $f$ and $N$. For simplicity of the expressions that follow, frequency is expressed in radians as:\n\n$$\\omega=\\frac{2\\pi f}{f_s}\\tag{2}$$\n\nFor initial phase $\\alpha$ at the start of the window, the unnormalized detected magnitude will be:\n\n$$A(\\alpha) = \\left|\\sum_{k=0}^{N-1} e^{i \\omega k}\\cos(\\omega k + \\alpha)\\right|\\\\\n= \\left|\\frac{Ne^{-i\\alpha}}{2} + \\frac{e^{i(\\alpha - \\omega+\\pi/2)} - e^{i(\\alpha + 2N\\omega - \\omega + \\pi/2)}}{4\\sin(\\omega)}\\right|\\tag{3}$$\n\nThe fluctuation can be seen in this example:\n\nFigure 1. Blue: detected magnitude $A$ as function of initial phase $\\alpha$ for sinusoidal input, with $f = 1209\\text{ Hz},$ $f_s = 8 kHz,$ $N=92$. Red: extrema of $A(\\alpha)$ have been marked.\n\nAn interesting observation is that there will no fluctuation of the Goertzel detected magnitude $A$ if the frequency $\\omega$ is a multiple of $\\pi/N.$ In contrast, DFT bins are at multiples of $2\\pi/N.$ (Zaplata &amp; Kasal 2005 discuss the fluctuation phenomenon, but do not recognize this difference between the Goertzel algorithm and DFT.)\n\nFor other frequencies, the $\\pi\\text{-}$periodic function $A(\\alpha)$ gets its smallest and largest values (not necessarily in that order) at:\n\n$$\\alpha_1 = \\frac{\\omega(1 - N)}{2}\\quad\\text{and}\\quad\\alpha_2 = \\frac{\\omega(1 - N)}{2} + \\frac{\\pi}{2}\\tag{4}$$\n\nYou could tune the integer $N$ to its nearby value which minimizes the maximum of $\\left|A(\\alpha_1)-A(\\alpha_2)\\right|$ over the set of DTMF frequencies. Actually, for $f_s = 8\\text{ kHz,}$ a better choice than $N=92$ would be $N=93:$\n\nFigure 2. Maximum peak-to-peak fluctuation $\\max\\left|A(\\alpha_1)-A(\\alpha_2)\\right|$ over DTMF frequencies has a minimum at $N=93$ for $f_s=8000\\text{ Hz.}$\n\nA reason why $N=92$ might have been preferred is that in some older version they only allowed DFT bin frequencies. In that case $N=93$ would be a pretty bad choice, as some DTMF frequencies would fall almost just between successive bins, which is perfectly fine for the Goertzel algorithm (or generalized DFT with a frequency shift of $1/2$ binwidth), but almost the worst-case scenario when using DFT:\n\nFigure 3. Maximum absolute frequency error over DTMF frequencies when detecting using DFT of length $N$, for $f_s=8000\\text{ Hz}$ and expressed in units of DFT bin width.\n\nThe final word would be to test the performance in a test suite and to tune $N$ based on that.\n\nOctave source code for Fig. 3\n\ngraphics_toolkit(\"gnuplot\");\nfs = 8000; #Sampling frequency\nf = [1209, 1336, 1477, 1633, 697, 770, 852, 941]; #DTMF frequencies (same unit as fs)\nN = 80:100; #DFT lengths analyzed\nomega = 2*pi*f/fs;\ny=omega'/(2*pi).*N;\nz=round(y)-y;\nplot(N, max(abs(z)), \"x\");\nylim([0, 0.5]);\nxlabel(\"N\");\nylabel('max|frequency error| (bin widths)');\n\n\nReferences\n\nZaplata F, Kasal M, \"Efficient Spectral Power Estimation on an Arbitrary Frequency Scale\", Radioengineering, 2015, vol. 24: p. 178-184. DOI: 10.13164/re.2015.0178", "If an aircraft is following a magnetic course changes in magnetic declination as the aircraft moves along its route of flight will affect the true course, and on a long flight such as the hypothetical trip posed here we need to take that into account.\n\nMagnetic declination is empirical data, i.e. there are tables of it, and while formulas exist to approximate it you would normally use the reference tables. There are several sources of data for the worldwide declination of the magnetic field, for example here.\n Following the link \"Magnetic Model maps and grids\" I took D_map_mf_2010.zip which contains a simple lat/lon/declination table (0.5° steps) and wrote a small simulation which moves the aircraft 10 km along the heading, calculates &amp; records the new angular coordinates, moves again and so on. The result is this figure:\n\n\n\n\nThe green arrows show the direction of north as displayed by a compass, the blue shows the direction of east.\nThe black line was generated by the simulation shows the true course of an aircraft with a constant magnetic heading of 90°. While it will fly over north Florida, it deviates markedly to the north over the ocean and just touches the north coast of Spain. \n\nNote that this only accounts for the magnetic declination, since your question assumed no wind.\nDuring a real flight the aircraft may experience unknown crosswinds, so the actual position has to be determined from time to time, and a look into the table / map shows the correct heading at the current position leading to your destination. (If the aircraft only has this map, a compass and a sextant aboard.)\n\n\n\nSo, if you have this data, you can correct the compass headings such that you fly the true course you want. However, I don't know how it's actually done in aviation.\n\n\n\nEDIT:\n\nHere is the code. It is written in python and gnuplot, and you will not need any programming skills to use it. \n\nHave fun!\n\nTo answer one question from the comments:\n\n\n If you carried on around the world, would you return to your starting point? I'm guessing yes as we would be following a contour of equal magnetic potential?\n\n\nFrom the physics side, magnetic fields are not conservative and so do not have a potential. However, I think it's clear what you mean. \n\nAs long as the heading is +90° or -90°, you will end up where you started. The following figure again shows a travel from KLAX heading 90°, but with a total lengh of 40mio km (i.e. 1000 times the circumfence of the earth and a little more turns for the track as it's not at the equator)\nAs you can see, there is just a single black track, no deviation.\n\nAnd if you want to fly to Casablanca, you will need a constant heading of 93,6°. And if you don't land there and have enough fuel, strange things happen:\n\n\n\nI would also like to emphasize Bob Jarvis' comment, about how it's done in the real world:\n\n\n Long distance journeys, whether by air or sea, will generally use a \"great circle\" where the heading steered is not constant. In practice the continuously changing great circle course is broken up in to a series of segments of constant heading. Reference here." ]

[ "The United States and South Korea have agreed to resume joint military drills early next month, the Pentagon said, a move that was expected despite US President Donald Trump’s planned meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.\nSeoul and Washington said in January they would delay the annual exercises, known as Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, until after the Olympics and Paralympics held in South Korea, helping to create conditions for a resumption of talks between South and North Korea, which sees the drills as a rehearsal for invasion.\nThe exercises are expected to begin on April 1, and will be of a “scale similar to that of the previous years,” the US military said in a statement late on Monday.\n“Our combined exercises are defence-oriented and there is no reason for North Korea to view them as a provocation,” Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Logan, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a separate statement.\nThe Pentagon said the North Korean military had been notified about the schedule for the drills by the United Nations Command. Logan said the drills were expected to conclude toward the end of May.\nLogan said the two joint drills, which include computer simulations and field exercises, would involve about 23,700 US troops and 300,000 South Korea forces.\nHe said they had been long planned and were not a response to any specific North Korean actions or the current situation on the Korean Peninsula.\nAfter the announcement of the postponement of the drills in January, Pyongyang agreed to hold the first official talks with Seoul in more than two years and to send athletes to the Winter Olympics, easing a stand-off over North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons.\nThe intra-Korean talks led to a visit this month by a South Korean delegation to Pyongyang for a meeting with the North Korean leader. The delegation said Kim committed to denuclearisation and expressed eagerness to meet Trump as soon as possible, an offer the president quickly accepted.\nSouth Korean official have said Kim is expected to meet with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in April before meeting Trump before the end of May.\nThe head of the South Korean delegation also said that Kim had said he understood that the joint US-South Korean exercises had to continue.\nNorth Korea has angrily denounced the drills in the past.\nPyongyang has not confirmed the reported remarks by Kim to the South Korean delegation and threatened earlier in the month to “counter the US” if the exercises went ahead.\nIn January, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said the decision to delay the drills was because of logistical concerns, since many South Korean security forces would be occupied with protecting the Olympics.\nIn 2017, the joint drills ran from March 1 to April 30, and included the Carl Vinson aircraft carrier. A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said no US aircraft carrier would take part this year, which he said was according to plan and not related to the political situation." ]

[ "North Korea has warned if the United States goes ahead with delayed military exercises with South Korea after the Winter Olympics it will not \"sit idle\", the North's foreign minister said in a letter to the United Nations.\nWASHINGTON/SEOUL: U.S. President Donald Trump expressed hope on Friday that \"something good\" could come from North Korea's participation in the Winter Olympics in South Korea, even after Pyongyang warned it would not \"sit idle\" if Washington and Seoul resumed military exercises after the Games.\nTrump met North Korean defectors at the White House on Friday and said the Olympics could serve as an indicator as to whether the crisis over North Korea's development of nuclear weapons capable of hitting the United States could be resolved.\nNorth Korea has not tested a missile since November and resumed inter-Korean dialogue in January, leading to agreement on its Olympics participation and easing tensions after a year of escalating rhetoric between Pyongyang and Washington.\n\"It’s a very tricky situation,\" Trump told reporters. \"We’re going to find out how it goes. We think the Olympics will go very nicely and after that, who knows.\"\nHe said he was not trying to send a message to North Korea by meeting the defectors. \"They were here and I said 'let's tell your story'.\"\nAsked if there was more Washington could do to resolve the problem, Trump said his administration was doing a lot but its options were limited given concessions by previous presidents.\nAdvertisement\nAdvertisement\n\"We ran out of road,\" he said. \"We have no road left. So we’ll see what happens, but in the meantime, we’ll get through the Olympics and maybe something good can come out of the Olympics. Who knows?\"\nThe North-South talks, the first in two years, came after Washington and Seoul agreed to push back a routine military drill until after the Olympics and Paralympics. The Games begin next week and run until March 18.\nIn a letter to the United Nations published by North Korea's official news agency, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho warned against resuming the drills, which Pyongyang sees as practice for invasion.\nHe said that whenever the drills took place \"the peace and security of the Korean peninsula were gravely threatened and the inter-Korean mistrust and confrontation reached the top, thus creating great difficulties and obstacles ahead of hard-won dialogues\".\n\"We will make every effort to improve inter-Korean relations in future, too, but never sit idle with regard to sinister act of throwing a wet blanket over our efforts,\" Ri said.\nHe accused the United States of misleading public opinion by claiming that its pressure campaign, including \"their harshest sanctions\", had brought about the inter-Korean talks, when the \"dramatic turning point\" was thanks to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.\nIn a commentary on Friday, North Korea's state media said Washington was attempting to create a \"stage of confrontation\" at the Olympics by saying the inter-Korean talks and the positive results that had stemmed from them could \"disappear\" after the Games.\nThe Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment on the North Korean statement about the drills, but a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, Mike Cavey, said: \"The United States and our allies and partners in the region have long conducted routine exercises to maintain readiness. These exercises ensure we are trained for combined joint operations.\"\nTrump's administration has warned that all options are on the table, including military ones, to resolve the crisis.\nWhile it has repeatedly said it prefers a diplomatic solution, Trump has exchanged threats with Kim and U.S. officials have said the president and his advisers have discussed a preventative \"bloody nose\" strike on North Korea, alarming experts who warn that this could trigger catastrophic retaliation, especially on South Korea.\nU.S. officials have said the debate on military action has lost some momentum as a result of the intra-Korean talks, which Trump has called a \"good thing\" and credited to his tough stance.\nJoseph Yun, the U.S. special envoy on North Korea, said on Thursday he did not think the administration was close to triggering military action.\nThe White House said on Friday that Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe spoke by telephone and discussed an expanded missile defence system and other efforts to boost Japan's defences amid the tensions over North Korea.\nTrump also spoke to South Korean President Moon Jae-in about human rights in North Korea and trade between the United States and South Korea, the White House said.\nSouth Korea's presidential Blue House said Moon had expressed hope that the momentum of improved North-South relation would go on and that U.S. Vice President Pence's visit \"would be an important prelude for that\".\nNorth Korea criticised Pence's pending visit to the Olympics and accused Washington of halting improvements in inter-Korean relations.\nLast month, a White House official said Pence planned to use his attendance to try to counter Kim Jong Un's efforts to \"hijack\" the games with a propaganda campaign.\nTwenty-two North Korean athletes will compete in the Olympics, including 12 who will play in a unified women's ice hockey team. The other 10, including a figure skating pair, arrived in South Korea on Thursday.\nNorth Korea has also agreed with South Korea to send a 230-strong cheering squad, as well as an orchestra and taekwondo performance team.\nHowever, a joint cultural performance planned in a North Korean mountain resort was called off this week by Pyongyang, which blamed South Korean media for encouraging \"insulting\" public sentiment towards the North.\n(Reporting by Christine Kim in Seoul, Steve Holland, David Brunnstrom, Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu in Washington; Writing by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and James Dalgleish)", "NATIONAL\n(Yonhap)\nWASHINGTON -- South Korea will have a large role in determining the success of a planned summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, a former senior US diplomat said Monday.Kurt Campbell, who served as the top US diplomat for East Asia during the Barack Obama administration, said the recent flurry of diplomacy with North Korea could set the stage for South Korea's rise.Trump and Kim are expected to meet before the end of May to discuss the North's denuclearization.\"Ultimately, it puts a huge amount of focus -- the hinge in all of this is South Korea,\" Campbell told a forum hosted by the Center for American Progress. \"South Korea's role and power in deciding the history of Northeast Asia, the future of Northeast Asia, is really on display.\"Trump accepted Kim's invitation to meet after being briefed by South Korean officials on their unprecedented meeting with the North Korean leader earlier this month.The Koreas are also set to hold their own summit in late April.\"What I always encourage South Korean friends in these situations is that you have the ability to play the dominant role here,\" Campbell said. \"What the next year or two could be about really is about South Korea coming of age as a major player in determining their own fate.\"The South Koreans, according to the former assistant secretary of state, have always had the sense that the big powers made decisions without consulting them.\"If the president, President Moon (Jae-in), is careful and strategic and puts good effect in place, South Korea has the ability to drive many of the dynamics that are at work now in Northeast Asia,\" he added.On what is motivating Pyongyang to engage, Suzanne DiMaggio, who has led informal discussions with North Korean officials, pointed to the regime's progress in its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.\"They understand that their negotiating position is as strong as it's going to be at this moment,\" she told the same forum, citing the North's tests of a hydrogen bomb and three intercontinental ballistic missiles last year. \"So it doesn't surprise me that they're engaging now.\"At a separate event earlier in the day, DiMaggio said the US and North Korea could exchange concessions in the lead-up to the summit, even though they wouldn't be described as such.According to her, the US could downsize joint military exercises with South Korea, which the North views as an invasion rehearsal, while Pyongyang could release the three Americans detained in the communist country.\"I would describe it more as setting the right atmosphere for talks, and I think, if you look at it that way, it makes a great deal of sense,\" she said.(Yonhap)", "SEOUL (AFP) - South Korean President Moon Jae In hopes to \"normalise\" ties with giant neighbour China on his first state visit to the country this week, his office said Monday (Dec 11), after Beijing was infuriated by a US missile system deployment.\nSeoul and Washington decided to install the powerful US Thaad (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) system in the South earlier this year to guard against threats from the nuclear-armed North.\nBeijing saw it as a threat to its own security and reacted furiously, slapping a string of measures against South Korean businesses and banning group tours to the South, in moves seen as economic retaliation.\nChina is the South's top trading partner and the diplomatic row took a major toll on many South Korean firms, most notably retail giant Lotte Group, which provided the land to host the powerful US missile system.\nAngry boycott campaigns and regulatory crackdowns by Chinese authorities decimated its business in the world's second-largest economy, and it was forced to put its supermarket unit in China up for sale.\nBut last month the two countries issued identically-worded statements on their mutual desire to improve relations.\nIt did not state any specifics, but Beijing has demanded that Seoul formally promise not to deploy any more Thaad launchers and not to join any regional US missile defence system.\nNam Gwan Pyo, a deputy director of the presidential national security office, did not give reporters details of any concrete steps that could be expected from Moon's four-day trip - his first to China since taking power in May.\nBut he said it would be a turning point in relations towards a \"more mature\" relationship, he said, \"by recovering bilateral trust and strengthening friendship between the leaders of the two nations\".\nTies recently showed some - albeit limited - signs of thaw as China's state tourism board approved last month Seoul-bound group tours from some parts of China.\nMoon heads to Beijing on Wednesday (Dec 13) and will hold a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping the following day to discuss issues including how to curb the North's nuclear weapons drive, Nam added.\nChina - the North's sole diplomatic ally and economic lifeline - has stepped up sanctions on the North amid pressure from the US and the international community to play a bigger role in taming its regime.\nBeijing has backed recent UN sanctions imposed on the North over its nuclear and missile tests, including a ban on coal imports, although it repeatedly pushed for talks to defuse the tensions.\nIt has urged a \"double freeze\" on both North Korean weapons tests and joint military exercises by Seoul and Washington - an idea consistently rejected by the US and South Korea.", "WASHINGTON - The United States will go to war with North Korea if it fires missiles at Guam, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said on Monday, issuing another strong warning to Pyongyang.\n\"If they shoot at the United States, I'm assuming they've hit the United States. ... If they do that, then it's game on.\"\n\"You don't shoot at people in this world unless you want to bear the consequences,\" Mattis said during the unannounced visit to the Pentagon's press room.\nMattis said that the US military would be able to determine \"within moments\" after launch whether or not a North Korean missile was headed for US territory, including Guam.\nHe later added that the US would \"take it out\" if the missile was determined to be headed for any US territory.\nBut he also made clear that while the military was poised to protect Guam from the North Korean military threat, a declaration of war was a decision that remains with President Donald Trump and Congress.\n\"War is up to the President, perhaps up to the Congress, the bottom line is we will defend the country from an attack, for us that's war, that's a wartime situation,\" he said in comments carried by the CNN.\n\"We will defend the country from any attack, at any time, from any quarter. Yes, that means for a lot of young troops they're going to be in a wartime situation, welcome to reality. But it's not declaring war, it's not that I'm over here Dr. Strangelove doing things like that,\" he added.\nGuam, a US territory in the Pacific, has emerged as a major security issue following North Korea's threats to fire missiles near Guam, home to US air and naval base.\nInitially Mattis declined to comment on how the US would react to a North Korean missile attack, saying the president had made it clear.\nLast week, the US defence secretary warned the North to \"cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people\", reported Yonhap news agency. But he has also emphasized the need to diplomatically resolve the standoff with the recalcitrant state.\nIn an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the Trump administration will aim to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula through diplomatic and economic pressure.\n\"While diplomacy is our preferred means of changing North Korea's course of action, it is backed by military options,\" they said.\nUS top military officer General Joseph Dunford said on Monday (Aug 14) the country is ready to make a \"decisive\" response to North Korea's possible attack near Guam, but its focus in dealing with the recalcitrant regime is placed on diplomatic efforts and economic pressure.\nGen Dunford, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the U.S. is seeking a peaceful resolution to the North Korea's nuclear and missile issue, according to a pool report.\n\"Our job is to make sure our leadership has an option available to them,\" Dunford told a group of reporters in Seoul. \"I believe there are two things we are clear about: One, our responsibility to defend against attack, two, our requirement to make sure we have a decisive response in the event of attack.\"\n\"We are capable of defending them (American and Korean people) right now, against limited attacks and certainly are prepared to be strong in case of deterrent fails,\" he added. He arrived in South Korea on Sunday for a two-day visit, the first leg of his tour to Asia which also includes stops in Japan and China.\nNorth Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Tuesday (Aug 15) North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been briefed on a plan to fire missiles near Guam. Kim said he will watch the actions of the United States for a while longer before making a decision, the KCNA report added.\nTensions have been mounting since the North tested two intercontinental ballistic missile tests last month, which appeared to bring much of the US within range.\nResponding to the tests, US President Trump warned Pyongyang of \"fire and fury like the world has never seen\". The North in turn threatened to test-fire its missiles towards the US Pacific island of Guam.\nThe war of words has sparked global alarm, with world leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping urging calm on both sides. South Korean President Moon Jae In also waded in on Monday, calling for calm in the standoff with North Korea, saying there should never be another war on the peninsula.\nPresident Trump is due to discuss the crisis with Japanese Prime Minister Abe in a phone call later Monday Washington time.\nThe US and South Korea will start their Ulchi-Freedom Guardian joint military exercises on Aug 21 and analysts have warned that North Korean is likely to time its next missile or nuclear test next week to signal its unhappiness with the drills, which Pyongyang view as preparations for an invasion.\nSeoul and Washington say the exercises are defensive in nature.", "By Steve Holland and Christine Kim\nU.S. President Donald Trump expressed hope on Friday that \"something good\" could come from North Korea's participation in the Winter Olympics in South Korea, even after Pyongyang warned it would not \"sit idle\" if Washington and Seoul resumed military exercises after the Games.\nTrump met North Korean defectors at the White House on Friday and said the Olympics could serve as an indicator as to whether the crisis over North Korea's development of nuclear weapons capable of hitting the United States could be resolved.\nNorth Korea has not tested a missile since November and resumed inter-Korean dialogue in January, leading to agreement on its Olympics participation and easing tensions after a year of escalating rhetoric between Pyongyang and Washington.\n\"It’s a very tricky situation,\" Trump told reporters. \"We’re going to find out how it goes. We think the Olympics will go very nicely and after that, who knows.”\nHe said he was not trying to send a message to North Korea by meeting the defectors. \"They were here and I said let’s tell your story.\"\nAsked if there was more Washington could do to resolve the problem, Trump said his administration was doing a lot but its options were limited given concessions by previous presidents.\n\"We ran out of road,\" he said. \"We have no road left. So we’ll see what happens but in the meantime, we’ll get through the Olympics and maybe something good can come out of the Olympics. Who knows?\"\nThe North-South talks, the first in two years, came after Washington and Seoul agreed to push back a routine military drill until after the Olympics and Paralympics. The Games begin next week and run until March 18.\nIn a letter to the United Nations published by North Korea's official news agency, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho warned against resuming the drills, which Pyongyang sees as practice for invasion.\nHe said that whenever the drills took place \"the peace and security of the Korean peninsula were gravely threatened and the inter-Korean mistrust and confrontation reached the top, thus creating great difficulties and obstacles ahead of hard-won dialogues\".\n\"We will make every effort to improve inter-Korean relations in future, too, but never sit idle with regard to sinister act of throwing a wet blanket over our efforts,\" Ri said.\nHe accused the United States of misleading public opinion by claiming that its pressure campaign, including \"their harshest sanctions\", had brought about the inter-Korean talks, when the\"dramatic turning point\" was thanks to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.\nIn a commentary on Friday, North Korea's state media said Washington was attempting to create a \"stage of confrontation\" at the Olympics by saying the inter-Korean talks and the positive results that had stemmed from them could \"disappear\" after the Games.\nThe Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment on the North Korean statement about the drills, but a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, Mike Cavey, said: \"The United States and our allies and partners in the region have long conducted routine exercises to maintain readiness. These exercises ensure we are trained for combined joint operations.\"\nTrump's administration has warned that all options are on the table, including military ones, to resolve the crisis.\nWhile it has repeatedly said it prefers a diplomatic solution, Trump has exchanged threats with Kim and U.S. officials have said the president and his advisers have discussed a preventative \"bloody nose\" strike on North Korea, alarming experts who warn that this could trigger catastrophic retaliation, especially on South Korea.\nU.S. officials have said the debate on military action has lost some momentum as a result of the intra-Korean talks, which Trump has called a \"good thing\" and credited to his tough stance.\nJoseph Yun, the U.S. special envoy on North Korea, said on Thursday he did not think the administration was close to triggering military action.\nThe White House said on Friday that Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe spoke by telephone and discussed an expanded missile defense system and other efforts to boost Japan's defenses amid the tensions over North Korea.\nTrump also spoke to South Korean President Moon Jae-in about human rights in North Korea and trade between the United States and South Korea, the White House said.\nNorth Korea also criticised U.S. Vice President Mike Pence's pending visit to the Olympics, accusing Washington of halting improvements in inter-Korean relations.\nLast month, a White House official said Pence planned to use his attendance to try to counter Kim Jong Un’s efforts to\"hijack\" the games with a propaganda campaign.\nTwenty-two North Korean athletes will compete in the Olympics, including 12 who will play in a unified women's ice hockey team. The other 10, including a figure skating pair, arrived in South Korea on Thursday.\nNorth Korea has also agreed with South Korea to send a 230-strong cheering squad, as well as an orchestra and taekwondo performance team.\nHowever, a joint cultural performance planned in a North Korean mountain resort was called off this week by Pyongyang, which blamed South Korean media for encouraging \"insulting\" public sentiment towards the North.\n© (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2018." ]

[ "A charity which helps seriously ill children and their families to take a break is on the way to buying its second holiday caravan." ]

[ "A British man has turned a £5,000 former Royal Navy helicopter into a caravan for people to stay in.", "Bahrain on Sunday pledged to donate 500 caravans to Syrian refugees in Jordan to improve their living conditions and provide them with adequate means to deal with the harsh weather.", "Towergate Bakers a leading UK caravan insurance provider, and Datatag, Europes leading asset marking company, have announced a new initiative to improve the security of all caravan owners in the UK.", "CLASSIC car enthusiasts are being sought by a charity to take part in a fundraising driving event.", "A CARAVAN site near Lythe, which claims to be one of the oldest in North Yorkshire, is set to double in size.", "SUN-backed charity Help for Heroes is about to hit the high street for the first time.", "A Councillor is gearing up for a charity run today to raise money for the Harrow Law Centre.", "VOLUNTEERS are urgently needed to help out at the Children's Society charity shop on Outram Street in Sutton.", "Business is booming at caravan parks in Leicestershire as holidaymakers swap foreign shores for the great outdoors.", "A charity is giving Hornets fans the chance to pull on the yellow of Watford and play at Vicarage Road.", "Three tigers have escaped from their cages in a circus caravan in southwestern Mexico.", "FIREFIGHTERS are getting set to make a splash for cash to support a charity close to their hearts.", "Christmas is a time for giving and what better way is there to share the Christmas spirit than by donating to a Charity of your choice.", "A TRADITIONAL gipsy caravan has been stolen from the back garden of a property in Pound Hill, Little Dunmow.", "A CHARITY has splashed out on new watersports kits after a cash boost from a heating oil supplier.", "Sukitz suckers started a Twitter war on May 7 between your favorite celebrities in a competition to raise money for charity by having their followers buy lollipops.", "WALKERS are wanted for a charity event that will see 200 people walk 1,000 miles between them at Shipley Country Park.", "A major search and rescue operation is under way after a swimmer has gone missing in a charity race according to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.", "A COUPLE are preparing to travel 10,000 miles across Europe when they join the sponsored Mongol charity rally.", "AROUND 35 walkers put their best feet forward for a charity trek from Mablethorpe to Alford on Saturday, raising over £700 for Cancer Research.", "Lady Gaga has revealed that she's using the country version of her song 'Born this way' to raise money for an anti-bullying charity.", "A KESSINGLAND man has been charged with burglary after a television was stolen from a caravan on a holiday park.", "A BARRY charity shop that enables people with learning disabilities to gain retail experience, is appealing for donations from Barry's residents.", "The online group buying market has reached $155m in the last quarter, with average transaction amounts on the rise and LivingSocial leading the way.", "CHILDREN and adults of all ages and abilities ran, jogged, walked and wheeled their way around three different courses as part of a massive charity event in Malvern.", "A COUPLE from Kidderminster will be trekking to Peru in aid of Acorns Children's Hospice in Worcester.", "A suspected thief has reportedly tried to steal a caravan while its new owners were still in the back of the vehicle.", "DONATIONS are still being sought for a charity stall to raise funds for the African drought appeal.", "The Allentown afghans, a fundraiser for the Women's Association of Allentown, are once again available for purchase.", "A HAMPSHIRE grandfather is almost 900 miles into his 1,200-mile walk across Britain in the name of charity.", "As a way to help consumers make reasonable buying decisions, ChinaBuye announces its top 10 gadgets in 2013.", "STAFF at Sainsbury's in Kidderminster raised £350 for charity in one day, by delivering shopping to customers cars." ]

[ "With a fixed rate, whether market prices go up or down, yours will remain the same. With a capped rate, prices will change in line with the market, but will not go over a set limit. So if market prices go down, your rate will go down, but if market prices go up, your rate will not rise above the cap." ]

[ "What is the fundamental difference between a fixed-price and a cost-plus contract? On fixed-price contracts the cost is set in advance while for cost-plus contracts it is established after the project is completed.", "Ofgem raised price cap last week due to higher wholesale energy costs. E. On is the first energy supplier to announce bills will rise after the energy price cap was hiked by regulator Ofgem last week. The supplier is set to raise gas and electricity prices by 10 per cent for 1.8 million customers from 1 April.", "Lump sum — or fixed price — and cost-based contracts are the two main players in this arena, the latter of which is the basis for the cost-plus-fee with a guaranteed maximum price contract, or GMP. ... There is a cap on how much the owner will pay the contractor, and this cap is the guaranteed maximum price.", "What Is the Exercise Price? ... The exercise price is the same as the strike price of an option, which is known when an investor takes a trade. An option gets its value from the difference between the fixed exercise price and the market price of the underlying security.", "What is the difference between electric force and electric energy? It's the same as the difference between force and energy in any other context. ... The energy provided is then the force times the distance moved.", "What is the difference between market capitalization and net worth of the company? ... Net Worth: This is an actual value of company the difference between net tangible assets minus liabilities. Market Cap: The market cap is the number of outstanding shares traded in the market multiplied by the stock price.", "What is the difference between a codependent and an empath? ... Codependents are obsessed with fixing and helping other people. Empaths can have codependent tendencies but not all codependents are empaths. Empaths absorb the energy of others and the world into their bodies.", "The TDSP charges can be proportionately larger if you use less energy. Because there are fixed components, they are associated with the cost to deliver your power. It can cost more to deliver your electricity. And more to serve your meter than to pay for the actual electricity itself.", "What is the difference between a fixed grid and a fluid grid? In the fixed grid the dimensions are on pixels, In Fluid are on percentages to the wide of the screen.", "['What are the different types of mortgages?', 'Fixed rate mortgages.', 'Variable rate mortgages.', 'Standard variable rate (SVR)', 'Discount mortgages.', 'Tracker mortgages.', 'Capped rate mortgages.', 'Offset mortgages.']", "A cap-and-trade system necessarily harms the economy because it is designed to raise the cost of energy. Given the current economic crisis, an expensive energy policy is a bad idea. ... A cap-and-trade system is simply a mechanism to put a price on emissions in order to compel businesses and consumers to emit less.", "SSE fixed tariffs However, your bill might change, depending on how much energy you use. SSE fixed tariffs have a £25 per fuel exit fee if you leave before the end of the fixed period.", "If you're on a fixed tariff and wholesale energy prices increase, or your supplier announces a price rise, your unit rates won't change. ... Fixed rate tariffs can be good value and cheaper than variable rate tariffs (although not always, so do your research).", "The operating leverage formula is calculated by multiplying the quantity by the difference between the price and the variable cost per unit divided by the product of quantity multiplied by the difference between the price and the variable cost per unit minus fixed operating costs.", "Know what price you should pay to get your vehicle fixed. The average cost for a horn replacement is between $141 and $159. Labor costs are estimated between $65 and $83 while parts are priced at $76.", "Pros: In a market where electricity prices are rising, a fixed rate plan will save you the most money. Even if electricity prices go up, you'll be able to keep paying the lower price on your contract until it expires. One of the biggest benefits of fixed rate plans is that they provide consistency and reliability.", "What is the relationship between the energy differences of the orbits in an atom and the light emitted by the atom? The energy difference between orbits is equal to the sum of the energies of photons emitted by an electron going from one orbit to the other.", "When it comes to dissecting your energy bill, there are two very different fees that you will see: supply rates and delivery rates. ... Supply charges cover the actually energy itself. Meanwhile, the delivery charges cover the infrastructure used to transfer the energy from its original source to your home.", "The only difference between a #10 cap and a #11 cap is the length of the skirt on the cap. The #10 caps are longer.", "Know what price you should pay to get your vehicle fixed. The average cost for a window switch replacement is between $225 and $270. Labor costs are estimated between $42 and $54 while parts are priced between $183 and $216.", "Variable costs vary with increases or decreases in production. Fixed costs remain the same, whether production increases or decreases. Wages paid to workers for their regular hours are a fixed cost.", "Fixed costs will be similar to those in a manufacturing facility. Administrative wages, rent, property taxes and utilities are all going to be fixed. These will exist whether the retail store sells one item or thousands! So all business operations will have fixed and variable costs.", "Know what price you should pay to get your vehicle fixed. The average cost for a wheel replacement is between $752 and $764. Labor costs are estimated between $44 and $56 while parts are priced at $708 .", "Know what price you should pay to get your vehicle fixed. The average cost for a clutch cable replacement is between $146 and $178. Labor costs are estimated between $68 and $86 while parts are priced between $78 and $92 .", "Chegg.com. What is the difference between the supply and the quantity supplied of a product, say milk? ... Supply is a relationship between range of prices and quantity supplied at those prices. Supply of milk is the relationship between the different prices of milk and quantity supplied at those prices.", "The main difference in a cost-plus versus a fixed price contract is the budget. Cost-plus contracts have no set spending limit, the contractor purchases the materials and receives reimbursement plus a fee. Fixed-pricing sets a specific dollar amount for a project.", "Fixed costs are constant regardless of activity level, variable costs change proportionately with output and mixed costs are a combination of both.", "What is the difference between the demand and the quantity demanded of a product, say milk? ... Demand is a relationship between range of prices and quantity demanded at those prices. Demand of milk is the relationship between the different prices of milk and quantity demanded at those prices.", "What Is The Difference Between Heat And Temperature? ... [Heat Is The Transfer Of Thermal Energy And Temperature Is The Measurement Of That Energy Transfer] B.", "['Fixed cost = Highest activity cost – (Variable cost per unit x Highest activity units)', 'Fixed cost = Lowest activity cost – (Variable cost per unit x Lowest activity units)', 'Cost model = Fixed cost + Variable cost x Unit activity.']", "Know what price you should pay to get your vehicle fixed. The average cost for a battery cable replacement is between $260 and $294. Labor costs are estimated between $76 and $97 while parts are priced between $184 and $197.", "Fixed costs in total does not change within a relevant range as the level of output increases or decreases, whereas variable costs in total vary in direct proportion to changes in output within a relevant range." ]

[ "it looked like a good idea. But, when the package only comes 1/3 full its hard to know what this would have been like" ]

[ "It was a good idea. The characters were good. I liked the idea of the story, it just didn't flow.", "Sounds good, looks good and everything, but the idea of putting a sticker on it maybe wasn't a good idea, it should be printed on, like the primos mouse squeaker. Other than that, good product", "Seems like a good idea, then it gets to your door and you realize why it was so cheap....don't do it.", "But this is a great on a fresh idea, thanks for the original idea and I look forward to more.", "Weird item. Looks like a good idea but no instructions included and parts were missing. They may make good paperweights. Returned item.", "Purchased for a trip. Seemed like a good idea....but it just didn't work for me. Gave it a packing try...left the pouches at home.", "Seems like it would be a good idea, but our resident rodents didn't take to it. The product we ended up with that worked is the Raticator.", "I gave it two stars because i think its a good idea, but it was just a piece of cheap plastic with suction cups on it.. could've fabricated something better myself", "I had to return this top because the style made me look huge on top. It was too short also. Good idea, but not so good results. The print was nice.", "It's a great product. I like the idea of cord management. Really looks good on the \"Touch\".", "This looks like a decent product, but way overpriced. Looking at the parts here gives me ideas to build my own hinge system with parts from Home Depot though. The car lift supports are a good idea, they are about $15 here on amazon for one.", "Great idea - kind of pricy.......may look into alternatives but I sure like the idea. Great with dogs who have bladder problems.", "It seemed like a good idea. But the plastic is too thick to easily fit between the tubes (into the fitting) to release it. I struggled for 30 minutes, then finally took out the grinder to thin the plastic and it finally worked. By the metal tool instead and save yourself trouble.", "It looks really good but it never came so for that it was a bad thing -.- but\nIt' looks cool and great for a party.. *~*", "The bottles look good, and worked well for the magnetic spice rack situation we had in mind. The labels were a good idea, but they should probably be a bit bigger. That said, I'm happy enough that I'm probably going to buy another dozen to finish the project.", "It was a gift no idea what to review. but looks good and the person who got is happy.", "Great concept, but I am a DD and it didn't work as planned. I intend on trying the winged version, as that may give more support.", "It looks like a good design but when I received it I saw one flaw with the case. Once you place the cards inside the slide compartment they are very difficult to take out. Specially for someone like me with short nails. Overall great idea but with an execution flaw. I ended up returning it.", "I was looking for more science activities to do with my children. this is a good book for ideas to do with your kids.", "Looks cool. A great idea but it doesnt work. I can only type in the default key code once Anytime after that, I put it in and it just beeps like crazy then goes into its 2 min. Lock out. Still trying to get it to work but things aren't looking good.", "Good concept in theory but poor execution. Too much fabric that made it looked disheveled versus relaxed cool (which is what I had hoped).", "Looks great! A little too early to try it out. Summer is still here.", "I like the idea but will not hold my canon 5D mark II without any lens other than kit lens. Good idea, bad design on the brake mechanism. Would work good with a point and shoot or a GoPro.", "FIRST I INSTALLED LED'S AND DECIDED SOME KIND OF PROTECTION MIGHT BE A GOOD IDEA. THESE WORK WELL\n\nAND LOOK GOOD ON MY 2013 SAHARA. EASY INSTALL.", "Felt a little cheap in the hand but the price was right and looks pretty cool", "It looks good and the mechanism works ok. The only issue is the belt needs to be longer as the attachment starts too far from the end of the belt.", "My daughters love these sets and I have purchased several for birthday and holiday gifts. Great for both horse lovers and budding artists. The quality is good and the horses are a nice size. My kids love the idea of painting these to look like their favorite horse.", "Looks good to me. Didn't used it for all day, but will keep my opinion for next vacations", "looks great but worried supports could be a bit flimsy...we shall see with time;0", "It was great! Putting it together was fuj and simple too. I like the look of it too!", "Bought this book for wife.... Loves it... Very informative, amazing recipes. Good for any one looking to have great recipes ideas that is on 21 day fix, or looking to eat heathy", "It was just one of those stupid ideas you have with a co-worker or friend where you're like \"WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT IF...\" that usually end with everyone committing to or agreeing to it and then there never being any follow through... well This one happened and it was just the best decision ever. The image is CLEAR i was very worried about it being blurry or the color being awful but they turned out awesome! Now astro cat will play for us the symphony of space each day." ]

[ "National Football League" ]

[ "what economists do", "What I Do", "What I Might Do", "What I Do the Best", "plays", "What Do You Got?", "what's a guy gotta do", "play", "What I Need To Do", "DOS", "Do It to It", "What Would You Do?", "What I Can Do for You", "What She's Doing Now", "bottlenose dolphin", "Play On", "Miami", "Dolphin Records", "Common dolphin", "What Does It Do to Your Heart", "striped dolphin", "oceanic dolphin", "Do", "a dog and a dolphin", "Gangetic dolphin", "The Dolphin's Cry", "Dolphin Cove", "spinner dolphin", "Maui's dolphin", "Playing with Fire", "How Do You Keep the Music Playing?", "Play age" ]

[ "For some reason the big box home improvement stores don't carry the cheaper disposers, and they are only available online. What's up with that? After trying twice to order from HD online (first they didn't process it, then they scheduled delivery 3 months out), I ordered this for the same price and free immediate delivery. The ratings for this also were better than the HD model I was trying to buy.\nEasy to install, and works fine, and is very quiet. Unless you are trying to grind bones or other weird stuff, it should be fine for you." ]

[ "They're fine. My feet are wide so it's going to be a challenge to buy good shoes that work well. I'm keeping them, so they're not terrible. Super comfortable to wear for hours, that's not a question. They're just not as nice looking on me as I'd like. The top straps had to be adjusted a lot to fit my feet.", "I love words and making them work somewhere. Scrabble allows me to team with my daughter and she is super good.", "Beware! YouTube is not available on Roku!\n\nThe device is working great. However, set up was not smooth.\n\nI could not get it to connect to my WiFi because mine is a Hotspot router that requires both a User and a Pass. So I had to buy the XS instead of the XD just to hook it using an Ethernet cable, which ended up cost me another 30 bucks.\n\nAlso, it has very limited format support for media on your USB drive. The application store also takes ages to load (I have a super fast connection).\n\nI am starting to regret buying it.", "Super excited to unexpectedly see a photo of my uncle, Dave Thornbury in here :) A friend sent me the link and I had to buy it. I grew up there, and really miss it. Loved all the photos!", "Don't bother buying these window candles. I was so excited to get them for our new house but when they arrived only two worked. Obviously, the batteries that come with them are super cheap. So I switched those batteries out for a better brand. 6 of them still didn't work. I will be returning them as soon as possible.", "Broke within two weeks. scratched SUPER easily and ruined the experience. DON'T BUY", "Super disappointed in the size, no child over 5 has teeth this tiny, didn't fit securely or snuggly. Will NOT buy again.", "I got this mandoline with with two purposes in mind - cucumber salad, where the cucumbers have to be sliced very thinly, and yakisoba, which has lots of julienned veggies in it. I picked this particular mandoline because of its price, high rating, and dishwasher safeness. It was one of my best kitchen purchases ever.\nThis mandoline comes with three different inserts for a total of 6 different styles - thick slice, thin slice, super thin, thick julienne, thin julienne, and super thin julienne. My favorites are the super thin one, for cucumbers, and the thin julienning blade for veggies going into everything from soups to stir-frys. The blades are super sharp and it is really easy to cut veggies with. I've cut cucumber, carrot, celery, and bell peppers with it. The little vegetable holder is handy, though it won't work with smaller veggies, they just fall out. I like the storage container since it gives me a safe place to store the blades.\nThis is the first mandoline I have every owned/operated and I must say I am very pleased. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to buy a mandoline.", "They are super super cute but too short for me! I am 5' 10\" and they don't go high enough. Just barely over my knee :(", "We love these pajamas. They are super cute and soft. They do run a little small and I recommend buying one size up.", "These are awesome! We buy already shucked, jarred oysters and create various chargrilled recipes. Delicious and super easy clean up!", "Terrible product. After 1 year this expensive ceiling fan light no longer works. Contacted the manufacturer who told me I need to buy a new one. The cheaper ceiling fans in the house are working fine. DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT", "Do not buy kindle version!!! The kindle version does not work on any device. After buying this book i spent two hours with customer service to get it to work until they told me there was an known issue with this tittle and that they would let me know when it was fixed. This was weeks ago and still I have heard nothing. A total waste of money." ]

[ "Harold Macmillan" ]

[ "John F. Kennedy Expressway", "Prime Minister of Thailand", "John F. Kennedy Stadium", "Prime Minister's Office", "Prime Minister's residence", "Prime Minister of Pakistan", "the Prime Minister of Georgia", "the Prime Minister's Ministry", "Prime Minister of Spain", "Prime Minister's Trophy", "Prime Minister of Bengal", "prime minister's department", "Mets", "fourth Prime Minister of Israel", "Deputy Prime Minister", "43rd Prime Minister of Italy", "Office of the Deputy Prime Minister", "a robbery at John F. Kennedy International Airport", "John F. Kennedy Space Center", "Prime Minister of France", "the Met", "the Right Honorable Prime Minister", "prime minister Manmohan singh", "The resignation or death of the prime minister", "John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts", "Prime Minister Narendra Modi", "Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau", "the Prime Minister and Cabinet portfolio", "John F. Mackie", "John F. Donovan", "John F. Fitzgerald", "primes" ]

[ "Spud is a fun outdoor game for children. It's not only fun, but is a great form of exercise! And it's a very simple game, too. All you need to play spud is at least 5 people!" ]

[ "The humble spud isn't just nutritious–-it's also an artistic tool! Turning a potato into a printing tool lets you make all sorts of fun and fanciful designs on your clothing.", "Everyone loves to eat potatoes, but firing them out of a cannon can be just as fulfilling. Also known as a spudzooka, potato gun, potato cannon and Spud Gun, this is a fun project that demonstrates the principles of physics.", " Want to play badminton but have nowhere to play? Here's a fun idea and a solution to that problem. ", " Tried of play CTF or Slayer then learn a fun way to play a game. ", "Preparing mashed potatoes in a slow cooker is a great way to cook your potatoes while you do other things. Once you return to the kitchen and the potatoes are soft, you can mash the spuds and add your ingredients.", " Wanna play with your \"Little Einsteins\" plush Rocket? Here are some games you can both play. ", "A spud gun is a piece of pipe that can shoot potatoes from great distances. Constructing and firing one can be a lot of fun, and it doesn’t require many parts.", "If you’re a spud lover, baked potatoes are probably a favorite. What could beat that? Answer: twice-baked potatoes! New potatoes, which are picked young, before they have a chance to grow starchy, are ideal for this thanks to their creamy texture when cooked.", " Solitaire is a one-player game that can be played on a computer or with standard 52 playing cards. This wikiHow will teach you how to play it. ", "A game of dexterity and patience that makes a good physically active indoors game when wet or cold outside. It can also be played outdoors as wished.", " \nAn amusing game for children is one in which each player is to make some sort of animal out of vegetables or fruit, and toothpicks. ", " Nintendogs...a great game to play with virtual puppies. How to play? This is the Nintendogs' Guide. ", "Make a pizza place in Animal Jam to serve pizzas to fellow players and have fun playing pizza pie chef. Or, maybe you'd rather be a waiter or a pizza customer.", " \nA traditional and much loved children's game that can be played indoors and out. ", "Learning to play guitar is loads of fun, though playing chords may seem a little intimidating at first. Fear not, it is not much different than playing single notes: you're just playing them all at once!", " A fun hand game to play by yourself or with a friend! ", " Play Per Play Audio Ads (PP, Per play) are a new form of advertising that generates a revenue stream for websites. ", "In many arcades, there's a little simple looking game called Iceball or SkeetBall. The object of the game is to roll a ball down a short track (like bowling) and get it into one of the holes that are each numbered according to the difficulty of getting the ball into it.", " Playing a mage is easy, playing a GOOD mage is hard! ", "If you're reading this, you are probably in an intense game of Sporks. If you don't know what that is, here's the quick overview: Everyone gets a spork and a target.", "Making play dough is really fun and easy to do. Kids love to play with play dough, and making it at home can be a wonderful way for parents and children to bond.", " Pick it pies and scrummy, and if you 'pick it' correctly, healthy to! ", "Everyone likes to play vintage games on their mobile gaming device. However, there is a difference between liking to play a game and actually playing a game.", " This wikihow will show you how to play play Battlefield 2 with skill and style. ", " Do you want to look like a chav for a school play, or just for fun? If so, read on! ", " Playing Drums on Guitar Hero World Tour is more easy that it looks. I'll teach you how to play expert, even if you are always playing on easy. ", "Have the need for a good laugh? Looking for something to do with a group of friends? Need a little revenge on that person who spilled their salad on you last week?", "Playing with a kitten is important. Kittens need to play for exercise and to prevent boredom. Playing with your kitten can also help your kitten bond with you.", "Jelly Blobs of Doom can be a really fun game if you know how to play well and aren't taunted by those larger jellies that swallow you up before you have a chance to shine.", " So you want to play punk drums. Whether you want to play in a band or just play along with your favorite songs. You're at the right place.\\ ", " Do you want a fun game to play with some of your friends? This simple and fun game is for you! ", " Starting playing Backyard Monsters and don't know what to do? Well this article will tell you how to start off, and understand basic game-play. " ]

[ "Tuesday. Not as much to do as Monday so not as busy. But still nowhere near Friday" ]

[ "\"What's the worst that could happen?\"", "On average humans live 4000 weeks give or take. For nearly 3000 of those weeks you will be working 5 days a week.", "All of my worst days are behind me", "I don't know what the worst day of my life was but my girlfriend broke up with me today", "Yes, during the 70's you could only buy gas on given days of the week. It is what lead to the US stockpiling oil.", "28 Weeks/Days Later", "you have a coworker come up to you 'Hey, man, the boss asked me to take your shift tomorrow. And the day after that. And all the rest of this week. What's going on with you?'\n\nruh-roh", "45 minutes of exercise to start the day, 6 days a week", "Working 11.5 hour days six days a week", "Declare a 4-day work week", "A 5 day work week.", "No, but that's part of what would make it the worst food", "What's the worst question you've seen here on Askreddit?", "Certified freak, 7 days a week", "Worst thing is you die.", "Work 9 to 5, 5 days a week.", "”You are The worst childrapist in The world!”", "Day trading. I’ll be a billionaire next week.", "You were... you were the worst", "Work expands to fill all available time so if you have 4 days worth of work stretched over 5 you've got employees wasting 8 hours they could spend resting and enjoying themselves. \n\nAnd I can only speak for myself but when I was working 3.5 day weeks (12 hour days, 3 days week A, 4 week B) I was in love with my schedule, you can't utilize a work day the same as a day off.", "1pm-1:01pm one day a week. 20 vacation days a year", "Vote Trump? What’s the worst thing that could happen.", "My worst symptom was lack of energy. I got over it a week ago and I’m still physically drained.", "What are the winning powerball numbers for next week.", "Chili is the best when it is a day old, it is the worst when it has been in the fridge for a year.", "The ability to give one life altering compliment a day. People would love you after a few weeks.", "multiple times a week isnt problem, multiple times a day is", "Even on the worst day I could help my best friend smile.", "If you do this, you are the worst of the worst. Everyone around you hates you. And if you suddenly needed help, no one would offer it. Stop doing this.", "Number of repeated askReddit questions. Compare questions per day across days, weeks, months and years.", "The worst days of my life were those when my parents died.", "Yeah this has literally nothing to do with politics. I don’t care what side you’re on. People like you are the worst." ]

[ "I've never heard of this. If i'm not mistaken, Gearbox released a update where the stats of the Seraph Weapons would be increased.\n\nThere were some complaints on how weak those guns are. Considering that there are purple weapons with higher stats, 120 seraph crystals for one seraph weapon? Not a fair trade, in my opinion. I'd do some legendary weapons farming instead.\n\nI know there's the thrill on killing some raid bosses, but sometimes it could be very frustating, specially if you're playing solo." ]

[ "If they remember how to do it, they can create weapons.\n\nAlso, at some point they can try to create things they don't remember (for example, the cannon at guild basement).\n\nProbably, one or two people from the guild remember weapons, and they instruct the others.\n\nFor creating skills (power, abilities, body weapons), they need to know how to code and have a computer. They can get a computer from the computer room #1, but they also need the Angel Player software and a programmer (and apparently, only Takeyama knows how to do it).\n\nAlso, you don't know if the Angel Player is a software from the afterlife, or a software created by Tenshi. Maybe, the software itself is more difficult to create.\n\nLastly, if I remember correctly, Tenshi is the longest afterlife inhabitant.", "You could have your power supply as 2 parts:\n\nA super-capacitor that, once fully charged, can power one shot from the pistol. \n\nA battery. The battery provides a slow trickle of power to the super-capacitor that takes however long you want to want it to to power up the next shot. Say, 30 seconds. \n\nYour battery pack can supply 1, 6 or more shots depending on how you want the mechanics to work. \n\nOne important question you'll need to answer is, if you need to change clips as often as with a normal pistol why they don't just use normal gunpowder pistols. Perhaps the advantages of being able to recharge ammo for free back at base is a big enough advantage. \n\nYou'd also expect someone who can hook their weapon into a more powerful power supply to be able to fire a lot more shots per minute unless you want to make the weapon prone to overheating.", "You're right there is a difference in power but you can't find that information in-game. There are a few damage charts around the net that give a very detailed look at each weapons damage and how effects like range and suppression change it. \n\nHere is a very detailed chart and there's a simpler one here.\n\nAt the bottom of the detailed chart it also talks about how various ammo types effect the shotguns.", "No.\n\nThis is bonus damage, and two bonuses from the same named gamed element don't stack. More importantly though, there is a little known clause in the first adventurer's vault that says you can't use the second vanguard weapon on the charge:\n\n\n Many weapons have properties that provide a constant benefit. To gain the benefit of a weapon’s property, you must be wielding the weapon. Unless specified otherwise, a property affects only the weapon to which it’s attached. For example, a +2 cunning dagger, which bestows a –2 penalty to an enemy’s saving throws against your weapon powers, affects only powers that are delivered using that weapon. You couldn’t hold the weapon in your off-hand and gain the benefit of the property on powers delivered using a main weapon. (AV 56, Emphasis mine)\n\n\nI've expounded a lot more on this particular sentence in this answer. But that's neither here nor there really, the two wouldn't stack even without that as they are the same game identified source.", "Yes\nIf you need to be attacking with an item in order to get benefits from its properties, those properties will always explicitly say so. Some examples of items like that include the Flaming Weapon and the Thunder Wand.\n\nFlaming Weapon +1\nPower (At-Will * Fire): Free Action. All untyped damage dealt by this weapon changes to fire damage. Another free action returns the damage to normal.\n\nItalics emphasis added.\n\nThunder Wand +1\nProperty: Gain a +1 item bonus to damage rolls when you use this wand to attack with a power that has the implement and thunder keywords.\n\nItalics emphasis added\nThe property of the Staff of Sleep and Charm has no such requirement, and thus it applies even when wielded in the off-hand, without requiring you to attack with it. It's very popular in character optimization for certain classes and builds (e.g. Bards, Enchanter Wizards) because of this.\n\nStaff of Sleep and Charm +1\nProperty: You gain a +1 item bonus to attack rolls with arcane charm or sleep attack powers.\n\nNote that the properties of any weapon or implement will still only function while the item is wielded (i.e. held in one or both hands like a weapon), even if they don't require you to attack with them, unless stated otherwise. Enhancement bonuses and critical bonus damage depend on the weapon being used to attack, as well as any applicable weapon or superior implement properties.", "Technically speaking, that'd be the Dreamseeker. Obtained after defeating the Dream Devourer, it boasts an attack power of 240 (to Rainbows 220), and crit rate of 90% (Rainbow's crit chance is 70%). In order to obtain it, you'll need to defeat the Dream Devourer, let the credits roll, and create a new save file. When you start your next New Game+, Chrono will have the weapon.\n\nPractically however, since Attack Power caps at 255, you may find other weapons with different effects to be more desirable once you're at a level of power at which you can acquire the Dreamseeker in the first place.", "The way it works is that when the power is triggered, the Priest causes extra damage against enemies of his or her God.\nBecause damage is determined by a D6 roll on the specific weapon combat table, a normal hit will roll one D6, the STAMINA damage inflicted will be read from the table and that applied to the target. Armour may reduce that damage.\nWith this power active, the priest can roll two separate D6's. Both of these are read on the weapon combat table and both STAMINA damages added together before being reduced by armour and applied to the target.\nIf the priest has a power or spell that grants a +1 to their damage roll, this will apply to both D6's.", "As far as can be told, none of the (program) characters that we meet in the world of the Matrix (The Oracle, The Architect, The Agents, Seraph, The Keymaker, The Merovingian and his henchmen) have a hardware component, with the possible exception of Rama Kandra who's a\n\n\n power plant systems manager for recycling operations.\n\n\nThe giant floating head (made up of lots of slaved flying units) seen at the end of The Matrix Revolutions is the Deus Ex Machina, a sort of interactive system allowing visitors to the Machine City to interact directly with the Machine Mainframe. This God-head doesn't seem to be under the direct control of the Architect, any more than it controls the other programs we see.", "Magic weapon (and all its runed varieties) has a pretty distinctive glow, and when the glow fades, so too has the buff.\n\nBut you shouldn't even need to keep track of it. Magic Weapon costs a measly 25 arcane power, which is 2.5 seconds worth of regen or less! I think the real solution is to get in the habit of casting Magic Weapon at the end of every fight, because there's no reason not to refresh the duration. \n\nBetween frequent recasting and the buff's 5-minute duration, you'll never have to worry about letting the buff drop.\n\nAnd for the future, the 1.0.3 patch will add in a buff timer (point 7).\n\n\n We're adding a buff icon for Magic Weapon in 1.0.3. We don't intend to add one for Familiar as it's a physically visible object on your screen. Magic Weapon was actually impossible to tell if it was up in quite a few cases. We'll be continuing to watch skills and buff icons, though, as there could be some situations where we need to expose more.", "Your upgrades made your power demands exceed your available power when you deployed your hardpoints. When you're equipping a ship you can see what the power draw will be with hardpoints deployed and without hardpoints deployed. If your power utilization goes over the available power from your power plant, then the ship will shut down the lowest priority systems.\n\nThe first thing you can do is pay attention to your power when you're equipping your ship.\n\nWhen outfitting, the lower right of the screen shows various stats. The \"Retracted\" power use is when your hardpoints aren't in use, the \"deployed\" power use is when your hardpoints are deployed, and the \"available\" is what your power plant can give you.\n\nThis particular screenshot shows me evaluating a weapons upgrade that would raise my hardpoints deployed power utilization just over my total available power. Note that the red color is just what's used when that stat goes up; you have to actually read the numbers to know that it's gone over the available power.\n\n\n\n\n But that laser is awesome and I still want to use it! Can I still do that?\n\n\nYes. You need to pick some things to shut down when you deploy hardpoints. You'll still get a dire warning, but only things you decided were non-essential will get shut down.\n\nIn fact, even if you don't want to equip more stuff than you can fully power, it's a good idea to set your module priorities, since it's possible to take damage in combat that reduces your power capacity.\n\nUse the 4 to switch to the Systems panel of your cockpit, use Q/E to switch to Modules, W/S to select a particular module, and A/D to change the priorities. I suggest putting your thrusters in the highest priority (1), and putting the Cargo Hatch, Frame Shift Drive, Discovery Scanner and anything else you only want to use while docked or in frame shift into the lowest priority.\n\nIn this example, you can see that I have the Cargo Hatch at the lowest priority (4), thrusters and a low-power-draw weapon at the highest priority (1), other things essential during combat (shields, power distribution, another weapon) at the second priority (2), and things that would be really nice to have, but I can do without for a while (kill warrant scanner and life support) at priority 3.\n\nNote that the list is sorted by how much power each module draws (the percentage), and that there's a graph on the bottom that gives you a good idea how much power utilization is assigned to each priority level.\n\nA note on life support: If your life support goes out, you have an emergency oxygen supply that you can use for a while. It's possible to buy a life support upgrade that gets you a longer emergency oxygen supply.\n\n\n\nAfter a lot more practice with running too much stuff on too little power plant, here's how I'm setting my module priorities:\n\n\nAnything required when running from a fight. Thrusters, shields, sensors, chaff launcher, heat sink launcher, shield booster, etc.\nAnything required for engaging in combat: weapons, power distributor, etc.\nAnything nice to have in combat: life support, kill warrant scanner, etc.\nFrame Shift Drive. If I have to, I'll put shield cells here, too.\nAnything that's only useful in supercruise or with hardpoints retracted: FSD interdictor, fuel scoop, cargo hatch, docking computer.\n\n\nAs long as my power plant can power the first 3 priorities, I'm fine. If it can't power down to priority 4, it just means I have to retract my hardpoints and wait an extra second before I can frameshift away. If I don't have power for shield cells and put them into priority 4, that's not too bad, since when I need shield cells I'm usually fleeing not shooting. If my power plant is damaged, the 1,2,3 ordering still helps. If I can't power priority 3 with hardpoints deployed, I can always go into the modules panel and shut down my most power hungry weapons while doing a warrant scan, and then turn the weapon back on once I've finished scanning.", "I assume you are talking about the Photon Overcharge ability that in Heart of the Swarm allowed your Nexus to shoot nearby enemies.\n\nIn Legacy of the Void, this ability was changed to be placed on pylons instead of the Nexus.\n\nThe ability now reads:\n\n\n Energizes the target Pylon's khaydarin crystal, turning it into a powerful long-range weapon for 11 seconds that deals 30 damage.\n\n\nNote also that the range has been shortened in Legacy of the Void to 7.", "The literal theme seems to be : Celestial beings have a happy 'life', but mortals (humans) have a difficult life.\n\nSeraphic relates to Seraphs - a type of celestial being or angel. In this song we hear how they have nothing to worry about (Dreaming without a care), are strong and powerful (Might in their blazing eyes...Undying flames inside) and are never sad (Sorrowless the days of gods) and have really pretty things to look at (Amidst the everblooming groves).\n\nWe (humans) on the other hand can never feel safe and rested (where do we lay our heads to rest? Where do we shelter when the night falls?), Have no idea what we are doing (Dashing towards the void; Whirling blindly through the night) and our existence is ultimately meaningless (fade away/Down into the unknown).\n\nOf course it could be a metaphor for some other groups of lucky and unlucky people.", "The only reference in Scripture to the seraphim is in the book of Isaiah (though the apocryphal Book of Enoch makes several references to the seraphim as well):\n\nAbove him [God] stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: &quot;Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!&quot; And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: &quot;Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!&quot; Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: &quot;Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.&quot;\n(Isaiah 6:2-7 ESV)\n\nAccording to the translation notes of the NET Bible:\n\n[The] Hebrew שָׂרָף (saraf, &quot;seraph&quot;) literally means &quot;burning one,&quot; perhaps suggesting that these creatures had a fiery appearance (cf. TEV, CEV &quot;flaming creatures&quot;; NCV &quot;heavenly creatures of fire&quot;). Elsewhere in the OT the word &quot;seraph&quot; refers to poisonous snakes (Num_21:6; Deu_8:15; Isa_14:29; Isa_30:6). Perhaps they were called &quot;burning ones&quot; because of their appearance or the effect of their venomous bites, which would cause a victim to burn up with fever. It is possible that the seraphs seen by Isaiah were at least partially serpentine in appearance.\n\nThere may be indirect references to the seraphim in other passages, such as Psalm 104:4 (Hebrews 1:7): &quot;He makes His messengers winds; His ministers a flaming fire.&quot; It has been speculated that Satan was a seraph because he has been described as a serpent.", "Vampirism on equipment works the same way as the vampire rune. After each kill you get 2 hp back. These effects stack with other weapons and runes.\n\nSee this answer for more information about vampire, siphon, &amp; balance runes.", "A fully detailed description of the dynasty weapon (and each of its 5 leveled abilities) can be seen (counterintuitively) on the Dynasty Hero screen, under the middle sub-tab.\n\nThis sub-menu lists all your currently unlocked dynasty weapons, progress towards leveling each of them, and the ability granted each level.\n\nRight-clicking the ability will cause a description of it to appear. Not sure if this is applicable while in a game, but it's readily available from the main menu, at least.", "TLDR\n\n\nToo long for comment...\nI believe the key issue was the shields, or more directly the power source.\nThe weapons were all likely tied into the primary (ship wide) power supply putting even more strain on it.\n\n\nThis started as a comment but it was getting to big... I would have to go back and re-watch those last episodes to get more examples than what I can pull from memory and see all instances of the weapon being used but...\n\nThe Asgard retrofit was toward the end of the series when the Asgard decided to \"end it on their own terms\" rather than waiting for the inevitable. The retrofit upgraded the ship with everything from weapons to shields to the computer core that had their entire database.\n\nOnce that computer core was tied into the ships main systems and activated the Ori were uniquely able to track the ship wherever it went. Using the hyper drive the ship was safe, but without the drive active the Ori jumped with multiple ships to their exact location and started an aggressive assault on their shields.\n\nAs mentioned here the shield strength was directly proportional to the power supply it was attached to. The shields could only withstand a few shots from the Ori ships before they needed to recharge. With multiple Ori ships chasing the ship from location to location it meant each ship only needed one or two shots before the shields would be overwhelmed and the ship would be destroyed. To me this was the biggest challenge the ship needed to overcome. One on one or even two on one the Ori ships were no match for the upgrades but three and four at a time is where the worry began, because the power source was not enough to keep up.\n\nAssuming the primary beam weapon was charged by the main power supply as well then you also have to consider everything from the shields, navigation, hyper drive, and communication were all running from the same source. In addition to the shields draining power from each blast repelled attacking would decrease their power even more, though the ship's leadership would be firing as rapidly as possible for effective strikes against their targets... There was no reason for them to have been holding back at all...\n\nHowever, without more power to keep the shields up it never mattered how quickly the beam weapon could fire. Had they been lucky enough to have been powered by a ZPM those battles would have looked a lot different...", "Yes. All continuous effects are applied at all times they are active. If a continuous effect grants +2/+0, it means it raises the creature's power by two. So if two continuous effects grant +2/+0 to a creature, the creature's power will be raised by 4.", "Thrusting AND Slashing are both useful\n\nIt might \"seem\" slashing is more powerful because it involves bigger movements, and depending on the weapon, you feel, in your arm, that you're getting more force... but... it's not. \n\nThrusting concentrates more force onto a smaller point, allowing better penetration. Stabbing weapons tend to cause more lethal wounds (getting deeper to organs or major arteries). Thrusting tends to give less telegraphing and usually has better range.\n\nOn the other hand, stabbing attacks tend to have less short-terms stopping power - people often don't realize they've been stabbed, and can continue fighting back. For longer weapons, if your weapon is stuck in the opponent and they're fighting back, you can be in a bad situation.\n\nSlashing tends to do more shallow wounds, BUT it's better at muscle damage which reduces your opponent's ability to fight back, and the force can move/maneuver the opponent's limbs or body into a position that allows you to follow up better.\n\nThis is the reason, around the world, throughout history, you can find a combination of thrusting and slashing weapons everywhere. There's usually only some periods where it goes particularly one way or another based on armor needs or conditions in which folks are fighting. (Heavy armor leads to a lot of thrusting weapons, folks having to convert farm implements, grain cutters or machetes get a lot of slashing implements).\n\nImproving Thrusting Power\n\nIn this case, \"power\" means harm in such a way to debilitate quicker. \n\nThere's the classic piston-stabbing action, used with short knives and makeshift shivs - you keep stabbing the same area to try to turn it into hamburger. This is a common method in prison fighting.\n\n\"Twist the blade\" is a term people use a lot, but depending on the blade's strength, the handle you have, and where/what you've stabbed, it may not really be feasible. \"Jerk it around\" seems to make more sense in actual situations - stick it in, jerk it around, to forcibly move the opponent and widen the wound channel. Again, this is going to be shorter blades, though the spear example would be to stick them then walk around or shove to pin them.\n\nThere are several locations which do much greater damage by targeting. Eyes and neck are pretty obvious examples for all weapons. Other organs also make a lot of sense, though the ribcage protects a lot of them requiring either good angling or heavier weapons to get past the bone.", "The talisman can be used as an improvised weapon to strike a maligned creature for additional damage.\n\nNothing in the linked text indicates that the touching must be willful. In addition, this linked question has a highly upvoted answer on how to interpret the word \"touch\" with regard to rulings and is in line with my answer:\n\n\nFor the Phoenix Sorcerer's Mantle of Flame ability, do unarmed strikes count as “touching”? (Found by David Coffron)\n\n\nYou are correct in deciding to go with your 3rd listed ruling. A creature could use the talisman as an improvised weapon to attack a maligned creature. On a successful strike against the target's AC, the attacking creature would deal 8d6 or 6d6 (alignment dependent) radiant damage plus the damage for an improvised weapon strike. \n\nImprovised weapons include any object that you can wield in one or two hands, and can be as ridiculous as a dead goblin, per the PHB. \n\nThe DM has some leeway in determining how this works. Two DM dependent clauses in the PHB on improvised weapons are:\n\n\n At the DM's option, a character proficient with a weapon can use a smiliar object as if it were that weapon and use his or her proficiency bonus\n\n\nand\n\n\n The DM assigns a damage type appropriate to the object.\n\n\nThis makes this use of the talisman pretty powerful; the above is how I would rule, and how it appears to work RAW.", "The location of that meter is reserved weapons with a unique functionality which require an additional bar. It's functionality varies from weapon to weapon, and doesn't even exist for some weapons. Other weapons will have something else in it's place which isn't a meter at all. \n\nThe weapons which make use of that spot are:\n\n\nDual Sword: Demon Gauge. To be honest, I'm not that familiar with the Dual Swords, so I'd suggest looking into this video tutorial for more information. The basic idea is that Dual Swords can enter something called Demonization mode, which gives you additional combos and improves you attacks. When you hit monsters in demon mode the meter fills up, and so long as the meter isn't empty you'll do extra damage and attack faster when not in demon mode. \nLong Swords: Spirit Gauge. Once again, I'm not that familiar with the Long Sword, so I'll refer you to here for more information. Attacks with a Long Sword fill up the Spirit Gauge. Once the Spirit Gauge is full, Spirit Attacks (made with the R button) no longer cost Spirit. A Spirit Combo performed while the Spirit Gauge is full will have a finishing attack called the Spirit Roundslash. Your hunter will automatically sheathe his/her weapon after performing a Roundslash and receive a minor damage boost. Landing the Spirit Roundslash will also increase the grade of the Spirit Gauge (white -> yellow -> red). Higher grades of the Spirit Gauge will provide higher damage boosts while degrading quicker.\nBowguns / Gunlance: These weapons require ammunition, and they use this spot to displays how much ammo is remaining in the weapons clip. \nSwitch Axe: Phial meter. The Switch Axe has two modes, Axe and Sword, and every Switch Axe has a phial. Axe mode generates phial energy, and Sword mode consumes it. The functionality of the phial varies from Axe to axe, but are only active when in sword mode. For example, a Power Phial will boost the Raw (physical) damage you do. The phial meter displays how much phial energy you have left. \nHunting Horn: Note meter. The Hunting Horn produces a musical note with every attack, which are displayed in the note meter. Some sequences of notes allow the Hunting Horn to play a song by pressing the R button, which gives the the user and nearby allies a temporary buff. Their are a variety of buffs, including healing, attack boosts, and giving users infinite stamina.", "After having played to the video games what we learn about Leilah is that she is living in the sword waiting for a new \"Dôshi\" to come.\n\nSo Leilah isn't the soul of the sword or here to make it stronger. She's here awaiting a new \"Dôshi\" and that's why she ask to Sorey why he wants power.\n\nWhen he answer her right she allows him to use the sword and become is Seraphin.\n\nI would add that I don't think Seraphin lives in objects. But in Tales of Berseria we learn that usually, each Seraphin is linked to one object really important for them. So it's more like a symbol.\n\nEdit :\n\nI'll just add the link that Namikaze Sheena mentioned in a comment for those searching more information about Seraphins and not only about Leilah or their link with objects.", "In space, no-one (else) can really hear your weapon fire, unless their ship's sensors can detect the weapon firing (by its electromagnetic signature) and provide an artificial audible feedback. This could be anything from \"Pew\" or \"Zap\" or \"crack\" to \"Energy weapons fire detected bearing...\".\n\nIn an atmosphere, the audible signature of the weapon depends on the power of the weapon. Where the power of an energy weapon is high enough to ionise the air it passes through, the cessation of the beam results in the low-pressure ionised path it carved in the atmosphere collapsing with a crack or a bang, the loudness increasing and the pitch decreasing with the diameter of the ionised path. Dye-lasers in an atmosphere typically make a distinctive crack or bang with each pulse.\n\nThe weapon itself may be entirely silent, or it may make a quiet, high-pitched whine similar to the charging capacitors in a camera flash. Indeed, many solid rod lasers are pumped using flash tubes, so this high-energy capacitor whine would be entirely in-character.\n\nIt is possible that a weapon might whine quietly, the pitch increasing as charge accumulates, holding at a high pitch when full charge is reached and maintained, followed by a crack as the weapon is fired and a quiet, low, rising tone as the weapon charges again.", "In general yes, it's better to start out with a light weapon as you have to learn the forms and techniques first, without being concerned about injuring yourself with a heavy or real weapon. \n\nUsually you would learn the techniques with a wooden version of the weapon while at the same time learning how to strengthen the arms, wrist and fingers in style and weapon specific ways to greatly increase control, power and proficiency. \n\nRemember, it's always best to train slow and smart, not fast and reckless.", "Why don't we allow all countries to have nuclear weapons?\n\n\nI can see multiple reasons for that:\n\n\nThis will increase a global production of nuclear weapons and force neighboring countries into local arms races.\nCountries engaged in active military conflicts might use nuclear weapons for offensive or defensive purposes. \nNuclear weapons will impede any kind of international intervention. For example, in case if a country uses chemical weapons or commits war crimes, other countries want to be able to intervene/retaliate. The possibility of a nuclear counterattack will make it much harder.\nNuclear weapons states don't want to lose their leverage against other countries.\nSome countries refuse to own nuclear weapons. These countries don't want their potential enemies to have nuclear weapons.\nSome countries are just unstable. No one wants them to have nuclear weapons.\n\n\n\n Proponents in country A which has nuclear weapons support their existence by using the 'deterrence' argument.\n\n\nThat's one of the arguments. There're others advantages of nuclear weapons:\n\n\nNuclear weapons are extremely powerful and can be used for offensive and defensive purposes. \nThe nuclear arsenal is an ultimate safeguard against foreign invasion or military retaliation.\n\n\n\n This seems contradictory, does it not?\n\n\nYes, the 'deterrence' argument by itself is contradictory and hypocritical. The list of countries, which are allowed to have nuclear weapons, is not justified in any way. Basically, some countries already had nuclear weapons and refused to give them away. It's not like these countries need them more than others.\n\n\n Assuming that world peace and avoiding unjust warfare is what we all want, surely this is a good thing for both countries A and B [to have nuclear weapons].\n\n\nNo, for the reasons listed above. Also, there is no reason to think that nuclear weapons, per se, will prevent \"unjust\" warfare.\n\nFrom that perspective, it makes more sense to reduce A's nuclear arsenal. In fact, nuclear disarmament was included in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Later, some nuclear states (most notably the US and the USSR/Russia) developed a series of arm reduction treaties.\n\n\n This fairytale story seems worrying until you come up with the obvious solution: international oversight.\n\n\nThis will work great until country B decides to stop cooperating with international authorities. After that, the international community will need to come up with some way to enforce the rules on a malicious nuclear power before things go wrong.", "The upgrades are random events that occur during gameplay, they are not triggered, rather they spawn every 10-20 minutes.\n\nThe three available are as stated\n\n\nWealth (Double gold)\nSpeed (Half tick time)\nPower (Double Damage)", "CPLEX has a conflict refiner. The instructions for invoking it are at How to invoke the conflict refiner.", "Yes! It's in the DMG, page 289.", "It is actually possible for a space marine to dual wield two-handed weapons, though a DM might not allow it.\nIn BC, space marines are automatically ambidextrous. And, as a space marine, you can take a power armor mod called 'Recoil Suppression' that lets you use Basic weapons one handed without the penalty.1 \nSlap on the Two Weapon Fighter (Ranged) talent, and you're good to go. Although any shots are going to be at a -10 for both weapons. Not much of a problem if you're fighting hordes, though.\nNote that while this works for things like Legion Bolters and stuff, it won't work for any weapon heavier than Basic. So no dual-wielding lascannons, sorry.\n\nA normal human could also do this with pistol-gripped (a weapon upgrade) weapons (say two autoguns) and the Two Weapon Fighter (ranged) talent. And perhaps the Ambidextrous talent, too.\n\nEnjoy your heretical dakka, traitor!\n\n\n\n1 Further supporting my assertion, I found this piece of text while crawling the book again (p. 244):\n\n\n \"If a character with the Two-Weapon Wielder (Ballistic) \n Talent is armed with two pistols (or two other ranged \n weapons that can reasonably be wielded in one hand).\"\n\n\nSo one needs to be able to reasonably convince their DM that the recoil suppression on SM armor allows one-handing bolters freely. Or simply use smaller bolters.\nNot sure how this applies to human characters, unfortunately.", "Alien Cargo A hypersleeping crew wakes up to find the previous crew contaminated by an alien bio-weapon found in an old satellite. The virus causes the crew members to kill each other. The romantically entangled heroes do no kill each other through the power of love, drop their body temp to stop the virus and send the remaining sleeping crew to another ship. Finally, they fly into the sun to prevent the infection from spreading.", "Could it refer to the Ministry of Defence?\n\n\nDefinitely.\n\nThe question is what would the MOD do with their budget for nuclear weapons if those weapons were abandoned.\n\nThe MOD would spend it on alternative weapons instead.\n\nIn Yes, Prime Minister there is a general premise that budgets must be spent and, ideally for them, increased every year.\n\nBudgets = Power", "I have beaten him 5 or 6 times now, all on easy. General strategy is:\n\n\n4 points in shields, duh.\na dodge around 40%. This takes 4 power to engines and having both the engine crew and pilot crew be maxed out in their skills (actually, that's about 37-39% I think?). \nSome good, old fashioned luck.\nPlenty of spare crew. You'll need the usual party of Rogers and Hammerstien men to run around and punch intruders and also provide back up repairing. Don't underestimate that last part. Racing to get systems back to health ASAP can really help.\n\n\nThere's nothing fancy about how you attack. You throw every single thing you have at him, try to overwhelm the shields, and then do damage. My preferred strategy is beam heavy, but I will use launchers depending on what I find along the way. Since he's got excellent dodge and 4 shields, you've got to alpha strike every time you hit him (that is, fire everything or nearly everything). Once you damage his shields enough that you can get to critical systems easily, you still need to periodically attack the shields because they'll get repaired.\n\nAnother good trick I learned is do not fire your weapons as soon as it comes up. Wait till you can fire all your weapons at once for the first barrage. This will help overwhelm the shields helping you bring them down and damage them. Once the shields are down feel free to fire at will. \n\nNow, ideally I would have something like Blaster mark III (5 shots, 1 damage each, 4 power), blaster mark 2 (3x1, 2 power) and maybe a heavy laser (2x2, 2 power). Or a small bomb launcher (underrated, it does 2 system damage). But really any number of things can work. I think I just beat him with the Kestrel using a Blaster Mk II, Heavy Laser, Halberd Beam, and Small Bomb Launcher. Obviously a crew member with maxed weapons skill is really important. Barring an accident, you should have that no problem. If you have less than 6 points of active weapons, you are probably going to have a rougher time of it. I prefer to have 7 or 8.\n\nI will say this, I believe I have observed that e.g. the Heavy Laster (shoots twice, 2 damage each) will only eat 2 shield points up if it hits both times. I always like to have a blaster in my arsenal, but fate won't always help there.\n\nThere are two augments that, other things equal, really help in this fight:\n\n\nThe \"decrease weapon recharge time\" augment. Nuff said. This is always the augment I hope to get first unless I'm going early cloaking.\nThe \"when you warp in all weapons are charged\". You might think this one won't matter as much but do not under-estimate it. It's a free volley to open the fight!\n\n\nWith the first augment and a great gunner you'll be attacking every 13-14s at most I think. From there, it's back to luck. If he rolls exceptionally well on dodges (and you don't), it can go south and there's nothing you can do about it. I've lost to him with a number of promising ships for this reason. Tip your cap and go have a drink.\n\nCloaking is really powerful for ships who can get it, e.g. the kestrel. My poor federation cruiser is no longer cloaking eligible, but I have beaten the last guy several times with cloaking + cloak weapons. For form 1, the weapon on the inner-right side of the boss ship (actually, this one is always there but see below) is a freaking Gatling missile launcher. It shoots 3 missiles and it's super scary. I prefer to cloak when this is fired (and hopefully he'll be shooting other stuff too). Ditto for form 2. Form 3 will be something you have to discover on your own. Obviously if you run cloaking stealth weapons is a huge priority. But the 100% dodge you get from cloaking is really useful in the fight, so not having stealth weapons is not the end of the world. If I have cloaking I always try to get it to 3 points, but I consider 2 the minimum. That can buy you a lot of time to repair systems or deal with borders.\n\nDoors 3 is really useful starting on form 2 of this fight (and really useful in the last few sectors!). I usually save that upgrade for late though.\n\nAndrzej Doyle is absolutely right that boarders can be really useful in this fight. It's important to keep in mind that there is no one path to victory. After the beta update that took away cloaking Fed cruisers, I managed a few more wins. Mostly beam-heavy stuff but I made great use of bombs in two cases (I love small bombs because they only eat up 1 power but do 2 damage). I had a mixed-arms game (using some boarders) go really well until I ran out of places to repair and then lost in the second form.\n\nTargeting priorities:\nShields are first priority, obviously.\n\n\nForm 1 I like to go after the Gatling launcher next. Then it depends. Weapons or engines.\nForm 2 I go for the drone bay before the Gatling launcher usually. The ship will throw a lot of drones at you. This helps alleviate that.\nForm 3 Back to targeting weapons.\n\n\nLastly, it takes more luck. Sometimes you'll prepare to do this series of fights and have repair nodes/stores near by that you can use to stay fresh. Sometimes you won't. I have lost promising ships that way too - a node got swallowed while fighting the first or second form and I was too beat up to finish him. Them's the breaks.\n\nIt took me a number of tries to beat him, and it can get frustrating. Stick with it. You'll break through eventually.", "Power Attack applies to all or no attacks that round (and until right before your next turn), as described in the feat (though you can \"turn on\" the ability before making any attack roll, so you could make some attacks without it and then turn it on for later attacks, if you really wanted to, but you can't turn it off again till your next turn).\n\nIf you have a BAB of +13 then the Power Attack applies -4 to hit, +8 to damage (adjusting for weapon weight category) to all your attacks.\n\nThe BAB charts list the attack bonus for your iterative attacks but that's deceptive - your BAB is +13. Your iterative attacks have the bonuses +13/+8/+3 but that doesn't affect the power attack application." ]

[ "The boy suffered a broken wrist when he fell onto the M49, near Bristol.\nDriver Tudor West and coach owner Keith Jones, both of Bridgend, deny charges relating to dangerous driving after the teenager - part of a rugby team - was injured, on 16 May last year.\nMr West told Bristol Crown Court he had asked the team to wear seatbelts but they \"had not put them on\".\nThe court was told the bus had passed its MOT a month before the incident, but as part of the accident investigation it was inspected and \"nine defects were identified\".\nDuring the hearing, the jury was played a video showing an inspector pushing the coach door \"lightly with his hand\" before it opened.\nBut in the court, Mr West acted out his \"normal morning routine\" on the stand.\nHe showed the jury how, on the day of the accident, he had opened and closed the emergency rear exit and had then put all of his weight against it.\nWhen asked how he thought the door had opened, allowing the the 13-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to fall onto the motorway, Mr West said: \"I don't know, all I know is that it wouldn't have happened on that morning.\"\nTudor West denies dangerous driving and driving a vehicle in a dangerous condition.\nCoach company owner Keith Jones denies permitting the driving of a vehicle in a dangerous condition, and aiding and abetting dangerous driving.\nThe trial continues." ]

[ "Thomas Allsopp's Audi A8 was clocked hitting 149mph on the M6 Toll - and he later told police he only stopped because he had run out of petrol.\nHe only had a provisional driving licence and was uninsured, so he should not have been on the road at all.\nThe 24-year-old, from Leicestershire, was given a suspended sentence.\nPC Jim Barry, who works with the Central Motorway Police Group, said his driving was \"extremely reckless and dangerous\".\n\"At one stage he overtook a recovery truck on a blind bridge entering Minworth village,\" he said.\n\"Allsopp showed no remorse and said he had no intention of stopping for officers - only stopping because he ran out of fuel - and agreed he didn't give his three passengers any opportunity to exit his vehicle.\"\nWest Midlands Police officers on street racing patrols on the A38 originally spotted him parked across an emergency vehicle access slip road to the motorway on 27 December.\nThey approached him but he sped off down the A38, and was caught on camera weaving in and out of traffic.\nPolice followed him along the M6 Toll, where he ended up crashing through exit barriers.\nAllsopp, from Roston Drive in Hinckley, admitted dangerous driving and other motoring offences.\nHe was given an eight-month jail sentence, suspended for 12 months, at Birmingham Crown Court on Monday.\nHe was also ordered to carry out 80 hours of unpaid work and banned from driving for 18 months.", "One appears to show a car suddenly trying to swerve off the road after exiting the motorway in Portland, USA.\nAnother appears to show a Model S Tesla swerving towards an oncoming vehicle.\nAutopilot takes over driving functions such as steering and changing lane.\nBut Tesla said: \"The driver cannot abdicate responsibility for driving.\"\nAutopilot was released as a software update, with a note stating it was suitable only for motorway driving.\nThe two videos showing cars swerving took place away from the motorway lanes.\nTesla said: \"The latest autopilot release is a hands-on experience to give drivers more confidence behind the wheel, increase their safety on the road and make motorway driving more enjoyable.\"\nAt the time of its release, Tesla chief executive Elon Musk said autopilot was still in test mode.\n\"The software is very new. We're being especially cautious at this early stage, so we're advising drivers to keep their hands on the wheel just in case,\" he said.\nAnother Miami driver said his car was driving at 75mph (120km/h) in a 60mph zone, resulting in it being pulled over by the Florida Highway Patrol. He posted pictures of the speeding tickets he had been issued.\nTesla told the BBC it was the driver had set the speed limit to 75mph, because autopilot does not set the speed limit. It also said speeding drivers were warned that they were breaking the limit.", "Investigations are ongoing, but police say the driver appears to have veered over the kerb and crashed with \"extreme force\" into the concrete wall marking the end of an emergency stop area inside the Sierre tunnel.\nThe ski party had been returning from a holiday in Val d'Anniviers, in the Valais Alps region on Tuesday. There were 52 people on board the coach, including 46 children aged about 12 from the Stekske primary school in Lommel, near the Dutch border, and from St Lambertus in Heverlee, near Leuven (Louvain).\nPolice say the coach had just left the resort on the journey home and joined the A9 motorway at the Bois de Finges roundabout near Sierre, heading towards Sion and Lausanne.\nAfter about 2km, at 2015 GMT, the coach veered to the right inside the two-lane Sierre motorway tunnel, went over the kerb and into an emergency stop area.\nThe coach crashed head-on into the concrete wall where the emergency area ends, say police.\nTwenty two children died and 24 others were injured - many suffering broken legs and arms. The two drivers and the children's four teachers were among the dead.\nAlthough most of the victims are Belgian, Swiss officials say the dead include seven Dutch children. Among those injured are three Dutch, one Pole and one German.\nImmediately after the accident, emergency services closed the tunnel in both directions and the injured were airlifted to hospitals by helicopters and ambulances. Rescuers faced horrific scenes that left many traumatised by the experience, officials said. Some of the children had to be cut free from the wreckage.\nOlivier Elsig, prosecutor for the Swiss state of Valais, said the cause of the crash was being investigated, but some scenarios could be ruled out.\nHe said CCTV footage showed that they could \"categorically exclude\" the possibility of a collision with another vehicle in the one-way tunnel.\nThe tunnel has a speed limit of 100km/h (62mph) but Mr Elsig said initial investigations suggested the coach was not speeding.\nHe said possible causes of the crash included a technical error, maybe the driver was feeling unwell or human error.\n\"An autopsy will enable us to confirm or refute the hypothesis of a whether the driver was suffering from a malaise or a health problem,\" he said.\nThe coach, which belonged to the Belgian Top Tours company, was a modern vehicle and the children were all wearing seatbelts, Mr Elsig said, but the force of the collision with the wall meant the belts could not save them.", "Kent Police said traffic was back at normal levels, after drivers had queued for up to 14 hours because of extra French security checks at the port.\nThe Port of Dover said there were no longer queues at the port but advised allowing plenty of time for travel.\nMotorists have been told to check with travel operators before making trips and to bring extra food and water.\nLatest information from BBC Travel\nMotorists queue for up to 14 hours in Dover traffic chaos\nPolice said the weekend's disruption was caused by the large volume of holiday traffic and increased checks at the border following recent terror attacks in France.\nThe Port of Dover authority said the French border control booths in Dover were \"seriously understaffed\" on Friday night, when problems began.\nKent County Council said at one stage only one French officer was available to check passengers on hundreds of coaches, resulting in each coach taking 40 minutes to process.\nThe delays persisted into Sunday as more travellers continued to head for Dover while the port was still dealing with Saturday's backlog.\nUK officials were sent to help at French border posts overnight on Saturday, in response to what the Home Office said was \"extraordinary disruption\". While they were not able to conduct passport checks, they were able to help French officials searching vehicles.\nThe UK officials remain on standby to help.\nThe London-bound carriageway of the A20 was closed for hours to enable Kent Police, coastguards and volunteers to distribute water to those stuck in the Dover-bound queues, and to allow stranded motorists access toilet facilities. It has since been fully re-opened.\nBut Kent Police said large volumes of holiday traffic and extra border checks by French authorities meant there could be delays for weeks.\nWith vehicles backed up on roads for a second day, many were forced to spend the night in their cars. Families have been running short on food and water - but with a surplus of boredom and frustration.\nHaider told the BBC he had been on the road for nearly 24 hours with his wife and three children.\n\"We left Birmingham at 9am yesterday morning. My little one has just thrown up, he's been feeling car sick for the last couple of hours and he's just thrown up.\"\nOllie Burridge, who is travelling with his family to Barcelona from South Wales, described a more jolly atmosphere.\n\"There were some people playing football on the other side of the carriageway that had been closed,\" he said.\n\"We got some bats and balls and played a spot of tennis over the central reservation. We made the best of it.\"\nMeanwhile, Twitter user Hannah Brisley posted a video, saying that she had thrown food down to people stuck on the motorway, and had been rewarded with them singing a song.\nRead more tales from the traffic jams\nFrance has been under a state of emergency since last November, when terror attacks in Paris left 130 people dead, and has tightened its border checks accordingly.\nThe port said it had raised concerns over French staffing levels with the UK government earlier this week, which were then brought up with its French counterparts.\nThe Conservative MP for Dover and Deal, Charlie Elphicke, has called on the government to apologise to people who queued for hours in the summer heat, describing the situation as \"completely unacceptable\".\nPete Williams, from the RAC, said the authorities needed to put better contingency plans in place.", "Carl Askew, 47, was given a 32-week sentence, suspended for two years, after his tanker crashed into a crane driven by Michael Coleman, 50.\nMr Coleman's partner Wendy Ann Randal told Cardiff Crown Court she did not \"bear malice to the driver\".\nAskew, of Gloucester, admitted causing death by careless driving.\nJudge David Wynn Morgan said \"it would be a hard hearted court\" if it did not take into account the wishes of the victim's partner.\nThe court heard that Mr Coleman, of Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, had been driving his crane between Junction 32 and 33 on the M4 motorway on 2 November.\nThe vehicle was restricted to travelling at just 30mph (48km/h) and had been displaying the correct warning lights when the tanker collided with the rear of his vehicle at a speed of up to 56mph (90km/h).\nThe crane was forced off the road by the impact and overturned on an embankment.\nMr Coleman suffered traumatic head injuries and died at the scene.\nAskew told police after the collision that he had sneezed at the moment of impact but could give no explanation as to why he had not seen the crane beforehand.\nHe said: \"Before I could brake, the impact happened.\"\nMr Coleman's partner of 14 years told the court in a victim impact statement, which the judge described as \"astonishing\", that the couple had recently been on a holiday together which left her with \"wonderful happy memories\".\nShe said: \"Since the accident, I feel lost without Mike, he was my everything.\n\"I know the driver didn't set out to kill Mike. It has left a massive desolation in myself and my children. I do get depressed, but I look at my family, remember and smile.\"\nThe court was told that Mr Coleman did not know at the time of his death that his daughter was pregnant and that he was to become a grandfather.\nShe asked in her statement for the court to consider not imposing an immediate custodial sentence.\nIn addition to the 32-week prison sentence, suspended for two years, he was disqualified from driving for five years and must carry out 250 hours of community work.", "A total of 74 vehicles reversed and drove the wrong way to avoid queuing following a crash which closed the motorway on 6 September.\nPolice have issued a warning and said the drivers' actions were \"irresponsible and dangerous\".\nThe cars blocked emergency vehicles trying to attend the scene.\nA police car and an ambulance could not access the motorway via junction six.\nThe incident was filmed on a mobile phone and the registration plates have been recorded.\nPC Matt Picton said: \"There is no good reason to drive the wrong way down a motorway, it is extremely dangerous and no excuse could ever justify these actions.\n\"The laws of the road are there for a reason, which is to protect motorists and people need to realise that they cannot do what they want, when they want.\"\nThe introduction of motorways without hard shoulders for emergency vehicles to use meant people needed to pay attention to gantry information, he added.\nThose caught will be offered a driver awareness course or summoned to court.", "Highways England, responsible for England's major routes, analysed a 17-mile stretch between junction 8 of the M60 and junction 20 of the M62.\nIts £202m smart motorway scheme includes the conversion of hard shoulders into extra lanes.\nThe Greater Manchester network is expected to be finished in autumn 2017.\nStephen Hill, programme manager for Highways England, said: \"Running out of fuel is the easiest cause of breakdown to avoid.\n\"Simple planning can save drivers the hassle of coming to a halt on the motorway, causing disruption to hundreds of other drivers.\n\"We're asking all drivers to reduce the number of incidents within the roadworks section by checking their fuel when there is still an opportunity to top up, and checking their vehicle is roadworthy.\"\nElectronic signs are also being used to warn drivers to check their fuel levels.\nThere have been more than 4,500 breakdowns on Manchester's smart motorway route since March 2015.\nTwenty-four of those incidents involving drivers filling their vehicles with the wrong fuel.", "Albert Newman drove for 30 miles in the wrong carriageways on the M42, the A42 and the M1 before crashing into a van.\nAn inquest heard one force had no motorway patrols on duty and another had earlier failed to notice Mr Newman's licence had been revoked.\nThe coroner adjourned the hearing so officers could answer more questions.\nDementia patient Mr Newman, from Nottingham, crashed his Mazda Premacy into a Transit van near Kegworth, Leicestershire, in October last year, killing passenger Michael Luciw and injuring the driver, Andy Harrington.\nThe inquest was told that Warwickshire police took the first call about a car on the wrong carriageway on the M42, but officers incorrectly recorded the direction he was heading.\nThe error was put right, but Mr Newman crossed the county boundary into Leicestershire on the A42, where the specialist roads policing unit had finished work for the night.\nThis meant the force had no specialist motorway patrols in the county.\nPamela Oxlade, who was travelling towards Birmingham Airport with her husband, told the inquest: \"We were fortunately just past a lorry when suddenly, out of nowhere, there were two balls of light.\n\"It was really quick and it was just unreal because you couldn't see the outline of the car in the dark.\n\"I dialled 999 and spoke to a gentleman, explained what had happened and he just said they were aware of it.\n\"We said we were almost half an hour from the M1 and going towards Birmingham. It was such a great relief to hear that he was aware of it.\"\nThe inquest was told that about 20 minutes later, Mrs Oxlade spotted signs warning motorists to slow down because of a car travelling in the wrong direction.\nCoroner Trevor Kirkman, speaking about Leicestershire police's involvement, said: \"It does seem as if the procedure does not seem to be working very satisfactorily.\n\"This vehicle had travelled a long distance with no intervention.\"\nIt emerged at the hearing in Loughborough that Nottinghamshire Police spoke to Mr Newman months before the crash after reports about him driving while showing signs of dementia.\nAn officer did not check the paperwork before visiting him. That would have revealed his licence had been revoked on medical grounds two years earlier.\nMr Kirkman adjourned the hearing until December to establish whether the force could have seized his car at that time.\nAt the end of the hearing, a senior officer from Nottinghamshire police offered an apology to the families if there was anything the force could have done to prevent the deaths.", "Northamptonshire Police released CCTV footage showing the vehicles, including a Cumbrian coach, making illegal U-turns at Junction 18 near Crick.\nIt shows them heading the wrong way down a slip road to get off the M1.\nThe drivers had been approaching a queue caused by a serious accident at Junction 19 on Sunday 5 July.\nIt was recorded just before 21:00 BST.\nPC Dave Lee, of the force's tactical roads policing unit, said: \"These people were behaving ridiculously.\n\"People joining the motorway aren't expecting other vehicles to be coming towards them.\n\"These drivers were not only putting their own lives at risk, they were risking the lives of everyone heading down that slip road.\"\nOfficers are now investigating the footage so action can be taken against the drivers who performed the illegal U-turns.\nWigton-based coach company Reays confirmed the driver who performed the U-turn has resigned.", "The Department for Transport said the UK would \"lead the way\" in testing driverless \"HGV platoons\".\nThe technology enables vehicles to move in a group, using less fuel, it said.\nThe Times reported trials would take place on the M6 in Cumbria later in 2016, with vehicles in convoy headed by a driver in the leading lorry.\nThe tests would take place on a quiet stretch of the motorway, it said.\nThe paper said the plans could result in platoons of up to 10 computer-controlled lorries being driven metres apart from each other.\nIt said the chancellor was preparing to fund the trials as part of plans to speed up lorry deliveries and cut congestion.\nEdmund King, the president of the AA, said while such a scheme might work in other countries, he was doubtful it was right for the UK.\n\"The problem with the UK motorway network is that we have more entrances and exits of our motorways than any other motorways in Europe or indeed the world, and therefore it's very difficult to have a 44 tonne 10-lorry platoon, because other vehicles need to get past the platoon to enter or exit the road.\"\nHe said the \"only feasible place\" to trial the plans would be the M6, north of Preston towards Scotland, because it \"tends to have less traffic and there are slightly fewer entrances and exits\".\nA driverless lorry developed by Daimler has already been tested on a public road in Germany in October.\nThe vehicles have a \"highway pilot\" - which can be activated at the press of a button - that helps them avoid other road users via a radar and camera sensing system.\nBut the company has a requirement that a human driver be present and focused on the road at all times.\nA Department for Transport spokesman said: \"New technology has the potential to bring major improvements to journeys and the UK is in a unique position to lead the way for the testing of connected and driverless vehicles.\n\"We are planning trials of HGV platoons - which enable vehicles to move in a group so they use less fuel - and will be in a position to say more in due course.\"", "It is not a new problem - but many say it is getting worse.\nThe unwanted passengers can also lead to drivers being fined - with penalties of up to £2,000 per migrant imposed if any are found on board upon arrival in the UK. But what, if anything, can drivers do about the situation?\nThe Home Office has a code of practice on how to avoid receiving such fines. It offers advice including making checks during loading, effectively securing vehicles and continuing to make checks regularly on the way to the UK, with such checks recorded and the documentation kept with the vehicle.\nThe Freight Transport Association (FTA) also has a section in its drivers' handbook on how to stop illegal migrants boarding lorries - but a spokeswoman said it was currently \"impossible for drivers to carry out checks as they put themselves in danger by leaving their vehicle\", adding that the \"stream of migrants is relentless\".\nNatalie Chapman, head of policy for London and the South East at the FTA, said drivers have been advised in the past year not to stop for rest breaks or fuel within about an hour's drive of Calais. Drivers also have to make sure their vehicles are properly locked and secured.\nHowever she said drivers were \"sitting ducks\" with the queues coming out of the ports. \"They're getting people standing in front and forcibly stopping them\", she added.\nFrench police can be called to remove migrants from vehicles, but they are generally not detained, said Ms Chapman.\n\"It is very sad, and there is a humanitarian crisis going on, but our concern is for the safety and welfare of drivers,\" she added, saying that some migrants were armed with knives which they used to slash the sides of vehicles.\nRichard Jameson, who runs a transport company based in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, agreed that drivers are facing an increasingly dangerous situation.\n\"The guidance given by the government is all well and good, until you approach the port of Calais. When you do, it's an absolute nightmare for any driver.\n\"You're sat in your cab and surrounded with tens of, if not 100, migrants swarming the motorway between the lorries. There are unbelievable scenes.\n\"The police are fighting a losing battle. And as a driver, you're quite limited as to what you can do.\"\nHe said migrants used to try to stow away at night, when lorry drivers were asleep, but were now \"more brazen\" and making daytime attempts.\nHe said hard-sided lorries, of the type his company used, were generally more secure because the only access is through the back doors.\nBut even when drivers secure their doors, migrants have gone underneath the vehicles and hidden on top of wheel axles, he said.\nFor his drivers, the problem is compounded by being unable to get out of their cabs to make extra checks at Calais because of the sheer number of people on the motorway wanting to get on board.\n\"This is going on every single day, and I don't know what the answer is,\" he said. \"It's unbelievably stressful for drivers. I have drivers who don't want to go any more - they can't get out of their cabs without facing migrants coming towards them. And if they try to alert other drivers that someone is trying to get in their trailer, they can have rocks and bricks thrown at them.\n\"It would be nice for the British police to go out there to open their eyes as to what is going on.\"\nPeter Cullum, the Road Haulage Association's head of international affairs, has recently called for more \"boots on the ground\" at ports, saying: \"Truck security, though important, is only part of the solution. Increasing clandestine numbers require more crowd control.\"\nPeter Davis, who runs a fruit and vegetable import and export business in Louth, Lincolnshire, said one of his drivers had been told by French police to allow migrants on the lorries - because they could not prevent them getting on board.\nAsked how drivers could prevent migrant stowaways, he said: \"There's nothing they can do, absolutely nothing.\n\"There are probably between 15 and 30 immigrants following a lorry, they're in groups, and the only way you could stop someone breaking in the back of the lorry is to confront them - and you can't do that, because there's no support from the police. You can't do anything.\"\nMr Davis also said French police had advised drivers to leave the backs of lorries open so migrants could be seen more easily - but said that was not possible for his business as the fresh produce needs to be kept at a certain temperature and there is the risk of contamination.\nHe added: \"It's getting worse. It's a slow but sure descent into total anarchy. French police are turning a blind eye to it.\"", "Earlier in March, The Times suggested trials would take place on a \"quiet stretch\" of the M6 motorway in Cumbria in 2016.\nThe government has now confirmed \"lorry platooning\" trials, in which vehicles form a convoy headed by a driver in the leading lorry, will go ahead.\nIt also announced that driverless cars will be trialled on UK roads by 2017.\nIn the Budget, published on Wednesday, the government said it wanted the UK to be \"a global centre for excellence in connected and autonomous vehicles\".\nCompanies such as Ford and Google have been testing autonomous cars for months, but trials typically take place in California.\nEdmund King, president of roadside recovery firm AA, has questioned the feasibility of a lorry platooning scheme in the UK.\n\"The problem with the UK motorway network is that we have more entrances and exits of our motorways than any other motorways in Europe or indeed the world,\" he said earlier in March.\n\"Therefore it's very difficult to have a 44 tonne 10-lorry platoon, because other vehicles need to get past the platoon to enter or exit the road.\"\nOther technology-related points in the Budget included:\nMore from the Budget: Key points at-a-glance", "Rather than building vehicles from scratch, Otto will make kits to retro-fit existing lorries.\nThe start-up, which will be self-funded, is betting on autonomous lorries becoming a reality before cars.\nDrivers will still be required to take the wheel on non-motorway roads.\nImplementing self-driving technology on US motorways is seen as being easier than on other roads or city streets.\nDetails about when the first models will hit the road and the price of them are not yet available, although Otto has said that it would be \"a fraction\" of the cost of building a truck from scratch.\nThe kit will include cameras, radar and lidar sensors which will allow the vehicle to safely keep within a lane, maintain a set speed and slow or stop when necessary. It is unlikely, at this stage, to be able to change lanes.\nDriverless trucks are already becoming a reality.\nDaimler has tested its Mercedes-Benz lorry on motorways in Germany and has also been granted the first autonomous truck licence in Nevada. In Europe, convoys of semi-autonomous driving lorries from six different manufacturers have travelled across the continent with a driver in the lead setting the speed and route and the other trucks following automatically.\nOne of Otto's main goals will be to reduce road accidents involving drivers who work long hours.\nAccording to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, there are around 4,000 fatal accidents in the US each year involving trucks or buses. Between 10% and 20% of these are linked to driver fatigue.\nOtto is looking for 1,000 truckers to volunteer to have self-driving kits installed on their cabs to fine-tune the technology.\nThe American Trucking Association, the US trade group for lorry drivers, said it was looking at drawing up a policy for self-driving technology later this year.\n\"We are paying close attention because this could be huge for trucking in terms of labour costs and safety,\" Dave Osiecki, chief of national advocacy told the AP news wire.\nSan Francisco-based Otto currently has around 40 employees, including Anthony Levandowski, who built Google's first self-driving car.\nIn an interview with technology website BackChannel, co-founder Lior Ron, ex-product boss for Google Maps, said the firm had already completed several tests of a retro-fitted Volvo cab.\n\"We have driven on a bunch of roads in California and outside, testing the sensors. And we've done driving with a safety driver in the back seat but the truck driving autonomously, and a couple of miles completely driverless without a driver in the back seat at all.\"\nBut the firm has greater ambitions, he added.\n\"We want to get the technology to the point where it's safe to let the driver rest and sleep in his cabin and we can drive for him, exit to exit.\"", "Hauliers and drivers can face civil penalties of up to £2,000 per migrant.\nTwo foreign firms are taking separate cases to the Court of Appeal this week, challenging the legality of the system.\nThe Home Office would not comment on the hearings but said a third of lorries arriving at Calais did not have \"basic standards of security\".\nLast year more than £6m worth of fines were imposed for incidents at Calais alone.\nThe firms challenging the rules - one Romanian and one Dutch - want the fines cancelled and Home Office guidelines rewritten.\nThe lorry drivers weary of Calais\nHow is the UK-France border policed?\nCalais lorry driver fines 'unfair'\nThe government's website tells drivers they can be fined \"if you don't secure your vehicle, and you're found carrying clandestine entrants into the UK\".\nDrivers must carry out frequent checks and firms have to show an effective security regime is in place.\nThe scheme came in to force in April 2000 and was designed to force companies to improve their security.\nIn 2014, about 4,000 migrants were caught trying to get into the UK each month. By July 2015 that had gone up to almost 13,000.\nLast year more than 3,300 civil penalties were served, worth £6.6 million.\nNot every driver received the maximum fine - the authorities can exercise discretion if there are mitigating factors.\nMarius Cuzmin manages a Romanian haulage company - one of the firms whose case will be heard by the Court of Appeal.\nSpeaking about efforts to stop migrants boarding lorries, he said: \"We are doing all we can, we're following all the guidelines... we cannot do anything more than we are doing right now.\"\nIn 2013, three migrants jumped on to the roof of one of his trucks from a motorway bridge.\nThey cut through the tarpaulin cover and were found by British immigration officers during checks at Calais.\nThe company was fined £900, and the driver £600.\nIn total his company has paid out more than £3,000 since the scheme began.\nHe claims some small firms have been forced out of business by the fines, and said he brought the legal case to \"show that we're not the ones to be blamed\".\nAccording to Mr Cuzmin's solicitor Rupinder Matharu, from the firm MTG, the case could have \"huge implications\" for the haulage industry.\nShe is challenging the Home Office on three main grounds.\nCentral to her argument is that Mr Cuzmin's firm followed all the Home Office guidelines on security - the driver had a copy of the guidelines translated into Romanian, he checked the lorry three times before arriving in Calais and did not stop close to the port where many of the migrants gather.\n\"We feel they had taken every step that they possible could,\" she said. \"Regardless, the fine was imposed.\"\nShe said she wanted a \"gentler\" approach from the Home Office. And she believes there is a wider principle.\nThe majority of trucks crossing the channel are foreign owned - fewer than 15% of HGV's are British registered and only 7% of fines are paid by UK-based firms.\nMs Matharu said many foreign firms do not appeal against the fines.\n\"Because of the amount, you have a lot of companies that will settle the fines and not challenge them,\" she said.\nMr Cuzmin's case is to be heard on Wednesday and judgement will be reserved.\nOn Thursday the same three judges will hear another case.\nA Dutch company called Bolle is appealing against a fine of £7,200.\nIn 2013, a driver picked up a sealed container from Frankfurt airport, and when it was opened for the first time in Berkshire, six illegal migrants were found inside.\nThe court has agreed to hear the case acknowledging that it \"raised important questions of principle\".\nThe cases are the first time since 2002 that a case about this issue has been raised in the Court of Appeal.\nThe Home Office did not comment on either case, but issued a statement saying the purpose of the scheme was to \"ensure drivers take reasonable measures to stop migrants boarding their lorries\".\nThose who take appropriate steps \"will not receive a penalty\", it added.", "Jan Kozlowski was the first person in Scotland to be prosecuted under new road traffic laws designed to clamp down on banned drivers.\nHe admitted causing serious injury to the 15-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons.\nA court heard the boy sustained a broken ankle in the collision.\nDundee Sheriff Court was told Kozlowski was banned from the road last June after admitting a drink driving offence.\nHe had previously been convicted of being in charge of a car while drunk.\nKozlowski, a labourer, was back behind the wheel just days later - driving his works van having failed to tell his employers of his ban.\nHe was driving on Dundee's Pitkerro Road on 9 June at about 18:20 when he hit the boy, who was crossing the road with friends.\nDepute fiscal Eilidh Robertson said: \"He stepped out between parked cars where he was struck by the motor van being driven by the accused.\n\"The accused did not swerve or sound his horn.\n\"He began to brake once hitting the boy and he remained on the bonnet of the van until the van came to a stop and he fell on to the roadway.\"\nThe boy was helped onto the pavement by his friends and Kozlowski and his brother got out of the van and approached them.\nMiss Robertson said: \"The accused assisted in helping the boy to his feet but said \"your problem, not mine\" before getting back in his vehicle and driving away.\"\nKozlowski, 40, a prisoner at HMP Perth, pleaded guilty to a charge of causing serious injury while driving while disqualified.\nDefence solicitor Ross Donnelly said: \"He accepts he should not have been driving in the first place.\"\nSheriff Tom Hughes jailed Kozlowski for a total of 18 months - 16 for the causing serious injury charge and two months over an unpaid fine.\nHe said: \"This is a serious matter. You had been driving on the roads while ordered not to do so by the courts.\"\nKozlowski was also disqualified from driving for five years.", "Transport minister Andrew Jones says the move would help make roads in Britain safer.\nThe lessons will not be mandatory and driving instructors will decide when their students are ready.\nThe Department for Transport is also looking at trialling a \"target number\" of hours of lessons to complete before learners take their test.\nThe proposal is one of a number of ideas being considered by ministers as part of a £2m research programme by the DfT into improving safety for new drivers.\nThe government said the change would allow learner drivers to \"get a broader driving experience\", practise at higher speeds and put their theoretical knowledge into practice.\nMr Jones said: \"We have some of the safest roads in the world and we want to make them even safer.\n\"These changes will equip learners with a wider range of experience and greater skill set which will improve safety levels on our roads.\"\nFor car drivers, the changes would mean that competent learners would be able to have lessons on motorways with an approved driving instructor in a dual controlled vehicle.\nFor those on motorcycles, the Compulsory Basic Training course - which allows them to ride unaccompanied on roads - would also be updated.\nMotorcycle training would also require more online courses, with novice riders having to take a theory test.\nThe plans have the backing of RAC director Steve Gooding.\n\"The casualty statistics tell us that motorways are our safest roads, but they can feel anything but safe to a newly qualified driver heading down the slip road for the first time to join a fast-moving, often heavy, flow of traffic,\" he said.\n\"Many are so intimidated by the motorway environment that they choose instead to use statistically more dangerous roads, so we welcome this move which will help new drivers get the training they need to use motorways safely.\"\nNew driver Cesca Astley, who passed her test earlier this year, told BBC Radio 5 live the first time she drove on the motorway was \"really daunting\".\nBut Ms Astley does not think these new proposals would have helped.\n\"I felt like passing my driving test was the confirmation I could do this. I don't think I would have been confident [driving on the motorway] before I passed my test.\"\nTim Shallcross, from road safety charity IAM RoadSmart, argues that with a little \"tuition\" and \"supervision\" learners will find the confidence to use the roads properly.\nHe told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: \"They're our most inexperienced drivers, therefore we should put them on the safest roads we have.\"\nBut Mr Shallcross said he didn't want to see \"cost obstacles\" put in the way of learners and that \"logged experience\" could be used over \"mandatory\" training hours.\nThe Times reported on Friday that the government was also considering plans to introduce a mandatory minimum learning period for learner drivers, which could see them being made to spend up to 120 hours behind the wheel before taking their test.\nA spokesman for the DfT said it was looking into a range of measures to improve safety for new drivers, including a trial of targets for the number of hours spent learning, but there were no current plans to introduce a minimum figure.\nThe department is also still asking for feedback from the public on the current training and testing for driving instructors.", "Dundee Sheriff Court heard the 16-year-old boy had attended a party in Dundee last November and left with three friends for another address.\nThe teen, who cannot be named, held the blade to driver Mohammed Ashar's neck on their return to the party.\nOne boy, 16, pleaded guilty to assault and another, also 16, admitted theft. Sentence was deferred until next month.\nThe attacker, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had previously served custodial sentences for assaults committed when he was 14 and 15.\nThe court heard the boy had visited a party in Mossgiel Crescent and left with three other friends at 03:00.\nOn their return to the party Mr Ashar told the four they needed to pay their fare before exiting the car.\nThe teen then pulled out a machete, which was shown to the court, and held it to the driver's neck.\nHe fled the taxi screaming for help prompting one of the other boys, who cannot be named, to steal a drawstring bag containing the driver's change as they made off.\nFiscal depute Eilidh Robertson told the court the boys then went back to the party.\nShe said: \"The other three boys had intended just to commit taxi fraud but were all surprised when the other boy pulled out the machete.\n\"Officers attended the party around 4am and the machete was found in plain sight on the kitchen floor.\"\nSheriff Alistair Carmichael deferred sentence until next month for social work background reports.", "The four passengers were able to get out of the Model S 90D unharmed, Tesla said.\nThe incident happened in the area of Biarritz and Bayonne, in the south west of the country.\nIt comes about three years after the firm's shares dropped following other fires in its Model S cars.\nFootage of the incident was caught on camera by witnesses.\nThree people and a Tesla employee were in the car during the fire earlier this week.\nAccording to local media, the driver had signed up for a test drive on Facebook.\nHe accelerated on one of the town's main roads when a loud sound was heard coming from the car, the newspaper Sud-Ouest reported.\n\"In less than a minute, the car was in flames and, in five minutes, it was totally destroyed,\" the driver, named as Nicolas, was quoted as saying.\nA Tesla official said: \"Nobody was harmed. The vehicle provided warning and passengers were able to safely exit the vehicle.\"\n\"We are undertaking a full investigation and will share our findings as soon as possible,\" the official added.\nIn 2013, two instances of Tesla cars catching fire were recorded by US federal regulators, according to Agence France-Presse.\nIn each, the cars hit debris on the road that pierced the chassis and caused a battery fire.\nBoth cars were gutted by flames, although the drivers in each incident escaped unharmed.\nA third case was also reported in Merida, in Mexico.", "Freddie Hussey from Bristol was killed in 2014 when a trailer towed by a Land Rover came loose and hit him.\nThe Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) has produced an online guide, showing motorists how to check trailers are safely secured before setting off.\nIn May Freddie's parents successfully pushed for new safety guidelines.\nThe advice from the DVSA includes checking brakes, lights and the height of the coupling, as well as how to use a breakaway cable, before towing objects such as caravans, horseboxes and boats.\nTransport minister Andrew Jones said he was \"shocked and saddened\" by the boy's death in Bedminster in January 2014.\n\"It is absolutely essential that drivers carry out a few quick and simple checks to make sure their trailer is safe so we do not see a repeat of this awful tragedy,\" he said.\nDVSA chief executive Gareth Llewellyn said: \"There is no excuse for not being informed.\n\"Even a short journey with an insecure or unroadworthy trailer puts lives at risk.\"\nFollowing Freddie's death the driver of the Land Rover Defender, Tony Davies, from Hallen, was ordered to carry out 200 hours of community service for causing death through careless driving.\nHe was also disqualified from driving for six months.", "A contract has been awarded to the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) to carry out the tests of vehicle \"platoons\".\nUp to three lorries will travel in formation, with acceleration and braking controlled by the lead vehicle.\nBut the head of the AA said platoons raised safety concerns.\nIn the platoons, the lead vehicle will be controlled by a human driver and will communicate with the rest of the convoy wirelessly.\nThe following vehicles will be instructed to accelerate and brake by the lead vehicle, allowing the lorries to drive closer together than they could with human drivers.\nLorries driving close together could reduce air resistance for the following vehicles, as the front lorry pushes air out of the way.\nThis could lead to fuel efficiency savings for haulage companies, which Transport Minister Paul Maynard hopes will be passed on to consumers.\nThe following vehicles could also react more quickly to the lead lorry braking than human drivers can.\nHowever, human drivers will still steer all the lorries in the convoy.\nThe TRL will begin trials of the technology on test tracks, but these trials are expected to move to major roads by the end of 2018.\nThe government has been promising such a project since at least 2014.\nLast year, for example, it announced its intention to carry out platooning trials but was later frustrated after some European lorrymakers declined to participate.\nA Department for Transport spokesman told the BBC that the experiments are now expected to go ahead as the contract had been awarded.\nWill the platoon block motorists trying to leave or enter the motorway?\nThe TRL says it will carefully choose sections of motorway for its trials, taking the number of junctions and traffic into account. All the lorries will have drivers behind the wheel who will be able to take control and break up the convoy to let other drivers join or leave the motorway if there is an obstruction.\nWhat happens if a car tries to squeeze between the lorries?\nThe platoon lorries will be able to drive more closely together than those driven exclusively by humans, so the gap between them might be uncomfortably close for a driver to try to squeeze into. However, the TRL says its current strategy is to break up the convoy and let the human drivers take control, if a car squeezes in between the lorries. The organisation is considering ways of informing other road users that the lorries are in a \"self-driving\" convoy.\nHow much fuel will a convoy actually save?\nAccording to TRL, other trials have seen improvements in fuel economy of between 4% and 10%. A local trial will help determine the benefit platooning can deliver in the UK.\nThe TRL has announced its partners for the project:\nPlatooning has been tested in a number of countries around the world, including the US, Germany and Japan.\nHowever, British roads present a unique challenge, said Edmund King, president of the AA.\n\"We all want to promote fuel efficiency and reduce congestion but we are not yet convinced that lorry platooning on UK motorways is the way to go about it,\" he said, pointing out, for example, that small convoys of lorries can block road signs from the view of other road users.\n\"We have some of the busiest motorways in Europe with many more exits and entries.\n\"Platooning may work on the miles of deserted freeways in Arizona or Nevada but this is not America,\" he added.\nHis comments were echoed by the RAC Foundation.\nIts director, Steve Gooding, said: \"Streams of close-running HGVs could provide financial savings on long-distance journeys, but on our heavily congested motorways - with stop-start traffic and vehicles jostling for position - the benefits are less certain.\"\nCampaign group the Road Haulage Association said \"safety has to come first\".\nTransport Minister Paul Maynard said platooning could lead to cheaper fuel bills, lower emissions and less congestion.\n\"But first we must make sure the technology is safe and works well on our roads, and that's why we are investing in these trials,\" he said.", "Stephen Clarke, 59, of Wednesdbury, admitted causing the death of Farzana Kousar, 39, by dangerous driving.\nThe High Court in Glasgow heard how his Mercedes Sprinter van drifted across the carriageway and killed her.\nJudge Lord Boyd deferred sentence until 30 January at the High Court in Edinburgh and continued Clarke's bail.\nThe court was told Clarke had travelled more than 200 miles before ploughing into the car which mother-of-four Ms Kousar was in on the hard shoulder of the motorway on 22 December 2014.\nShe was getting out of the passenger door to check the car because the engine was overheating when she was struck.\nShe repeatedly said \"I'm dying\" while lying injured on the road before she lost her life.\nThe court heard self-employed Clarke was a courier driver with UK Express Logistics, sub-contracted since August that year.\nAdvocate depute Bruce Erroch told the court he had left Coventry at about 01:20 and stopped at Southwaite services at about 05:00.\nClarke was on his way to Glasgow when the collision happened on the motorway where Ms Kousar was a passenger in a car parked on the hard shoulder.\nShe had opened the door of the car and was making her way out of the Toyota at about 05:30.\nJust before her car stopped, a lorry driver, Frank Keiller, saw Clarke's van overtake him then \"drift into the middle lane\" forcing him to brake.\nMr Erroch said: \"The van drifted back out again and then into the hard shoulder.\n\"Mr Keiller saw Clarke's van appear to 'jolt' and accelerate during these manoeuvres, causing him to think that the driver was asleep.\n\"Clarke accepts that he was indeed falling asleep at this point of his journey and that he had fallen asleep at the point of collision.\"\nClarke's van veered fully into the hard shoulder and struck the Toyota, sending it into a spin before it ended up in the middle lane.\nImmediately after the crash, passers-by stopped to help and Craig Usher saw Ms Kousar lying on the road.\nThe court heard the driver of the car was uninjured and Ms Kousar was able to tell Mr Usher that she had pain in her back and that she was dying.\nShe lost consciousness and, despite efforts by Mr Usher to save her, paramedics pronounced her dead at 06:11.\nClarke told those nearby: \"Oh God, what have I done? Is she dead? I didn't see the car.\"\nHe told police he was the driver of the van and said: \"I don't think I was on the hard shoulder. I may have been. I hope not.\"\nIn March this year, during a police interview, he was asked if he had fallen asleep and said: \"I hope not. I don't think I did. I'm not going to say I didn't.\"\nA post-mortem examination revealed Ms Kousar's cause of death was chest injuries due to the collision.\nDefence counsel Matthew Jackson said the working practices of the sub-contracting firm were investigated after a similar fatal crash near the same area took place a month earlier.\nHe said the investigation into that suggested fatigue had been a contributing factor.", "Isleworth Crown Court heard Samson Haile spoke to the woman, 26, in a sexual way and touched her even though she asked to be let out of the cab\nThe same night Haile asked another female passenger to have sex with him. The woman, an off-duty police officer, linked the incidents.\nHaile, of Lionel Road North, Brentford, was found guilty of sexual assault.\nThe court heard he engaged the first passenger in a conversation as soon as she got into his vehicle in Ladbroke Grove and continued to touch her until she escaped.\nUber said it was a \"terrible incident\" and \"as soon as we heard what happened the driver was immediately stopped from using our service\".\nIt added that Haile had passed the required criminal record checks all private hire and taxi drivers must go through before being issued with a licence.\nAs part of his sentence Haile was also made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order banning him from working as or applying to be a private hire driver in England or Wales.\nHe must also sign the sex offenders' register for 10 years.", "Paul Bingham spotted the blaze on the M6 near Coleshill, Warwickshire, and pulled up to help the stricken party.\nHe then transported the youngsters to the National Motorcycle Museum, where parents were waiting.\nThirteen people were treated for smoke inhalation - with four 10-year-old girls taken to hospital.\nNobody was seriously hurt in the fire, which remains unexplained.\nMore on this and other Warwickshire stories\nMr Bingham was on his way back to his coach company's headquarters in Ashton-in-Makerfield, Wigan, when he saw the group, from a school in the Black Country, standing on the hard shoulder.\nHe said \"small flames were coming out the rear at the bottom of the engine\" before the bus was eventually engulfed.\nPictures later showed the vehicle reduced to smouldering remains.\n\"I was there with an empty coach, so it all fell into place,\" he said.\n\"I did nothing really. I just parked my bus and said 'jump on'. I got 60-odd people away from the scene and allowed them to sit in comfort.\"\nMr Bingham said he was grateful the children hadn't seen the extent of the fire, as that would've been more \"stressful\" for them.\nHe added that his bosses at Eavesway Travel told him to \"crack on\" and \"deal with it\".\nThe four girls taken to Birmingham Children's Hospital were not thought to be in a serious condition, West Midlands Ambulance Service said.\nThe ambulance service commended Mr Bingham for his actions.\nA spokesman said: \"We would like to pay tribute to the Eavesway Travel of Wigan coach driver who spotted the issue, stopped at the side of the motorway and helped evacuate the children.\"", "Forty one people were hurt, four seriously, in Friday's incident on a motorway, 25 miles (40 km) from Zurich.\nThe vehicle was from Edwards coach operators, based near Pontypridd, Rhondda Cynon Taff.\nEdwards confirmed 34 of the holidaymakers are now back in south Wales.\nEarlier, a spokesman for the operator said those returning had left Switzerland by coach at about 11:00 BST on Sunday with the rest returning \"within a week\".\nThe coach which crashed had been returning to south Wales from Italy.\nJason Edwards, director of Edwards coaches, said five people remain in hospital but none of the injuries are life-threatening.\n\"One of the worst is one of our drivers who's going in for his third operation today on his stomach - damage was caused from the steering wheel,\" he told BBC Radio Wales.\nHe added other passengers received broken bones and bruises.\n\"It's been a nasty experience for all,\" said Mr Edwards, who confirmed the stationary bus was hit from behind by a postal delivery lorry.\n\"I'm quite convinced that the coach they were travelling on was one of our new Mercedes Turismo coaches we bought this year and if it was anything less than that, we would have been dealing with a catastrophe - I'm pretty certain there would have been fatalities.\"\nDenise Wilkie, from Caerphilly, whose brother Philip Bullock was one of the coach's drivers, said he had to be cut free from the wreckage and is due to have a skin graft to treat a cut on his leg.\nPolice said 20 ambulances and three helicopters were used to ferry the injured to hospital.\nAccording to Lucerne Police and Mr Edwards, the incident took place while the coach was at construction works on the A2 motorway at Eich.\nPolice said four lorries in total were involved in the incident, two from Switzerland, one from Poland and one from Slovakia.\nInvestigations are ongoing.", "Vehicle examiner Philip Balderstone said he could reach the brake with his foot - but only by hand when he was standing without a seatbelt on.\nThe fatal accident inquiry (FAI) has heard two crewmen on board during the crash were seated with their belts on.\nThe inquiry is examining the lorry, its route and driver Harry Clarke's health.\nMr Balderstone was giving evidence on the third day of the FAI, which is being overseen by Sheriff John Beckett QC at Glasgow Sheriff Court.\nThe vehicle examination consultant, who works for the Transport Research Laboratory, was asked to produce a report on the bin lorry following the crash on 22 December last year.\nThe court has already heard that the front driver section of the lorry cab and the rear crew section was separated by a metal bar.\nMr Balderstone's report noted that the vehicle had an emergency stop button for its rear machinery.\nThis, however, was not connected to the chassis or drive of the lorry, meaning it could not stop the vehicle.\nThe court was then shown a picture of Mr Balderstone in the vehicle cab, trying to reach the parking brake control from the rear crew section.\nMr Balderstone confirmed that he was able to reach the brake lever from the rear area and apply it \"reasonably easily\".\nThe court has previously heard that the two rear-seated crewmen on the day of the crash, Matthew Telford and Henry Toal, made no attempt to apply the brake and believed they could not reach it.\nMr Balderstone said he is 5ft 8in tall and could reach the parking brake \"comfortably\".\nSolicitor General Lesley Thomson, Scotland's second most senior law officer, who is leading the FAI, then asked if someone who was 5ft 3in tall could reach the brake - this is the height that Mr Telford gave for himself during evidence on Wednesday.\nMr Balderstone said it would be more difficult, but could not say for sure if it would be possible.\nThe court heard that his report recorded the brake as being 0.71m from the top of the metal bar separating the front and rear sections of the lorry cab.\nMr Balderstone said it would be easier to reach the brake by going under the barrier, but this would be less safe.\nThe witness also said he tried to reach the brake lever while seated, with a belt on and this would only be possible from one seat, to the left of the driver.\nHe said he could \"just\" reach the brake lever at \"fingertip stretch\" after several tries while sitting with the belt on.\nMr Balderstone agreed that the possibility of reaching the brake lever with a seatbelt on, while the vehicle was moving, was \"remote\".\nThe witness agreed that in order to reach the brake comfortably, and operate it with their hands, a passenger would need to remove their seatbelt.\nHe agreed that anyone doing this would need some training or knowledge of the brake lever in order to use it.\nThe court previously heard that Mr Telford and Mr Toal were not trained to operate the front controls of the lorry cab and could not drive.\nMr Balderstone said he found it \"quite simple\" to reach the brake lever and move it with his feet, while seated.\nThe inquiry heard that if used, the hand brake would not bring the lorry to a controlled stop and could cause it to skid.\nMr Balderstone agreed that it could, however, slow the lorry down if it was the only option available.\nThe court then heard that in his report, Mr Balderstone looked at the use of an emergency switch lever, the sort commonly fond on trains.\nHe said: \"It would need to be in such a place it is accessible to crew members in an emergency but not in a position they are likely to accidentally trigger it.\"\nThe witness said that the emergency brake could be designed and added in such a way that it could operate the full braking system.\nMr Balderstone also mentioned in his report new technology, in the making, but that has not been implemented yet, such as facial recognition technology.\nThe inquiry heard it monitors the position of the driver to detect changes in head and eye movement and sends an alert.\nThe witness said: \"It would need other technologies to act upon this alert and halt the vehicle.\"\nAutomatic emergency braking (AEB) was also detailed in the report by Mr Balderstone.\nIt uses the combination of a camera and radar on a vehicle to monitor what is going on outside.\nIn his report the witness said: \"Should the driver still not react to the visual and audible warning the AEB has the option of applying varying degrees of autonomous braking in an effort to avoid a collision.\"\nMr Balderstone later said that AEB systems designed to be fitted to LGVs had no capacity for detecting pedestrians in the path of a vehicle but may do in time.\nHe added: \"Sadly it (AEB) wouldn't have made a difference\".\nEarlier, the FAI heard a second day of evidence from First Bus inspector John Stewart.\nOn Thursday, Mr Stewart told the inquiry, about an incident on 7 April 2010 when Mr Clarke had passed out at the wheel of a bus.\nThe court heard that Mr Stewart had called an ambulance but Mr Clarke was given the all clear by paramedics and refused to go to hospital.\nOn Friday, the witness was cross-examined by Mark Stewart QC, representing the bereaved Sweeney and McQuade families.\nMr Stewart confirmed that the blackout incident on 7 April 2010 had not been reported to him by Mr Clarke.\nHe also confirmed that Mr Clarke had driven the bus after the blackout, albeit with no passengers on board.\nThe witness also said that Mr Clarke had not told him anything about a possible blackout in the bus depot canteen.\nRonald Conway, the lawyer for the bereaved Tait family, then asked the witness about the bus blackout episode.\nMr Stewart said he thought \"something might be seriously wrong - that's why I called the ambulance\".\nThe inquiry, which is expected to run for several weeks will examine the medical background, employment record and training of the driver, Mr Clarke.\nIt will also look at technical aspects of the vehicle and whether any measures could have brought it to a controlled stop, and the safety of the route taken by the vehicle given the time of day and year.\nErin McQuade, 18, her grandparents Jack Sweeney, 68, and his 69-year-old wife Lorraine, all from Dumbarton, died in the incident in the city's Queen Street and George Square.\nStephenie Tait, 29, and Jacqueline Morton, 51, both from Glasgow, and Gillian Ewing, 52, from Edinburgh, were also killed when the truck mounted the pavement before crashing into the side of the Millennium Hotel.\nA further 15 people were injured.\nThe Crown Office has already concluded that there will be no criminal prosecution over the crash, with senior lawyers deeming it a \"tragic accident\".", "Officers were called to the motorway near the Second Severn Crossing at about 14:10 GMT on Monday.\nAll eleven have been held on suspicion of immigration offences and checks are being carried out to establish their immigration status.\nThe driver of the vehicle has been arrested by Avon and Somerset Police.", "Ashley Talbot, 15, died at Maesteg Comprehensive School in December 2014 after a crash with a minibus driven by teacher Chris Brooks.\nMr Brooks was questioned by police but no action was taken.\nRegular bus driver Hedley Williams told the inquest on Wednesday it had been an \"accident waiting to happen\".\nThe jury was shown CCTV footage of distressed children who saw the collision outside the school.\nA statement from school bus driver Mr Williams said a lack of space in the parking bay meant two of the buses had to wait on the other side of the road.\nThe end of the school day was a \"free-for-all\" with children running across the road, the jury heard.\nMr Williams said he had raised concerns about safety but felt he had not been listened to.\n\"I approached teachers about it but they just shrugged their shoulders. I got the impression I needed to keep quiet as I was only a bus driver,\" he told the inquest.\nHe said that days before Ashley died, two pupils had walked in front of a minibus causing it to brake sharply.\nMr Williams said the bus bay had now been extended and there was a lockdown in vehicle movements at the end of the day.\nIn a statement to the inquest, Mr Brooks said he was travelling at a \"safe and appropriate speed\" on the day of the crash.\nHe said he saw something \"appear very quickly\" as Ashley and another boy emerged from between the buses.\nHe added: \"Instantaneously there was a bang as an object hit the Peugeot. I saw it was a male pupil I recognised.\n\"In the same instant I heard a second bang, the passenger side rose up. I prayed it was (the first boy's) bag. There were milliseconds between the bangs. I braked hard and as quickly as I could.\"\nPC Christopher Street, who conducted a forensic investigation of the scene, said minibus driver Mr Brooks would have had \"less than a second to react\" after Ashley and his friend ran out in front of the minibus.\nThe minibus was travelling between 14 and 17mph before the collision, PC Street told the jury.\nA tunnel effect created by buses on both side of the road would have restricted Mr Brooks' view and there was no evidence to suggest the driver had been distracted.\nPC Street said Ashley may have fallen as he tried to stop running.\nThe inquest continues.", "The incident at Rushmoor Fire Station in Hampshire is just one of a number of occasions when emergency vehicles have been delayed by motorists.\nFire chiefs are launching a campaign aimed at drivers amid concerns such incidents are on the increase.\nPhotos and videos of obstructing vehicles are being posted as part of the service's #INeedMySpace campaign.\nHampshire Fire and Rescue said drivers commonly used its Eastleigh headquarters as a cut-through to avoid traffic lights while others blocked roads and stopped in box junctions outside its fire stations.\nVideos showing drivers crashing into fire engines as they tailgated the emergency vehicles have also been released.\nAssistant chief officer Andy Bowers said: \"The issue of motorists blocking the paths of emergency services vehicles is worse than ever before.\n\"Some drivers are parking opposite one another making an entire road inaccessible while others are actually stopping by station exits, often in the hatched areas, and some are even leaving their cars on our grounds.\n\"On the road we have to deal with motorists who are unsure what to do to allow emergency vehicles to pass, and often slam on their brakes the minute they hear the siren, as well as people who try and tailgate when we have gone past.\n\"These issues are causing delays and, when tackling a fire or cutting somebody out of a car, this can be the difference between life and death.\"", "Christian Calderwood was forced to stop by other drivers who surrounded him with their vehicles and took his keys.\nStirling Sheriff Court was told that Calderwood, 42, was barely able to stand by the time police arrived.\nCalderwood, of Kirkintilloch, East Dunbartonshire, will be sentenced in April.\nThe court heard that Calderwood was spotted driving erratically on the M80, west of Stirling, at about 17:00 on 23 May last year.\nMotorists saw him speeding up and slowing down, and veering from lane to lane.\nLindsey Brooks, prosecuting, said that other motorists were so concerned about the way he was driving that they began to follow him, and saw that he then joined the M9.\nA truck driver saw Calderwood's car come up behind him, almost hit him, then overtake and just miss the rear of the lorry before drifting onto the hard shoulder and back again onto the motorway.\nAfter seeing further erratic driving, the truck driver slowed to a halt near the Park of Keir roundabout forcing Calderwood to stop behind him.\nMrs Brooks said other motorists stopped alongside Calderwood, \"effectively blocking him in\".\nOne witness took the keys out of his car's ignition.\nMrs Brooks said: \"The witnesses spoke to the accused, who seemed to be confused and foaming from the mouth.\n\"The police noted he was unsteady on his feet, unaware of his surroundings, where he was, or what he was doing.\n\"There appeared to be white powder round his mouth and the officers said they were having difficulty keeping him awake.\"\nHe was told to take a roadside breath test, but did not appear to understand what he was being asked to do.\nA blood test later showed high levels of Etizolam, a benzodiazepine which is prescribed for anxiety and insomnia in India and Japan.\nCalderwood admitted driving while unfit through drugs.\nSheriff Richard McFarlane deferred sentence for four weeks for reports and disqualified Calderwood from driving in the interim.\nHe said: \"From the description I have, you were hardly fit to stand, let alone drive a vehicle.\"", "Truck drivers are resorting to cocaine, speed and ecstasy to help keep themselves awake on long journeys.\nDrug testing firms say to have 10% of drivers in an haulage firm test positive for drugs was \"not unusual\".\nRoad safety minister Mike Penning insists Britain's roads are among the safest in the world.\nOne lorry driver speaking to the BBC's5 live Investigatesprogramme, who works for a major international haulage company, claims he regularly sees drivers use ecstasy, cannabis, speed and cocaine to relieve the boredom of lengthy shifts.\nThe highly experienced driver has tried to raise the issue with managers at his firm but says nobody wants to take responsibility and tries to pass the buck to another department.\nThe driver, who spoke anonymously, says fellow drivers have in the past veered off motorways or overturned, and in some instances were not even able to remember the incident afterwards.\nIn one incident the insider was told about, a heavily drugged-up driver ploughed into workmen's vehicles by the side of a motorway.\nWhen questioned by the police the driver was only tested for alcohol and he was not arrested.\n\"They are basically taking a recreational drug like ecstasy and speed to keep themselves awake because of the distances involved and because boredom just kicks in,\" said the driver.\nHe explained that drivers got around rules governing how many hours they were allowed to work by taking two tachograph cards, which record driver hours, speed and distance.\nListen to the full report on 5 live Investigates on BBC 5 live on Sunday, 1 April at 21:00 BST or download the programme podcast.\nListen via the BBC 5 live website\nDownload the 5 live Investigates podcast\nGot a story? Contact 5 live Investigates\nTo make it look like two drivers were operating a vehicle, when it was in fact one, drivers simply swapped the cards around at the end of a shift.\nThe driver's testimony is backed-up by a number of drug testing companies contacted by 5 live Investigates.\nThe companies did not want to be identified for fear of losing business but revealed they knew about a substantial number of positive readings among truck and van drivers.\nOne firm carrying out tests for a major haulage company for the first time found 10% of drivers tested positive for illegal drugs, but said none of them lost their jobs.\nTold of 5 live's findings, another drug testing firm said in its experience 10% of drivers testing positive for illegal drugs in the transport industry was \"not outrageous or surprising\".\nThat was backed up by a third testing firm which revealed a company that employs around 5,000 courier drivers, found around 10% of its drivers tested positive for illegal drugs.\nAnother insider who assesses risk for major companies told the BBC how one firm tested 300 young van drivers in their 20s, and more than 40 of them tested positive for illegal drugs.\nIn evidence submitted to the Commons Transport Select Committee the Road Haulage Association (RHA) said the vast majority of its members do not test drivers for drugs as they do no believe drug use among drivers to be a significant problem.\nOf those companies which do carry out drug tests the RHA said they reported no significant problem. However, the RHA admitted that a substantial minority of its members who do not currently test drivers suspect there is a significant problem within the industry.\nThe anonymous driver speaking to 5 live said: \"It's nothing unusual to see drivers rolling joints while they're driving along the motorway and they're holding the steering wheel in their knees.\n\"That's why they're driving at 50 miles per hour. That's not a strong drug but it still shouldn't be taken while driving.\n\"But for the longer journey - eight or nine hours - they're taking ecstasy.\n\"I was talking to a lad two weeks ago and, literally 10 minutes before, had taken ecstasy to try and keep awake and get back up because he had another seven hours in front of him.\n\"He said he hadn't been to sleep for two days.\"\nCampaigners are now calling for a change to the law to bring the road transport industry in line with the railway industry where there is a statutory duty to ensure drivers are drug-free.\nThey also want haulage companies to take more responsibility for their drivers' actions.\nJulie Willis's 23-year-old daughter Louise Cooper was killed by lorry driver Lee Baker in 2008 - he admitted smoking cannabis the previous afternoon and was driving at 60mph in fog when he crashed into Miss Cooper at the roadside.\nTraces of cannabis were found in Mr Baker's lorry.\nMrs Willis says employers should have a statutory duty to check the competency of their drivers.\nThe toxicology report on Mr Baker, seen by 5 Live Investigates, shows cannabis was found in a blood sample.\nHowever, because of a delay in blood sampling the toxicologist was unable to say whether or not he was under the influence at the time of the incident.\nHe was jailed for 14 months after admitting one count of death by dangerous driving because it was not known whether or not the cannabis played any part in the accident.\nMrs Willis said she is angry that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) did not feel it was in the public interest to pursue the drugs matter.\nIn a statement, Chief Crown Prosecutor for the East of England Ken Caley said: \"The most senior lawyers in CPS East of England, including myself, were involved in the decision.\n\"We thoroughly considered the material arising from the police investigation and concluded that there was insufficient evidence to prove that Mr Baker was under the influence of drugs when the incident which lead to the tragic death of Louise Cooper took place.\n\"We continue to offer our sincere condolences to Mrs Willis and her family for their tragic loss\".\nMrs Willis told the BBC: \"The crux of the matter is that drug testing must take place within six hours of the accident and the driver's impairment must be proven, unlike in the case of alcohol.\"\n\"The Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (Vosa) ensure vehicles have to be kept in tip-top condition but if the driver is under the influence of drink and/or drugs, the condition of the vehicle is irrelevant.\"\nRoad Safety Minister Mike Penning insisted Britain's roads were among the safest in the world.\n\"Drug driving is a menace, which is why we are going to introduce a new drug driving offence and approve screening equipment to make it easier for the police to test for the presence of drugs in drivers and tackle this irresponsible minority,\" he told BBC 5 live.\n\"We are currently putting together a panel of experts to advise us on the technical aspects of introducing a new offence of driving with an illegal drug in your body and expect them to meet in the next few weeks to finalise their terms of reference.\n\"We are not complacent and I am determined to crack down on those who continue to put lives at risk by drug driving.\"\nYou can listen to the full report on5 live Investigateson Sunday, 1 April at 21:00 BST onBBC Radio 5 live.\nListen again via the5 live websiteor by downloading the 5 live Investigatespodcast.", "Simon Lewis, 33, died when Kyle Kennedy, 29, hit his car head-on in a crash in the Tremorfa area of the city on New Year's Eve.\nHis son was delivered prematurely three days after the crash at University Hospital of Wales but died later the same day.\nKennedy, from Rumney, will be sentenced on Friday at Cardiff Crown Court.\nThe court previously heard he was driving at \"motorway speeds\" of up to 70mph when the crash on Lamby Way happened.\nHe had denied two counts of causing death by dangerous driving but was found guilty by a jury. He had admitted causing death by careless driving.\nOn Wednesday, Kennedy told the court Mr Lewis was godfather to his cousin's child.\nHe said he took responsibility for his actions and offered his \"deepest sympathy\" to the family.\nBut he told the court the crash would not have happened if a van had not braked in front of him - although he admitted being too close to the vehicle.\nAmanda Lewis, Mr Lewis's widow who was pregnant at the time of the crash, said in a statement her husband had shouted and sworn before she saw lights coming towards the car.\nThe next thing she was aware of was her opening her eyes and hearing herself making a noise and her daughter screaming in the rear of the car.\nShe said Mr Lewis who had been driving was lying flat on his back and not responding or moving when she told him to wake up.\nThe court heard she screamed when she was told he had not survived.\nThree days later, Amanda Lewis underwent an emergency Caesarean section, but her son did not survive.", "The case was brought by Transport for London (TfL) and Uber, seeking clarification of the law governing private hire vehicles in London.\nMr Justice Ouseley heard arguments from both parties, as well as from the Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association.\nUber said it was a \"victory for common sense\".\nThe California-based company operates in 60 countries worldwide and opened in London in 2014. The Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association said it would seek to appeal against the decision.\nTaxi meters. Only black cabs are permitted to have meters because these are regulated and checked by Transport for London which sets universal fares.\nIt is illegal for private hire vehicles in the capital to use meters to calculate fares essentially because they cannot be checked.\nCustomers download an app that uses GPS technology to locate available drivers nearby and puts them in touch.\nUber drivers use this same GPS tracking technology on their smart phones, linked to external computer servers, to calculate customer fares.\nOther factors such as car type, the customer's location, and local demand - price surging, also influence the final amount charged.\nHigh Court judge Mr Justice Ouseley said the GPS and server system did not constitute a taxi-meter.\nArguably it is purely an academic argument. Uber says the ruling will not affect its ability to operate in the capital.\nHowever Transport for London's plans to update the private hire regulations may yet render the ruling irrelevant, as one of TfL's proposals is to require all private hire vehicle operators to state their fare before accepting a booking.\nNo. The Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association (LTDA) said it would seek to appeal against the decision in the Supreme Court - the highest court in the land and the final court of appeal.\nUber said: \"This is great news for Londoners and a victory for common sense. This ruling was not a marginal call. It was quite emphatic and indeed contemptuous of the fact the case had been brought before the High Court. If the LTDA chooses to appeal it, we will respond.\"\nTfL paid to bring the case before the High Court. It has not disclosed how much it has spent in legal fees to date, and all three parties have independently engaged lawyers to represent them." ]

[ "It is middle eastern, and it's roots precede islam. There are many forms / places where it is not sexualized like it is when run through a western filter. That said, the cultures in _most_ middle eastern countries and cities are probably not as you imagine. The night life in Amman is rich and exciting and filled with tight outfits, as sexy as you'd find in NYC. The party culture in Beirut is wilder than anything in the U.S., at least in my experience. While other countries - saudi arabia being the obvious example - do not have this dimension to their culture, the actual cultures of the middle east and of countries that are primarily islamic are quite varied." ]

[ "How about a belly landing on the snow-covered steppes of the eastern front?", "I do not have sources for examples of middle eastern musicians performing at european courts, but there is a strong influence of middle eastern music in european music. The most prominent example would be in european instruments. The lute and guitar are heavily influenced by the middle eastern oud, the riq, a small percussion instrument surrounded by hand cymbals, is the precursor to the tambourine, and the turkish mey is one of the double-reed wind instruments that would inspire the oboe. Middle eastern music also has a strong troubadour tradition, and based on their presence in Europe it would not be farfetched to imagine their music was heard on occasion by europeans. Sources: Mann, Horace. \"Islamic and Middle Eastern Music and Dance.\" San Francisco Unified School District. Web. 12 Oct 2009. Erica Goode (May 1, 2008). \"A Fabled Instrument, Suppressed in Iraq, Thrives in Exile\". New York Times. _URL_6_ (More information about the oud in particular in this article.)", "I have a followup question: if 613-911 never occurred, how does the Arab conquest and the expansion of Islam fit into these theorists historical timeline?", "They probably mean that women in the middle east wore hijabs before Islam existed. Islam didn't come from nowhere, it incorporated existing cultural practices and beliefs. Technically those women back then weren't Muslims, but they were from same the culture that Islam would later come from.", "Ooh, I've been waiting for this thread for awhile to ask these questions: What was the frequency of visits made by Europeans and Middle Eastern/North African Muslims to the University of Timbuktu? What percentage of the student body were made up of foreigners? How respected and how well known was the University of Timbuktu in both the Islamic and Christian worlds? Did it or its students influence the development of Universities in Europe? (or Madrasas in the Islamic world?)", "You're absolutely right that the expansion of territory under the control of Muslims happened very quickly and through military conquest! However, scholars differentiate between *Arabization* and *Islamicization* (or Islamization) of conquered territories. It generally happens that conquest preceded the gradual acculturation of Arab culture which preceded the bulk of local conversions to Islam. Here are three earlier answers of mine that address the complexity of Arabization, Islamicization, the status of \"peoples of the Book\", and the possibilities of forced conversion: * [What does it mean that the Middle East was 'Arabized' over the course of history?](_URL_2_) * [How much of a financial burden was the jizya on non-Muslims?] (_URL_1_) * [Can we blame the West for radical Islam/its ideology? Has Islam always been violent?] (_URL_0_) Hopefully this will get you started!", "the main political parties are Conservative, Labour and Libdems. Conservatives are basically on the centre right, Labour are basically centre left, and the Libdems try to fit in the middle. Conservatives have members who are on the extreme right and Labour have members who are on the extreme left, but all parties try to get \"middle England\" to vote for them.", "I have never heard her be referred to as a bear dancer. She was apparently a prostitute and a stage dancer, but it seems unlikely that a attractive female would be employed as a bear dancer. Anyway, bear dancing is exactly what it sounds like: tame bears could be \"taught\" to dance. Dancing bears were reasonably common entertainment in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages. The bear dancer is the person (usually a man) who uses a whip and/or spiked collar to make the bear dance. Although bear dancing was common in large parts of the world it is often associated with the Roma people of Eastern Europe. It is possible that someone is confusing two aspects of Theodora's life - *she* was a dancer and *her father* (apparently) trained bears in Constantinople's Hippodrome before his untimely death forced his daughters into prostitution, which could be how they arrived at \"bear dancer\".", "A Muslim is just a follower of the religion of Islam. An Islamist is someone who thinks Islam should guide society in every way, politically, socially, economically. They're similar to religious conservatives in the US who want Bible-based values in the government.", "A caliphate is an Islamic state led by a religious and political leader known as a caliph, meaning literally a successor, i.e., a successor to Islamic prophet Muhammad and all the Prophets of Islam. The term caliphate is often applied to successions of Muslim empires that have existed in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. An example is the Abbasid Caliphate. Conceptually, the caliphate represents the political unity of the entire community of Muslim faithful (the ummah) ruled by a single caliph. Of course, Islamophobes would fear any sort of nation united by a religious leader and accepted as politically legitimate. Sources: High school Middle Eastern History The Middle East and Islamic World Reader Wikipedia (;))", "They come back down. In relatively crowded areas, this can and has resulted in deaths, particularly in some Middle Eastern, Balkan and South Asian cultures where firing weapons into the air is a culturally accepted thing done at celebrations. In the middle of towns. Yeah. America's pretty bad about it too. _URL_0_", "Middle Eastern clothing has changed very little over the past 5000 years. The hallmark of Middle Eastern clothing is a shawl covering the head and long robes (not trousers). This is how the ancient Hebrews dressed, and this is how the Arabs still dress to this day. _URL_2_ _URL_2_", "I can't speak for far Eastern cultures like Korea and Japan, but in the Islamic world, religion played a huge impact on it. In order to pray, Muslims have to wash their limbs with clean water. Every Friday, they are supposed to take a bath. They can not pray in an area that has filth in it. Muslims are recommended to brush their teeth five times a day. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Cleanliness is very important in Islam. So everywhere the Islamic state held power, that was passed on.", "First, square dancing has deep roots in American culture. Nineteen states list square dancing as the official state dance. Second, it's good physical activity, requiring coordination, balance, and social interaction. Third, (at least, when we did square dancing when I was a kid), you'd be listening to commands as they're played over the speakers. Being able to listen to a chain of commands, remember them and execute them correctly is intellectually stimulating.", "This is a learned social behavior. Notice that children almost never do this. It's possible dancing is innately human (just like how music is a human only phenomenon).", "Just a brief clarification, you should view much of the Italian architecture that seems eastern influenced not as Islamic influenced, but eastern-Roman/Byzantine influenced. Much of Islamic architecture in its early days was borrowed straight from the Byzantine textbook. It wasn't til much later during the Abbasid period that it acquired a Byzantine/Persian fusion, and from then on its own particular style. But with that said, the short answer to your question is simply, Italian architecture represents their geographic position as a key node in Mediterranean and European cultural interaction and foreign occupation.", "Left-wing > Liberal > Moderate < Conservative < Right Wing Left wing is communism/socialism esque beliefs Liberal is socialism/equality beliefs Moderate is middle group Conservative is everybody has the right to succeed/personal freedoms Right wing is free market capitalism/ only the strong will survive In 'Murica at least.", "Race really came from that time in history we were really wanted everything to fit into nice taxonomic groups. But the groups we choose are pretty damn arbitrary, even to this day. What does it mean to be white? European? How close are Italians to Finnish to Romanians to Spanish? What about Asian? Asian including everyone from China and India and Indonesia and the Phillipines. What about people from the Middle east? Are Syrians and Egyptians and Jordanians middle eastern or black? Hell, even go south of the US and what it means to be white and black vary by a crazy amount. Which is why you see stuff like Non Hispanic, white on forms.", "Two recommendations: [*Canarsie* by Jonathan Rieder](_URL_0_) - a case study of how middle class whites in Canarsie, Brooklyn went from being reliable liberal voters in the 1940s and 50s to being overwhelmingly conservative by the 1980s. [*Moral Politics* by George Lakoff](_URL_1_) - Not a work of history (the author is a cognitive linguist), but probably the most coherent explanation of the \"conservative movement\" worldview. Some of the examples in the book are pretty specific to the 1990s, but I think the larger theory fits the conservative movement equally well in earlier eras.", "During the time when the Black Death peaked in Europe (middle 1300s), the only other kingdoms really positioned to threaten the bulk of Europe would have been the various Islamic rump states left over after the collapse of the centralized caliphates. The plague swept through the Middle East and Eastern Europe/Balkans before reaching Western Europe so those areas were in no state to capitalize.", "The basic answer here is that Christianity and Islam became the official religions of empires that ended up conquering most of Europe and the Middle East. And, since they were monotheistic religions, they tended to replace rather than exist alongside the local religions in those places. Judaism is the odd man out since it survived less as a result of its own conquests, but because it is in a sense a prequel to Christianity and Islam, and so ended up being more like a \"sect\" of those two faiths in terms of how it was treated, rather than being absorbed or displaced. There are, of course, other more specific factors as well, like the nature of the faiths, their own resistance to being co-opted, the displaced faiths being tied into political or social structures that were also outlawed, and particularities of history and culture.", "Reza Aslan's \"No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam\" opens by explaining the origins of Islam and does cover some aspects of pre-Islamic Arabian culture and religious practice. It's an interesting and accessible read as well, although it doesn't really focus on your specific area of discussion.", "To add to this, why was monogamy the norm in pre-Christian Greece and Rome? What were the cultural differences that made monogamy the norm among Roman emperors but not among Asian or Middle Eastern rulers?", "According to the historian Khaled El-Rouayheb (*Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800*. University of Chicago Press, 2005), homosexuality as such did not exist in the Middle East before the 19th century. There were many men who engaged in sexual activities which we would today describe as homosexual, but these activities did not define their identities, and often did not prevent them from maintaining heterosexual relationships as well. The biggest example of this was pederasty, which was relatively common and generally seen as a normal type of relationship for beardless boys and older men to have, but didn't prevent the participants from living the rest of their lives in a 'heterosexual' manner. For Middle Easterners, the biggest issue was not the gender of the person whom one had sex with, but the manner in which one did so - it was socially acceptable for an older man to penetrate a beardless boy, but the reverse would have been met with severe social stigma.", "This article does a good job explaining it: _URL_1_ It was a song that grew in popularity over a short period of time. Although the song was popular, it was the simplicity of the dance that really helped make it mainstream. And, like many aspects of popular culture, as soon as it as popular, it started to be heard everywhere and people quickly got sick of it. I'm not sure if the song is more ubiquitous than other comparable dance crazes - Chubby Checker's \"The Twist\" dance, for example, is still ubiquitous today: _URL_0_", "IIRC, it has to do with the fact that humans are hyper-social animals. We have massive portions of our brains dedicated to social interaction, communication, and relationships. Having long, intimate rounds of intimacy helps us form long-lasting social bonds, bonds which are critical to the survival of our species. Humans are very weak compared to other species in almost every regard excluding physical endurance and intelligence. Good sex thus sensibly includes aspects that show our evolutionary fitness in other areas as well. For other animals, there's no reason to expend the extra energy for long-duration mating if they can avoid, as they can't gain from it in the ways we can. That said, humans aren't the only animals that have foreplay; it's just that to us, animal foreplay looks a lot like dancing/strutting around. Their dances/behaviors/etc. show that they're fit in other ways.", "In Islamic world bathing is done in routine frequency. In Islamic teaching you have to ritually bath after intercourse. Also before Friday prayers it is also encouraged to bath. Muslims travelers to non-Muslims nations during Medieval period very often write about how unhygienic these people are, who don't wash or bath regularly. For example Ahmad ibn Fahdlan wrote about how uncouth were the medieval Rus who used the same water both to wash their nose and hair, and did not bath daily. The importance of bath in Islamic culture can be seen in various Ottomans legacy in South-eastern Europe, where the Ottomans built bathhouse in every major cities that they conquered. These bathhouses for example, can still be found in Budapest, which were built by Ottoman during their rule in Hungary. Edit: Source on Ibn Fadlan's journey is [The European Other in Medieval Arabic Literature and Culture: Ninth-Twelfth Century AD](_URL_0_)", "Islam is at a point christianity was during the middle ages. The entire social fabric is built around religious belief. Anyone who goes against that is ostracized and outcast from society and sometimes their family. So even those who are non-believers have to maintain a facade.", "I am going to contribute to this question cause this is something I've been thinking about as well: why do we dance? Are there other animals that move rhythmically to music? I imagine that the enjoyment of dance could possibly be attributed to evolutionary mating rituals (flaunting of fitness etc.), but how is it that it became something done for enjoyment and entertainment?", "I would think that social refers to how people interact, culture refers to what they produce. Societal stratification might be a social issue, a Dickens book decrying that stratification is a cultural one. For social history I might discuss how that stratification came about and how it changed and so might mention Dickens. For a cultural history I would talk about the Dickens novel and would mention literary influences as well as the society he described.", "Hiya! Have you checked out our book list yet? We actually have pretty great sections on both the [history of Islam](_URL_0_) and [Middle Eastern history](_URL_1_). You'll find some good beginner and more advanced works on Arab history, more specifically, in both of them. Happy reading!", "Typically, \"Islam\" refers to the religion, and \"Muslim\" to the people who follow Islam. \"Islamic\" is used for anything that is part of the larger culture of Islam- Islamic art, Islamic Music, Islamic Prayers....and so on. So we say \"Islamic extremeISM\" and \"Muslim ExtremeIST\"" ]

[ "Just let him kill me then." ]

[ "Please don't let him kill me.", "Why are they here?", "Why is? No? Let's not see.", "DeLay answered the questions without hesitation.", "Without delay, Miss Tuppence", "The return trip will occur without the gentleman.", "Jon cut the man's throat with his rapier.", "Why was he here?", "Here goes, let's do this", "They won't let him cut budgets or programs without giving him hell.", "Let's stay here.", "That is why we are here today.", "My language was kind.", "The girls are cutting the cake and not letting the man cut it.", "Here it is, clear cut.", "He wants to keep you alive.", "I cleared by throat and nodded my head.", "If I were you, I would take a risk with him.", "It wouldn't take much to kill me.", "Why aren't they here yet?", "I got to the village as planned without any delay.", "He would kill the person himself if it would not cost him his freedom.", "I was just shot, otherwise I would go with him to the office.", "My throat was fine and I could speak normally.", "The woman here is probably kind of hungry.", "That's not the reason why I'm here.", "I believe the vote should happen without delay.", "He looked like he was designed to stab the man.", "That is the reason why we are here.", "I wanted to cut the woman but couldn't bring myself to do it.", "He had a dagger.", "I prefer to be shot." ]

[ "MORINVILLE, Alta. — Once upon a time, in a town north of Edmonton, there was a man who dreamed of building something magical.\nAfter a year of construction, using $3 million from his own pocket, Robert Chauvet turned a Morinville parking lot into a scene out of a fairy tale. There’s a fantastical structure with a wavy roof, curved wooden doors and — as his story goes — a chimney squashed by a giant.\n“I’ve always been fascinated by the imagination and creative minds of children,” says the 71-year-old father, grandfather and retired owner of a construction company.\n“Everybody builds houses. And whether you build 10 or 1,000, basically you’re just a house-builder. It doesn’t leave anything special behind.”\nBecause Chauvet wanted children to enjoy his final building project in the town of 9,800, he had it designed as a daycare.\nHe rents it out to the Fable Child Care Centre, which opened in June.\n“The kids always seem happy here,” says father Dave Brooks, as he helps two-year-old Hadley wiggle out of her jacket during a morning drop-off.\nBrooks thinks the daycare resembles more of a hobbit house from “Lord of the Rings.”\nMost of the arched doors are adult-sized, except for one leading into the toddlers’ room. Parents and workers have to duck to pass through. In another room, there’s a cavernous children’s bathroom and on the wall next to it a picture of a squirming raccoon waiting for its turn.\nFairies and bunnies are painted on walls, and tree branches stretch into clouds on the ceiling, perfect for nap time.\n“It’s a blessing to come to work every day,” says daycare operator Bonnie Provost. “Kids and families love it.”\nWith a capacity for 85 children, the centre is just over half full.\nAnd by next year, it could also be bustling with brides.\nChauvet and his wife, Hien Ho, hope an upstairs rental space and outside flower garden will make a happily-ever-after venue for weddings and photo shoots.\nAs the couple walk along the garden’s path, they point to a waterfall and behind it a hidden door where a gnome lives.\nChauvet says he’s especially proud of the roof’s curvy shingles that workers spent seven months cutting by hand. He’s also pleased with children’s artwork that is outlined in the lead-glass windows and scratched into the cement foundation.\nHe recounts how one burly concrete worker happily spent time on his hands and knees stamping and painting bears and butterflies into the stone work.\nAlso along the path are sculptures of seven children Chauvet says helped make his dream come true.\n“The kids built the daycare with the help of an old carpenter,” he chuckles." ]

[ "Mount Airy Library is kicking off Children’s Book Week, April 30–May 4, with a Fairytale Festival Saturday on the lawn between Main Street and the library.\n“It’s never been done,” said Angela Llewellyn, assistant librarian, as she was going over the final plans for the event.\nThe event is scheduled from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. but Llewellyn suggests, “If you want to get the most out of the day, come before 3, but the stories will continue as long as someone is here until 5.”\nThe event will be a fundraiser for the library in that vendors have made donations to reserve their spaces, and those funds will be used to fund library programming. The festival will be free to participants unless they do some shopping with vendors, according to Llewellyn.\nThe library’s teen theater troupe, the Dewey Decimal Players, will be presenting snippets of their spring play, “Nearly Grimm Tales,” throughout the day as teaser-trailers for the play which will be presented as part of National Book Week on Monday, April 30, and Tuesday, May 1, at 6:30 p.m.\nThe play, written by Llewellyn several years ago, is a hodgepodge of assorted fairy tales and stories all jumbled together and has been keeping the cast in stitches as they rehearse it.\n“The kids can’t get through the play without laughing at each other,” said Llewellyn. “Our next rehearsal they’re going to have to learn to wait for laughs.”\nLlewellyn said when the play was performed previously, she had to play a few parts to fill out the cast, but this time more kids showed up to audition than there were roles for them to play, so she had to write some extra interlude scenes to accommodate the additional actors.\nMusic performances for the festival will start with Candelfirth, a traditional music group from Pilot Mountain who play a wide assortment of instruments, including a harp, world instruments, recorder, flute and lots of string instruments. Jacki Spector will perform kid’s songs on guitar and do sing-alongs in the afternoon.\nThere will be storytellers throughout the day. Jane Tesh, a retired librarian, will be telling stories along with Wendy Tatman, appearing at noon.\nAuthor Cindy Hollingsworth will read from her “Westie Tales” series, and author Sharon Chriscoe will read her new book, “Fire Truck Dreams.”\n“OUR Light Group,” which is made up of homeschoolers, will perform a play, “Modern Mother Goose” at 10:30 a.m. Cindy Joyce’s little girl’s dance troupe will perform a princess dance at noon, and 1 p.m. will bring a book character costume contest. Children are requested to dress as their favorite book character for the contest.\nA book character tea party will provide children an opportunity to take tea (and cookies) with their favorite book characters.\nVendors at the event will include Cindy Hollingsworth’s Dance Troupe; Sherry Clodfelter with handmade jewelry; Amanda Pennix doing fairy tale tinsel hair extensions; Maria Saldarriaga, a Surry Community College librarian appearing as Face Painting Maria; Julie Henne of Indulge Soapery; Julie Pratt’s Celestial Ice Shack, a traveling sno-cone experience; Kindness Rocks — Vincent’s Legacy, selling merchandise and allowing kids to paint kindness rocks; and a special Friends of the Library book sale.\nThe Friends are also providing a Bouncy Castle.\nAn Imagination Station will provide supplies and materials for youth to be able to express themselves with art and craft projects.\n“We’re putting out glue, chalk, construction paper and art supplies and letting them go to town,” said Llewellyn.\nA Let’s Pretend Village will have a series of little tents; a store, a house, a pirate ship and a rocket ship where kids can act out their own stories.\n“Even if it rains, we’ll do it,” said Llewellyn, who has mapped out a plan for moving the festival inside into different areas of the library in the case of foul weather. “Except the Bouncy Castle. We can’t get it inside,” she smiles as she turns to discuss last-minute details with the bouncy castle man.\nAngela Llewellyn lines up craft materials and fairy tale books for the Imagination Station at Mount Airy Public Library’s first-ever Fairytale Festival on Saturday. https://www.mtairynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/web1_IMG_8187.jpg Angela Llewellyn lines up craft materials and fairy tale books for the Imagination Station at Mount Airy Public Library’s first-ever Fairytale Festival on Saturday. Bill Colvard | The News\nBy Bill Colvard bcolvard@MtAiryNews.com\nReach Bill Colvard at 336-415-4699.\nReach Bill Colvard at 336-415-4699.", "This book launch features book 5 in the Orphans and Inmates series: The Girl on the Shore.\nA ghostly message from 1835 and dreams of the Sloane sisters of Buffalo, New York in 1880 send modern day novelist Maude Travers across the wild Atlantic to a small island off the west coast of Ireland for answers.\nWhat do the Spiritualists of Lily Dale, New York, a child accused of witchcraft and the ancient Celtic legends of the Fairy Folk have to do with the mysteries hidden there? As Maude hones her ability to connect with the past, she sees that a chance encounter with a girlhood rival awakens long forgotten secrets. Old superstitions begin to take root and place the Sloane family in danger. How will the resolution of this latest supernatural quest impact a relationship in trouble in the present, another just beginning in the past and a third that was never meant to be?\nAbout Rosanne Higgins:\nRosanne Higgins was born in Enfield Connecticut, however spent her youth in Buffalo, New York. Her experiences traveling in both the United States and in Europe as a child resulted in a love of history from an early age. She knew from the time she was in fourth grade that she wanted to be an Anthropologist and went on to graduate school at the University at Buffalo. Combining her two interests she studied the Asylum Movement in the nineteenth century and its impact on disease specific mortality. Her research focused on the Erie, Niagara, and Monroe County Poorhouses in Western New York and earned her a Ph.D. in Anthropology in 1998 and several scholarly publications. After six years as an assistant professor, Rosanne focused on her family, husband Bob Higgins, and sons, Max and Charlie. She also opened a successful business, tapping into her love for animals with a doggy daycare. This led to charitable efforts in animal rescue. During this time, she also turned her attentions to a more personal fundraising effort following the tragic death of her older son, Max, from a rare pediatric cancer at age 11. This event inspired in her the ability to imagine the previously untold stories of personal and private sufferings. In the Spring of 2012, she was invited to join the Erie County Poorhouse Cemetery Project, undertaken by the Department of Anthropology at the University at Buffalo While writing her dissertation in the mid 90’s, Rosanne had gotten to know many of the inmates of the institutions mentioned above as she pieced together what little could be told of their lives while researching their deaths. For over 20 years, she had a desire to tell the other side of the story in a way that would be accessible to more than just the scholarly community. Rosanne’s need to tell their tale has resulted in her first novel, Orphans and Inmates, which is the first in a series chronicling fictional accounts of Poorhouse residents inspired by the historical data.", "New whisky releases come and go. Limited editions, travel exclusives, bottles of varying ages and unique cask finishes; there are many wonderful expressions out there. Few, however, capture a story and tell it well. Even fewer manage to bring said story to life, making sure it’s not forgotten in today's society of endless, rapid information. One of these bottles has just launched, as the beginning of the exciting Scottish Folklore Series. Headed by Cask 88, a supplier of some of the rarest and oldest casks of Scotch whisky in existence, this project pulls drinkers into the fairy tales of Scotland, a land rich in myth and legend. The project kicked off today, on May 31st, with the Ben Nevis 45-Year-Old, available on the Cask 88 online store. The first bottling tells the story of Cù-Sìth.\nPhoto: Cask 88\nBen Nevis 45-Year-Old & The Fairy Dog\nDistilled at the Ben Nevis distillery in 1972, the whisky spent 45 years in a sherry hogshead before the cask was bottled, yielding just 228 bottles, at 43%. This is one of the oldest Ben Nevis casks to be ever be bottled and delivers the rich character and immense depth expected after four and a half decades in wood.\nIt's dark and deep. These words also describe the tale of Cù-Sìth, the legendary hound rumored to haunt the Highlands of Scotland. Said to be the size of a small bull, with black and green fur, the ‘fairy dog’, as it came to be known, was believed to be a harbinger of death. The dog hunted its prey in silence, eventually dragging the unlucky souls down to the underworld. When the hound’s howls were heard, men locked up the women and children so they wouldn’t be taken away. According to legend, if you heard the hound’s howl three times, that was it - You’d be on your way to the underworld. Aided by art historian and Celtic Revival specialist Dr. Frances Fowle, the Cask 88 team sought to understand and deliver the story of the Cù-Sìth, and its place in Scottish folklore.\n‘It’s been a pleasure working with the Cask 88 team to bring Celtic myths to a wider audience. Local legends, rather like Scottish whisky, are part of our cultural identity,’ said Dr Frances Fowle. ‘Stories have been passed down from generation to generation, sometimes in poetry and song, and often accompanied by a drop of fine whisky. In the Hebrides, the more superstitious members of the community lived in fear of the Cù-Sìth.’\nPhoto: Cask 88\nOn a less creepy note, the closest drinkers will get to the mythological hound is through the gorgeous label design of the Ben Nevis bottle, the first of six bottlings to come in the Scottish Folklore Series. Each bottling will tell the tale of a different mythical creature that once roamed the Scottish lands, or still does. As Ben Nevis is located in the Highlands (home of the hound) the liquid and story blend in well together. Perhaps the upcoming bottlings will each revolve around a different Scotch whisky region and the creatures within it. Speyside, Lowlands, Islay, there are many stories to be told. While the tales are timeless and colorful, the whisky doesn’t fall behind in terms of quality, and flavor. The company plans to bottle five of the rarest single casks in their portfolio, distilled at some of Scotland’s finest distilleries.\nWhen the story has sunk in and you’ve checked outside for hounds in the shadows, it’s time for tasting. Much like the story of Cù-Sìth, the nose is dark, rich and sweet, led by sherry, thick honey, and dark, spiced fruit. The aromas lead the palate and intensify, joined by dark chocolate, a hint of tropical fruit, and deep oak. The finish is long, as sherry and dark fruit linger playfully, leaving one wanting for nothing as we wait for the hound to arrive.", "Get Daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nIn the fickle world we live in, for something to continue to capture imaginations more than ten years after it first premiered, it must be doing something right.\nBut there are some tales that are as old as time, and although Wicked may not be as old as the story it precedes, it has that extra sparkle that continues to keep it alive.\nMore than 50 million people have now seen the show worldwide, and as it makes its return to Bristol for a five-week run, you should really seize the opportunity to join them.\nA tale of good, evil, and above all else, friendship, Joe Mantello’s Wicked is a show that has it all – comedy, music, incredible production, and a narrative that has an important message far beyond the glitter.\nThe story, based on the novel by Gregory Maguire, cleverly juxtaposes perceptions of good and evil as it tells the tale of Elphaba, the green, unloved daughter of the minister of Munchkinland, who blames herself for her sister’s disability and has dedicated her life to caring for her.\nFollowing her sister to university, she meets Glinda, the sickly-sweet goody-goody whose over-the-top antics are supposed to get under the audience’s skin from the off. The story charts the pair’s unlikely friendship as Elphaba’s talents lead her to the Wizard of Oz, who will eventually smear her name until she becomes the ‘Wicked Witch of the West’ while her social-climbing best friend becomes ‘Glinda the Good’.\nIn Wicked, you side with the 'villain' as the whole of Oz turns against her, and root for the ‘good’ to be exposed for what it truly is. It’s a clever play on fairy tale stereotypes, and a message of corruption which will no doubt strike a chord in a such a politically-minded climate.\nThe story sits at the heart of a spellbinding production which sees monkeys fly across the stage, magic spells causing cast members to cartwheel in the air, and the show stopping moment Elphaba flies high on her broomstick belting out one of the most memorable scores in both Wicked and the history of musical theatre.\nAlthough Defying Gravity comes at the end of Act One, Amy Ross’s powerful and faultless rendition left the audience on their feet before she’d finished and the curtain had come down. It is by far the stand out moment of the two-and-a-half hour production, but it manages to keep its momentum in the second half, although the scores that follow are slightly less memorable.\nShows can sometimes lose something when they go out on tour, but last night sat in the Bristol Hippodrome, you could have been in a Broadway theatre - it's one of the best touring productions to ever come to the city.\n(Image: Darren Bell)\nWicked is perfectly cast, with Helen Woolf's portrayal of Glinda just the right mix or irritating and lovable, and Aaron Sidwell's Fiyero - the love interest of the two leading ladies - the perfect side show to the more important theme of friendship.\nThe costume and set design is incredible, and it particularly comes into focus in Emerald City - a strange world that seems to be a mix of The Capitol in The Hunger Games and Dr Seuss's Whoville - eccentric, surreal and wonderfully captivating.\nWicked is everything musical theatre should be - magical, witty and powerful - and 12 years after it first hit the stage, it just keeps getting better.\nWicked will be showing at the Bristol Hippodrome until March 3. For tickets or more information, visit the Hippodrome's website.", "Veteran Canadian actor Christopher Plummer has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his role in All the Money in the World.\nThe 87-year-old Plummer replaced Kevin Spacey as billionaire J. Paul Getty after Spacey was ousted from the movie in the wake of a series of sexual misconduct allegations.\nPlummer was nominated for best actor in a supporting role along with Willem Dafoe (The Florida Project), Armie Hammer (Call Me by Your Name), Richard Jenkins (The Shape of Water) and Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri).\nThe Breadwinner, based on the bestselling book by Canadian author Deborah Ellis, earned a nod. (Elevation Pictures)\nEric McCormack and the animated film The Breadwinner were among the other Canadian nominees announced today.\nToronto-born McCormack is nominated for best actor in a musical or comedy series for Will and Grace.\nAnd The Breadwinner, a Canadian co-production produced by Angelina Jolie, is up for best animated film.\nDirector Jean-Marc Vallée's TV drama series Big Little Lies earned six nominations. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)\nMeanwhile, the HBO series Big Little Lies, directed by Montreal's Jean-Marc Vallée, is in the running for six trophies while Guillermo del Toro's Cold War-era fairy tale The Shape of Water, which was shot in Toronto and Hamilton, earned a leading seven nods.\nAlberta-shot series Fargo was also nominated for TV's best limited series or motion picture.\nThe Handmaid's Tale, based on Canadian author Margaret Atwood's acclaimed novel, also received several nominations, including best television drama.", "Stephen ‘tWitch’ Boss found a fairy tale love with his wife Allison Holker & now they’re helping others do the same… in Disney!\nStephen ‘tWitch’ Boss, 35, met his now-wife Allison Holker, 29, on So You Think You Can Dance, and the two pros literally salsa’d their way into love! Now, the pair are hosting Freeform’s unscripted series, Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings, which kicks off tonight, Dec. 11, with the holiday special, Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings: Holiday Magic. Sound like a dream come true? It is, especially for Allison, who told Us Weekly, “It’s such a special moment that I got to share with my husband. When they asked us to be a part of Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings, I was honored to be a part of someone else’s moment that they’ll remember forever. It’s so special. It just seemed like a magical moment.” In the holiday special, which airs at 8 PM ET on Freeform, the couple, who celebrate their 4-year wedding anniversary this month, will give a behind-the-scenes look at fairy tale weddings and engagements at Disney destinations around the world!\nIn an EXCLUSIVE interview with HollywoodLife.com, promoting Enterprise’s new “Instant Insider” feature, tWitch revealed how he and Allison stay sane and relaxed while traveling during the holiday season, with their energetic nineteen month old son Maddox! “Maddox is great traveling… so far. He has taken a bunch of plane rides so far. Most of them have been fantastic, some have been borderline tragic. For the most part he’s great. When I say tragic, it’s not like he’s the not screaming crying baby, he just has so much energy. He just wants to get up and run around and play with stuff,” The Ellen Show DJ said. “He just wants to be moving. Truth be told, he’s mine and Allison’s son so that’s kinda where we get that from.” tWitch also offered some knowledge to parents who want to calm their kids during travel, “To all the dads out there put on a little Stevie, okay? Stevie [Wonder] can do the trick. Of course, you can never go wrong with some classic Michael tracks!”\nOf course, with Allison and tWitch being professional dancers, there’s nothing like a Boss family dance party during the holiday season! “Here in the house, we’ll have music playing and we have impromptu dance parties all the time so, for Maddox that’s just normal life! When he sees Allison or I on TV he’s just like, ‘Yep that’s Mom. That’s dad. And they’re doing what they do around the house usually,” tWitch said. Now, when Maddox sees his parents hosting Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings, he’ll be seeing them do things a little differently! From seeing the inner workings of a Frozen-themed wedding at Disney’s The Grand Floridian, to a stunning Disneyland wedding, four years in the making, Allison and tWitch will bring their efforts to another area they thrive in — marriage!\nYou can catch tWitch and Allison Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings: Holiday Magic tonight, Dec. 11, at 8 PM ET on Freeform and, the full series which will start in Summer 2018! Plus, you can get travel tips and destination recommendations from tWitch through Enterprise Rent-A-Car’s “Instant Insider” program, posted on their Facebook page!", "Disney is bringing even more animated classics back to life! From fairy tales like \"Snow White\" to classics such as \"The Lion King,\" Disney's live-action list continues to grow with more than a dozen in the works. Some of the movies are complete remakes of their animated counterparts, while others are based on origin stories or sequels to existing live-action adaptations. Keep reading to see all of the live-action remakes and sequels Disney has planned so far. View As: One Page Slides\nA live-action \"Beauty and the Beast\" is coming in March 2017, starring Emma Watson as Belle.\nThe film features Luke Evans as Gaston, Ewan McGregor as the candelabra Lumiere, Emma Thompson as Mrs. Potts, and Ian McKellen as the clock, Cogsworth.\n\"Beauty and the Beast\" will be in theaters March 17, 2017.\nDisney bought a script in 2015 to bring \"Mulan\" to life. The movie is scheduled for release November 2, 2018. Source: The Hollywood Reporter\nThe film follows a young woman who disguises herself as a man, takes her father's place in war, and saves China.\nNiki Caro will bring the movie to life. She is the second woman at the studio to direct a movie with a budget over $100 million. Source: The Hollywood Reporter\nDisney announced that \"The Lion King\" will be getting turned into a live-action film. Source: The Hollywood Reporter\nThe story follows young Simba, who, with the help of his friends Timon and Pumba, must eventually save his kingdom from his evil uncle, Scar.\nJon Favreau, who directed \"Iron Man\" and the live-action \"Jungle Book\" remake, is set to direct.\nTim Burton is going to direct Disney's \"Dumbo,\" a remake of the 1941 movie about a young elephant bullied because of his big ears. Source: Wall Street Journal\nThe film won't use real elephants on screen. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney will use a mix of CGI and live action. There's no set release yet. Source: The Hollywood Reporter\nDisney is going to remake 1963's \"The Sword in the Stone,\" which follows a young King Arthur, when he was an orphan, and his lessons with the wizard Merlin. Source: The Hollywood Reporter\nThe remake will be written by \"Game of Thrones\" writer/producer Bryan Cogman.\nIt won't just be princesses with their own live-action remakes. One of the Prince Charmings (from Cinderella or Snow White) will be getting his own movie too. Source: The Hollywood Reporter\nThe Genie from Aladdin, voiced by the late Robin Williams in the 1992 classic, is getting his own live-action prequel titled \"Genies\" about how he ended up in the lamp. Source: The Hollywood Reporter\nAladdin is also getting his own remake.\nGuy Ritchie is set to direct.\nGlenn Close played the villainous Cruella de Vil in the 1996 live-action remake of 1961's \"101 Dalmatians,\" but Emma Stone is set to play her in \"Cruella,\" an origin story for the villain. Source: The Hollywood Reporter\nDisney will also release a live-action adaptation of Winnie the Pooh, first animated in 1966.\nAccording to Deadline, the film will feature an adult Christopher Robin visiting his old friends in the Hundred-Acre Wood. Source: Deadline\n\"Peter Pan\" has been brought to life in numerous incarnations, but Disney is set to remake its 1953 animated film.\nDavid Lowry, who directed \"Pete's Dragon,\" will next set his sights on re-imagining \"Peter Pan\" as well.\nPeter Pan's fairy companion TInker Bell is getting her own live-action film, \"Tink,\" starring Reese Witherspoon.\n\"Pinocchio\" was Disney's second animated film, released in 1940. It is being adapted into a live-action version which will be loosely based on the original animated film. Source: Deadline\nBefore the release of Disney's remake of 1961's \"The Jungle Book,\" the studio already started planning a sequel.\nJon Favreau is expected to return to the director's chair for \"The Jungle Book 2.\" Source: The Hollywood Reporter\nAngelina Jolie is set to reprise her role as Maleficent in the sequel to the 2014 origin story of the notorious villain from 1959's \"Sleeping Beauty.\" Source: The Hollywood Reporter\nDisney is also working on a live-action version of its first animated classic, \"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.\" Source: The Hollywood Reporter\nThe fairy tale will have new music by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who most recently wrote the lyrics for the hit film \"La La Land.\"\nAdditionally, another film will follow Snow White's sister, Rose Red, who is featured in Grimm's fairy tales. \"Rose Red\" will feature her adventure with the dwarves to save Snow White after she bites the poisonous apple. Source: The Hollywood Reporter\nEvan Daugherty, who previously wrote \"Snow White and the Huntsman\" starring Kristen Stewart, is working on the project.\nDisney is set to release its own \"Little Mermaid\" remake — Universal is already working on one — with new music from Lin-Manuel Miranda and Alan Menken.\nDisney is apparently in talks to remake Roald Dahl's \"James and the Giant Peach,\" which was adapted as a stop-motion film in 1996. Source: The Hollywood Reporter\nIt's not just animated movies getting the movie treatment. Popular duo Chip ‘n’ Dale are getting a CGI/live-action film based on the animated series \"Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers\" that aired for three seasons. Source: The Hollywood Reporter\nDisney also greenlit a movie for one of its darkest characters — Chernabog — the demon from \"Fantasia.\" Source: Business Insider\nThe character was featured in an 11-minute segment called \"Night on Bald Mountain.\" He's a strange choice for a standalone film since he's a depiction of the devil and feels quite un-Disney-like.\nAccording to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney's take will be similar to what was done with Maleficent, the villainess of \"Sleeping Beauty.\" That film humanized one of Disney's darkest villains by telling her backstory. Source: The Hollywood Reporter\nOkay, so the \"Mary Poppins\" sequel isn't exactly a remake, but it is a continuation of a classic 1964 Disney film that did include some animated components.", "New Village Arte Presents Its First Teatro Pueblo Nuevo Production With Cinderella Eats Rice and Beans: A Salsa Fairy Tale\nCARLSBAD, CA. November 2017- New Village Arts proudly announces the first production of its TEATRO PUEBLO NUEVO community outreach initiative,\nCINDERELLA EATS RICE AND BEANS: A SALSA FAIRY TALE, book and lyrics by Karen Zacarías and music by Deborah Wicks-La Puma. This production is\nsponsored in part by Wells Fargo and The Loftin Firm and is presented free to audiences!\nCINDERELLA EATS RICE AND BEANS: A SALSA FAIRY TALE, is a 50-minute musical that takes the Cinderella story and turns it upside down. What will happen to Cinderella at the ball … game? That’s the surprising climactic question in this contemporary Latin-American Cinderella musical, which delightfully turns the classic fairy tale on its head, telling the story from both Cinderella and the “stepsister’s” perspective. Cinderella, a newcomer from Puerto Rico, comes to visit her “stepsister,” Rosa, in the United States. The catch … Cinderella only speaks Spanish and Rosa only speaks English. Will these two girls be able to reach an understanding at the (basket) ball game?\nWith a fairy godfather and other delightful twists to the original story, CINDERELLA EATS RICE AND BEANS: A SALSA FAIRY TALE crosses language and gender barriers, weaving a subtle lesson on empathy, sportsmanship and respect. Boys and girls will be cheering in their seats. Lauded by audiences, theaters, schools and academics, CINDERELLA EATS RICE AND BEANS: A SALSA FAIRY TALE is a groundbreaking bilingual children’s musical from the award-winning team of playwright Karen Zacarías and composer Deborah Wicks La Puma.\nDirected and choreographed by Associate Artistic Director Nadia Guevara, this production will feature three actors making their New Village Arts debuts: Natasha Baenisch (LEGOLAND entertainer) as Cinderella, Arusi Santi as Padrino (IRONBOUND at Moxie), and Nicky Redd (THE KING AND I at Welk Resort) as Joey. Alexandra Slade, a San Diego Theatre Critics Circle Award nominee for her work in NVA’s OKLAHOMA! rounds out the cast. Music direction is by Benjamin Goniea, with scenic design by Shaun Tuazon, costume design by Samantha Vesco, lighting design by Curtis Mueller, sound design by TJ Fucella, props design by Michelle Stann and stage management by Kymberli Skye.\nCINDERELLA EATS RICE ANS BEANS: A SALSA FAIRY TALE, runs for three performances only: Thursday, December 14th at 4pm, Friday, December 15th at 4pm and Saturday, December 16th at 11am. Tickets are free, and donations are encouraged. 2787 State Street in Carlsbad Village.\nRuns: December 14-December 16 2017\nShow times: Thursday/Friday at 4pm, Saturday Matinee at 11am\nTickets: Free; donations welcome. Tickets available in person at 2787 State Street (Tuesday-Friday, noon to 5pm) or online at www.newvillagearts.org or via phone at 760.433.3245 – 2787 State Street in Carlsbad Village.\nProduction Team: Nadia Guevara (Director), Benjamin Goneia (Music Director), Samantha Vesco (Costume Designer), Curtis Mueller (Lighting\nDesigner), Shaun Tuazon-Martin (Scenic Designer), TJ Fucella (Sound Designer), Kymberli Skye (Stage Manager),Michelle Stann (Properties Designer).\nFor more information, please contact NVA’s Associate Artistic Director Nadia Guevara at 760-729-8703 or nadia@newvillagearts.org.", "The dark fairy queen is rising again. Disney has just revealed that filming is now underway on Maleficent II, the sequel to 2014's Maleficent. That first movie flipped the script on the classic Disney fairy tale Sleeping Beauty, retelling the magical story from the villain's perspective, and now the upcoming sequel will continue the story of Angelina Jolie's horned fairy. But since the new movie will no longer be based on the fairy tale we all know, fans might be asking: What is Maleficent II going to be about? Well, Disney has finally unveiled the plot summary, as well as the star-studded cast of new characters that are joining the movie, and all of this news is sure to get you pumped for Maleficent II.\nFilming has just kicked off for Maleficent II, and Disney is finally filling us in on what the new movie will be about. As a reminder, 2014's Maleficent ended with the dark fairy getting her wings back after killing the king who betrayed her by cutting them off and saving his daughter, the princess Aurora, from her sleeping curse with her love. The new movie will take place a few years after the events of the first movie, as Aurora is about to become queen of the kingdom and Maleficent must continue to defend the magical woodland that she rules over. Check out the official plot synopsis below:\nA fantasy adventure that picks up several years after Maleficent, in which audiences learned of the events that hardened the heart of Disney’s most notorious villain and drove her to curse a baby Princess Aurora, Maleficent II continues to explore the complex relationship between the horned fairy and the soon to be Queen, as they form new alliances and face new adversaries in their struggle to protect the moors and the magical creatures that reside within.\nOf course, the two stars of Maleficent are back for the sequel. Elle Fanning (who reprises her role as Aurora) posted a selfie with Angelina Jolie (returning as Maleficent) in their costumes to announce their first day of filming.\nAnd a bunch of exciting new faces are joining the Maleficent family in the sequel as well. Most notably, Michelle Pfeiffer will be playing a major role in the new movie as Queen Ingirth, who will probably be the true villain of the sequel, right? Disney announced Pfeiffer's central role in the upcoming movie by sharing a photo of Jolie, Fanning, and Pfeiffer's set chairs.\nAlso joining the Maleficent II cast are Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave, Doctor Strange), Ed Skrein (Deadpool, Game of Thrones), and Robert Lindsay (Galavant, My Family) in undisclosed roles. This marks Ejiofor's second major Disney live-action role that is currently filming — he is also playing the villainous lion Scar in 2019's The Lion King adaptation. Harris Dickinson is also joining the cast to play Prince Philip, taking over the role that Brendan Thwaites played in the first movie.\nThe Maleficent II cast is rounded out by a few more characters reprising their roles from the first movie. Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, and Lesley Manville are back as Aurora's bumbling fairy guardians Knotgrass, Thistlewit, and Flittle, and Sam Riley returns as the human form of Maleficent's faithful crow Diaval.\nUnfortunately, Disney did not reveal when fans can expect Maleficent II to come to theaters amidst all of this new information about the movie. Since filming is apparently only just beginning right now, and all that Disney magic is going to take a while to create in post-production, we will probably have to wait at least a year or maybe even two before Maleficent II premieres, but it already looks like it will definitely be worth the wait!", "Get Daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nIt’s only the second time since 1867 that Beauty and the Beast has been performed here.\nYet with a hint of fairy tale magic, some sizzling special effects, colourful costumes and loads of belly laughs thrown in, it will surely be back before another 100 years is up.\nAs always, the comedy moments proved the biggest hits, with cheeky Ben Nickless – back for his fourth panto at the Theatre Royal – perfectly nailing a routine where his Apple watch filled in his missing words. Then later on his DVD collection provided some rather apt (if not altogether safe-for-work) commentary on panto dame Andrew Ryan’s night out with some poor fella in the front row of the stalls.\nA personal highlight was the traditional staple “If I Were Not Upon This Stage”. You can’t really beat the tried and tested routines, and this one left tears of laughter rolling down my cheeks well into the curtain call. Another set-piece, the pleasant pheasant pluckers, had the cast in stitches too – along with most of the adults watching, though thankfully this one went over the heads of all those kids in the crowd.\nThe lovely Sherrie Hewson, a local lass of course, provided the glue between the scenes as Mrs Potts-Temple-Savage, with some traditional audience interaction to help the fairy story along, although in truth there was already a fair pace to the action and a good mix of fairy tale, comedy and song.\nBenidorm’s Sherrie, previously a star of Coronation Street, sometimes looked a little alone on stage when she was chatting with the audience – it would only have taken a couple of dancers as her escorts to leave her looking less lonely on what is a very big stage.\nWe loved the baddie, Trent Bridge, played by Danny Bayne, already a veteran of musical theatre and TV entertainment news. Perfectly over-the-top, he took to the stage with just the right amount of fun to hit the mark as Deadly Nightshade’s henchman. Deadly herself (Natalie Spriggs) should really have attracted more boos from the auditorium but had so many lines the audience really needed to listen to keep up!\nNaomi Slights was a ringer for Disney’s Belle, helped along by some wonderful wardrobe. Her beau, Ben Richards from Footballers’ Wives and Hollyoaks, perfectly captured the torment of being the beast. And while the classic dining room scene came alive thanks to some nifty dance work from the young Theatre Royal Babes ensemble, my favourites were the dancing jammie dodgers.\nIf you’ve got some very young children you might need to hold their hand towards the end of Act One, when Beast slays the kraken – but not before an amazing piece of stagecraft brings it terrifyingly to life within inches of the audience’s noses.\nThen, in the second act, it’s time to slip the 3D glasses for the haunted Forest, complete with all its creepy crawlies to give the I’m A Celebrity critters a run for their money.\nBeauty and the Beast runs until Sunday January 14. Tickets start at £18. For more details call 0115 989 5555 or go to trch.co.uk.\nThe Post has launched a Whatsapp group to help you keep up to date with the latest news. If you'd like to receive one daily message with the main headlines, as well as breaking news alerts, text NEWS to 07790 586202. Then add the number to your phone contacts book as 'Nottingham Post'. Your phone number won't be shared with other members of the group.", "The Internet came to a screeching halt this week when a celeb couple favorite announced their separation. Chris Platt and Anna Faris are calling it quits.\nThe buzz around what happened turned into a mourning period for fans. The couple that looked so happy, and was every fan’s model of relationship goals, was breaking up.\nBut why do we look to celeb relationships as our inspiration for what we hope our relationships can be one day?\nSimply put, to us, celebs seem to live in a fairy tale and it’s a fantasy world we all wish we could be a part of.\nCelebrity culture dates back to the ancient Romans and their fascination with Gods. The word ‘celebrity’ is derived form the Latin word ‘celebritas,’ meaning ‘frequented’ or ‘populous.’\nStriving for fame and fortune was a huge part of the Roman’s identity, and many looked to the Gods as inspiration. Just think about the story of Hercules and his fame for being the son of Zeus who lived among men.\nWhen it comes to celebrities and how they live their life, for many of us, they become role models. They depict a life we wish to have or strive for. That means when we see a picture of a happy, loving couple on the red carpet, we admire it and hope that one day we will have something similar.\nFollowing their lives so closely results in us feeling attached to them, their lives, and their struggles. We feel invested which translates to feeling sorrow or remorse when we find out in the press their relationship is ending.\nThe thought of, “If she can have that so can I,” crosses our minds when it comes to how celebrities live. If single-mom Sandra Bullock can adopt a child, so can I.\nBut something to keep in mind is celebrities are real people, not fictional characters. Although their life seems glamours and mimics a fairy tale, they still have real-world problems.\nStrip away the money and the red carpet movie premiers and they are still regular people, they just live a very extraordinary life.\nBecause of this, we have to remember that not every aspect of their relationship is picture perfect. Behind closed doors there are issues and disagreements, and we have to remember that not every relationship is perfect.\nIt’s similar to Cinderella syndrome, the idea that movies or fairy tales are a true representation of how love and romance should be.\nBut we all know by now that Prince Charming isn’t going to ride up on a white horse and save us, because it’s not reality.\nThe same goes for celebrity relationships, only their relationships seem to be a perfect fairy tale. Just like ordinary people, break-ups will happen.\nSo instead of looking to celebs for #RelationshipGoals, it’s time to look at what goals we want personally in our own relationships and make sure they are realistic enough to make happen.", "Get celebs updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nTraditional fairy tales often involve a handsome prince making an honest woman of someone considered to be \"commoner\".\nThey fall in love, ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after.\nIn the Prince Harry and Meghan Markle fairy tale, things are a little different.\nFirstly, while technically a \"commoner\" by birth, Meghan is also a successful actress, World Vision Global Ambassador and UN Advocate.\nSo not exactly a goose-herder or kitchen wench then.\nSpeculation has been mounting that a royal wedding between the Suits actress and fifth in line to the throne may be on the cards.\n(Photo: AFP/Getty)\nBut if that does happen, before they get to live happily after, there's a few tricks Meghan will need to perfect.\n1. Sitting pretty\nPeople magazine recently spoke to one woman with royal etiquette insider knowledge, Beaumont Etiquette founder Myka Meier.\nOne of the first things Meghan would need to make sure she had down is the \"proper\" way of sitting.\nTo achieve this, Myka advises keeping an \"egg's width of distance\" between the back of the chair and your back.\nNo drooping head either. Myka's instructions state that your chin should be parallel to the floor, back straight, with your hands folded in your lap.\nIf you must cross your legs, do so at the knee rather than the ankle.\n(Photo: Getty Images Portrait)\n2. Love a tea party\nApparently, the Royal family love an afternoon tea. But before Meghan tucks in to the crustless cucumber sandwiches, there's a few techniques she'll need to get a handle of.\nFirst, she'll need to hold her cup properly.\nTo do this, Myka points out, you need to pinch the top of the handle with your thumb and index finger, with your middle finger supporting the bottom of the handle.\nThe handle of the cup should always be kept at 3 o'clock and you should ALWAYS to take a sip from the same spot\nThis applies to all drinks and is to avoid getting lipstick around the rim.\n(Photo: Getty)\nEating with the Royals sounds exhausting - you must never put down your cutlery. The only time you can is when you need have a drink or pop to the toilet.\n3. Meeting and greeting\nThere's a protocol for nearly everything when you're Royal, and this extends to how to greet not just members of the public - but also family members.\n(Photo: Getty)\nOn official engagements Meghan will need to make direct eye-contact with her fans and well-wishers, smile and shake their hands with no more than two pumps.\nShe could also always take inspiration from the Duchess of Cambridge, who carries a clutch bag with her on public engagements to avoid awkward handshake interactions .\n(Photo: Samir Hussein/WireImage)\nWhen it comes to meeting friends and close family members in public, it's best to avoid ostentatious Ab Fab style \"mwah mwah darling\" air kisses.\nWhile you don't actually kiss the other person's cheek, you don't make a noise - and only stick to two!\n4. Exiting cars\nWhen you're in the public eye, having the paparazzi on hand to capture an awkward car exit is one of the downsides of the job.\n(Photo: REX)\nGetting out of a car in an elegant manner can be tricky when wearing a skirt.\nSo to assist this, Myka suggests doing the \"swivel and pop\" where you position yourself at the end of your seat, as close to the door as possible.\nThen place both your hands behind yourself and use them to support yourself as you turn.\nMake sure you keep your ankles and knees together and place your feet outside the car.\nYou should then be in a position to \"pop\" out of the car and stand up, ready to meet the crowds.\nMeghan, if you do get married to Harry, then good luck.", "LOS ANGELES: The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro's fairy tale romance, led the Golden Globe nominations on Monday with seven nods, including for best motion picture drama and actress Sally Hawkins.\nThe Post and Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri followed with six nods and coming-of-age film Lady Bird got four nominations.\nThe announcements will give the nominees a welcome boost going into the race for March's Oscars, with the influential Screen Actors Guild nominations to come later this week.\nThe awards season is expected to be overshadowed this year by the sexual misconduct scandal engulfing the movie industry.\nThe other best motion picture drama nominees are Call Me By Your Name, another coming-of-age tale, World War II thriller Dunkirk, media drama The Post and Three Billboards.\nAlthough more high-profile than the SAGs, the Golden Globes are seen as less of an indicator of Oscars glory, as a relatively small group of non-US journalists -- the Hollywood Foreign Press Association -- chooses the winners, rather than the industry itself.\nOn the television front, HBO drama Big Little Lies -- already rewarded with several Emmys -- led with six nominations.\nFX anthology series Feud: Bette and Joan was close behind with four nominations, while Fargo, The Handmaid's Tale and This is Us grabbed three each.\nHBO comfortably led the television nominations with 12.\nThe 75th Golden Globe Awards will take place in Beverly Hills on Jan 7, with talk show host Seth Meyers presenting. — AFP", "Marc Bartra gave blood, other Borussia Dortmund players have nightmares about the bomb attack on their bus and now the German team may need the sweat of Marco Reus to pull off a fairy tale place in the Champions League last four.\nThe game was postponed but Dortmund were forced to play 24 hours later.\nBurki says he cannot understand why a football team would be the target of \"a terror attack\".\nThe team bounced back with a 3-1 Bundesliga win over Eintracht Frankfurt Saturday.\nDefender Sokratis Papastathopoulos scored from a screaming 23 meter shot that he labelled \"the most beautiful goal of my career\" and dedicated it to Bartra.\nAnd then there was Reus, who scored just 122 seconds into his comeback from six weeks on the sidelines with a hamstring injury.\nReus at his best can be a match-winner.\n...", "Realistic space videos captured to be realized for public viewing by the end of 2017.\n(Photo : jacksepticeye/YouTube screenshot)\nThe cosmic beauty of outer space is beyond the imagination of people living on Earth, and only a few chosen ones (astronauts) get the privilege to experience it. Most of these astronauts describe it as a life-changing experience. According to experts, being in space provides a whole new perspective toward the very existence of human beings. It is also an uplifting out-of-the-world experience that supposedly makes astronauts better human beings.\nIn an effort to bring this experience to common people, SpaceX is going to launch a set of cameras that can capture and transmit virtual reality videos of outer space. The program is aimed toward providing an opportunity to people who can never dream of being astronauts and to see their real place in the universe.\nSpaceX has developed a thermos-like device, which is embedded with eight cameras (four at each end). These virtual reality cameras are designed to get a 360-degree view of outer space. SpaceVR is planning to launch the cameras by August, aboard a SpaceX rocket, The Tech Portal reported.\nThe cameras will be recording 2-3 hours of footage every month for a period of nine months. On the completion of this period, the device will fall back to Earth and get incinerated during re-entry. As far as the recorded footage is concerned, it will be transmitted to Earth via X and S band microwave radio transmissions. The recorded virtual reality video will be later distributed for general public viewing through selected VR headsets, according to Mashable.\nRaising the required funding to complete the project was initiated through a kickstarter campaign that raised $100,000, which was considerable less than the expected cost of the project. Fortunately, SpaceVR's continued efforts managed to raise $1.25 million more required to accomplish the project. A major portion of the funding came from the Shanda Group from China. Additionally, HTC Vive also contributed a substantial sum for the project from its VR for impact fund -- a fund specifically dedicated for projects that will have a positive impact on the society.", "Celebrate AAPI Heritage Month with three cartoonists on Thursday, May 31, from 7:30 to 9 p.m. at The Lev, 214 Lincoln Blvd. in Los Angeles.\n• Jen Wang is a cartoonist, author and illustrator living in Los Angeles. She is the author of “The Prince and the Dressmaker” and “Koko Be Good” and co-author of the New York Times bestselling graphic novel “In Real Life” with Cory Doctorow. Her work has also appeared in Los Angeles Magazine, The Believer, Hazlitt, Slate, and McSweeney’s. She has also written for the “Adventure Time” and “Lumberjanes” comic series. She is the co-founder and organizer of the annual festival Comics Arts Los Angeles.\nWang weaves an exuberantly romantic tale of identity, young love, art, and family in “The Prince and the Dressmaker.” This is a fairy tale for any age.\n• MariNaomi is the award-winning author and illustrator of “Kiss & Tell: A Romantic Resume,” “Dragon’s Breath and Other True Stories,” “Turning Japanese,” “I Thought YOU Hated ME,” and the “Life on Earth” trilogy. Her work has appeared in over 60 print publications and has been featured on websites such as The Rumpus, LA Review of Books, Midnight Breakfast and BuzzFeed. She is the founder of the Cartoonists of Color Database and the Queer Cartoonists Database.\nIn “Losing the Girl,” MariNaomi looks at life through the eyes of four suburban teenagers: early romance, fraying friendships, and the traces of a mysterious — maybe otherworldly — disappearance.\n• Yumi Sakugawa is an Ignatz Awards=nominated comic book artist and the author of “The Little Book of Life Hacks,” “I Think I Am in Friend-Love With You” and “Your Illustrated Guide to Becoming One with the Universe.” Her comics have also appeared in The Believer, Bitch, The Best American Non­Required Reading 2014, The Rumpus, Folio, Fjords Review, and other publications. She has also exhibited multimedia installations at the Japanese American National Museum and the Smithsonian Arts & Industries Building. A graduate from the fine art program of UCLA, she lives in Los Angeles.\nWith Sakugawa’s signature hand-drawn illustrations throughout, “The Little Book of Life Hacks” is a distinctive and perfect gift for recent graduates and young working women.\nFor more information, call (424) 262-7120 or visit http://thelev.co.", "Dania Ramirez didn't know who she was trying out for on \"OUAT.\" ABC/Eike Schroter\nThe INSIDER Summary:\n\"Once Upon a Time\" returns to ABC Friday, October 6 for its seventh season.\nMany new actors will appear on the show to replace the six main cast members who left the show after season six ended. The show will also introduce new versions of Cinderella and Alice played by different actresses than before.\nAt New York Comic Con, coshowrunners Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kitsis explained two reasons it was important to bring those characters back in a new way.\nThey never felt like they explored Cinderella's character enough.\nPlus, Kitsis said he's a really big fan of Alice and he was bummed no one watched her canceled \"OUAT\" spin-off series.\nWhen \"Once Upon a Time\" returns for its seventh season, there will be a lot of new faces, but two in particular may have fans scratching their heads. Cinderella and Alice will be back on the show, but they'll be played by different actresses than before.\nDania Ramirez will star as a new version of Cinderella while Rose Reynolds will take the place of Alice. Coshowrunners Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kitsis said this was for two main reasons.\n\"We loved the idea that fairy tales are tales that are told and you can add onto them and you can subtract them and there's different versions of them,\" said Kitsis of bringing the two characters back to the forefront. \"We felt like we really didn't explore Cinderella a lot.\"\nCinderella will be a love interest for Emma Swan's grown son Henry (Andrew J. West). The two will have a child together, but in true \"OUAT\" fashion, the two will have a cursed placed upon them where they won't recall any of this.\nA grown-up Henry and Cinderella on the season premiere of \"OUAT.\" Eike Schroter/ABC\nKitsis especially loved Ramirez's reaction to being cast as the iconic princess.\n\"She cried when she heard because it was a secret role and she didn't know what it was. And we were like, 'Why did you cry?' And she said, ' I just never thought I could ever play Cinderella,'\" said Kitsis of Ramirez learning she landed the role. \"And I thought, 'You know, that's what this show is for because everyone should grow up and believe in a world where you can be Cinderella. That's why we did that.\"\nBringing back Alice was more nostalgic for Kitsis.\nRose Reynolds plays a new version of Alice. ABC\n\"Alice is one of my favorite fairy tales and nobody watched the spin-off so we felt like that was low-hanging fruit,\" said Kitsis.\n\"Once Upon a Time in Wonderland\" ran on ABC for one season before it was canceled. You can see both new characters on \"Once Upon a Time\" on the show's seventh season Friday nights at 8 p.m. on ABC.", "SAN FRANCISCO: Google on Tuesday launched a re-imagined version of its free Earth mapping service, weaving in storytelling and artificial intelligence and freeing it from apps.\n“This is our gift to the world,” Google Earth director Rebecca Moore said while giving Agence France-Presse an early look at the new version of the program that lets people range the planet from the comfort of their computers, smart phones or tablets.\n“It’s a product that speaks to our deepest values around education and making information available to people.”\nA new ‘Voyager’ feature enables people digitally exploring the planet to be guided on interactive stories told by experts, boasting partners including BBC Earth, NASA, Sesame Street, and the Jane Goodall Institute.\nGoogle artificial intelligence will be put to work for Earth users in the form of “knowledge cards” that let them dive deeper into online information about mountains, countries, landmarks or other places being virtually visited.\nIt will also make suggestions on other locations armchair explorers might be interested in exploring based on what they have searched in the past.\n“This is the first time we have done this deep integration with the Google Knowledge Graph,” Earth engineering manager Sean Askay said.\n“Everything Google knows about the world, you can know about the world.”\nThere is also a newly installed “Feeling Lucky?” feature for people who want to let the software suggest hidden gems such as Pemba Island off the Swahili coast or the Oodaira Hot Spring in Yamagata, Japan.\nPeople can choose to fly around the world in Earth, using a 3-D button to see the Grand Canyon, Chateau Loire Valley and other stunning spots from any angles they wish.\n“With the new Earth, we want to open up different lenses for you to see the world and learn a bit about how it all fits together; to open your mind with new stories while giving you a new perspective on the locations and experiences you cherish,” Earth product manager Gopal Shah said in a blog post.\nOnline explorers cruising the mobile version of Earth can also capture pictures on their travels, sending friends digital postcards.\nNew Earth was launched on Google’s Chrome and Android software, with versions tailored for Apple devices and other internet browsing software promised soon.\nIt’s the first time that Earth can be reached on a web browser instead of through applications installed on devices.\nThe move allows Google to tap into more powerful computing power at data centers in the internet “cloud” instead of relying on the capabilities of smartphones and other devices. AFP\nAFP/CC", "Years & Years' Olly Alexander felt ''miserable'' and ''angry'' when he and his bandmates couldn't agree on songs for their second album.\nThe 27-year-old frontman, Mikey Goldsworthy and Emre Turkmen experienced a ''nightmare'' process making their forthcoming LP, 'Palo Santo', and on top of having creative differences for months, their record label Polydor were just as ''angry'' that they didn't have the songs ready.\nSpeaking to the latest issue of Q magazine, the 27-year-old singer spilled: ''We could never agree on what sounded good or what we liked.\n''Then six months down the line, we still had no songs and the label were really angry and annoyed.''\nOn top of the band's difficult second record, Olly was going through an emotional time with his troubled relationship with his father.\nThe two things combined made Olly's success feel like a ''fairy tale'' gone wrong.\nHe admitted: ''It was a nightmare. I felt so miserable and I was so angry because I'd worked so hard to be in this position, and it's very weird to feel like you're in this fairy tale that's going wrong and you're desperate to put it back on the right track.''\nThe 'Sanctify' hitmaker says in the end, the band agreed to follow his vision for the record - their follow-up to 2015's 'Communion' - and they put their differences aside.\nHe said: ''Ultimately, we do love each other.''\n'Palo Santo' is released on Friday (06.07.18).", "CLEVELAND, Ohio - Two radically different movies about 1950s American open this week: \"Wonder Wheel,\" Woody Allen's nostalgic trip back to Coney Island, and \"The Shape of Water,\" Guillermo del Toro's Cold War sci-fi drama.\nIt's somewhat surprising that the far more fairy-tale like of the two is the one set in dark government labs filled with G-men and spies. But \"The Shape of Water\" is directed by Guillermo del Toro, best known for the Spanish Civil War fantasy \"Pan's Labyrinth,\" as well as the \"Hellboy,\" and this is no ordinary Cold War movie. Part fantasy, part thriller, part tragedy and many parts romance, \"The Shape of Water\" is genre-defying film that manages to be both touching and thrilling as it delves into one of the most contradictory times in American history.\nSet outside of Washington, D.C. in a top-secret lab, \"The Shape of Water\" focuses not on scientists and the spies who lurk around them, but on a mute cleaning lady. Embodied by the divine Sally Hawkins, who recently played disabled Canadian artist Maud Lewis, Elisa Esposito is a repressed soul. She eats the same thing each day, has only two friends, and even masturbates on a schedule. Then one day, a mysterious cargo shows up at the lab where she cleans with friend Zelda Fuller (a steely but sassy Olivia Spencer). Along with it, the vicious, supremely cold Colonel Richard Strickland appears too, played by the supremely talented Michael Shannon.\nOne day, following a bloody accident in the lab, Elisa leans more about \"The Asset\" Strickland is closely guarding ... it's a beautiful, human-like sea creature. Though Strickland and the government consider The Asset violent and are studying him in the hopes of using him against Russians, Elisa develops a bond with the trapped being. She believes he has feelings and can understand and communicate with humans. The ignored, mute woman feels a kinship with him). They are both lonely, she tells her one other friend, closeted-gay commercial artist Giles (a heartbreaking Richard Jenkins) - a condition he also shares. Like African-American Zelda, these characters are people on the fringe in 1950s America, where Strickland's shiny, happy suburban home-life is a direct contrast with his dark deeds at work. They are all seeking to make a connection, somehow, in this rapidly changing world.\nBut \"The Shape of Water\" is far more than social commentary ... at its heart it's a fairy tale romance, a retelling of \"Beauty and the Beast\" in post-War America. Filmed in dreamy, watery blue and green and silver hues, with lots of bright, popping retro billboards and mid-century modern clothes and furniture, del Toro and cinematographer Dan Lausten create a magical, heightened reality.\nHappy endings are hard to come by in the Cold War, however, and Elisa is forced to take action when she learns The Asset may be in danger. With the help of Zelda and Giles - and an unlikely Russian agent - she hatches a plan as the movie takes a turn towards thriller in the second half.\nCan true love conquer evil in a del Toro fairy tale? The answer in this dreamlike film is ambiguous - and transcendent.\nREVIEW\nThe Shape of Water\nWho: Directed by Guillermo del Toro. With Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Octavia Spencer, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg.\nRated: Rated R for sexual content, graphic nudity, violence and language.\nRunning time: 119 minutes.\nWhen: Opens Friday\nWhere: Area theaters\nGrade: A-", "For some dinosaur species, the evolutionary changes resulting from their dispersal across the Earth were only skin deep.\nIt's their scales that might hold all the secrets.\nAs part of CBC's summer-long series Backyard Dinosaurs — which will feature a different dinosaur found in Alberta each week — University of Alberta paleontologist Scott Persons has been exploring this aspect of paleontology.\nThe recent discovery of beautifully preserved skin from the T- Rex has renewed public fascination around the epidermis of dinosaurs.\nBut the find was not the first of its kind.\nA duck-billed dinosaur, or hadrosaur, by the name of Saurolophus has provided plenty of clues on the topography of ancient Earth.\n\"In Latin, the name Saurolophus means lizard crest,\" Persons said in an interview with Radio Active. \"And the most distinctive feature of Saurolophus is its bony head crest, which looked like a conical party hat, strongly inclined to the rear.\"\nFossils of the Saurolophus have been found in Alberta and across the Pacific in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia.\nThe Dragon's Tomb\nRenowned paleontologist Phil Bell has discovered that while skeletons of Albertan and Mongolian Saurolophus are very similar, their skin is dramatically different.\nWell-preserved skin fossils from Saurolophus have been found on both continents. The best came from a spot in the Gobi Desert romantically nicknamed The Dragon's Tomb.\n\"I have been there and the place just takes your breath away,\" Persons said. \"There are dozens of articulated Saurolophus skeletons, often with large patches of skin preserved right over the bones.\"\nSpots and stripes\nSkin fossils at the Dragon's Tomb have a mosaic of small scales broken up by occasional large ovoid scales. Alberta's Saurolophus lacks these big scales, Persons said.\nScott Persons says the fossilized skin has provided new insight into ancient Earth and the evolution of the dinosaurs. (Amanda Kelley)\nAlso, the Mongolian species has a row of large, vertical, semicircular scales running down the spine of its back, resembling the edge of a big pie crust, a feature the Alberta fossils lack, he said.\nResearchers also noticed some of the scales along the tail of Mongolian Saurolophus are arranged in a striped pattern, whereas, in the Albertan species, they are more circular.\nScientists hypothesized that those patterns may have corresponded to patterns in colour. If so, a Saurolophus from Asia may have been striped, while the Alberta species may have been spotted, said Persons.\nThe Saurolophus' presence on both continents is an important piece of evidence telling us that, at some point back in the Late Cretaceous — about 70 million years ago — there was a land bridge spanning what is now Alaska and eastern Russia, Persons said.\nAnd the difference in their skin is proof that two disparate species evolved after a population of the creatures travelled across that bridge.\n\"The dinosaur probably originated on one landmass and, eventually, a fairly large sub-population gradually worked its way to the other, where it became adapted in subtle ways to life in the new environment,\" said Persons.\n\"It's undoubtedly much easier for differences in skin to evolve.\"", "A one-night event at the Milwaukee County War Memorial Center celebrates the artistic achievements of veterans. On Thursday, March 2, from 7-9 p.m., “Veterans Light Up the Arts\" features musical and dramatic performances by Milwaukee veterans and a showcase of visual works by veteran artists. U.S. Army Reserves veteran Tarik Moody of 88Nine Radio Milwaukee is the evening’s MC. There will be performances by singer-songwriter Jason Moon, the J. Ryan Trio and Feast of Crispian, a nonprofit organization that uses Shakespeare’s timeless insights into the human condition to help veterans reintegrate and overcome traumas. The event is open to the public and technically free, although a $10 donation is suggested.\n“Veterans Light up the Arts\" is part of a series hosted by the Milwaukee Repertory Theater in conjunction with the run of Grounded , a new play about an ace fighter pilot who finds herself grounded when she becomes part of the “chair force\" flying drones over Iraq. Grounded runs through April 2.\n“Cecelia Condit: Tales of a Future Past\"\nLynden Sculpture Garden\n2145 W. Brown Deer Road\nUW-Milwaukee professor Cecelia Condit is a master of the contemporary fairy tale. Like the best fairy tales, Condit’s tales find the perfect balance between the fanciful and the frightening. Her most recent work, the two-channel installation “Tales of a Future Past,\" tells the story of a solitary giraffe that collects small animal forms and whose world is turned upside down when it crosses paths with an aggressive zebra. There is an opening reception for the exhibition, which also includes photographs of fictitious landscapes, 3-5 p.m. on Saturday, March 4.\n“Of Shapes and Figures\"\nGallery 2622\n2622 N. Wauwatosa Ave.\nMilwaukee-based painter Jake Nordstrum has a solo show of paintings opening at Wauwatosa’s Gallery 2622. Nordstrum’s primary influences are Jackson Pollock and Pablo Picasso. “I didn’t know that art could be like that,\" he remembers thinking about Picasso’s cubist portrait of Ambroise Vollard, “and I wanted to explore the avenue of pushing art further than you think it can go.\" Nordstrum frequently juxtaposes his abstract paintings with titles derived from biblical verses, delighting in the tension between interpretive openness of abstract art and the rigor of religious exegesis. A reception will be held 6-9 p.m. on Friday, March 3.", "CAO Report: At the regular town council meeting of Feb. 7, CAO Daryl Greenhill asked council for support to send the town’s member-at-large on the Heart of the Peace Economic Development Committee Sharon Noullett to the Growing the North Conference. Council approved funding her attendance.\nCouncillors Peter Robertson and Owen Stanford will also be attending as well as economic development officer Evelyna Jambrosic from the Heart of the Peace Economic Development Committee.\nHe also informed council town staff will be going to Grande Prairie Feb. 22, 23, and 24 for Freedom of Information (FOIP) training.\nThe town office will not be closed during that period but will be short-staffed.\nThe town and MD councils will be having a meeting with MLA Marg McCuaig-Boyd Feb. 17 and council approved use of town chambers for that meeting.\nCAO Greenhill told council Cushing Terrell has been hired by the economic development committee to conduct a retail market analysis and industrial sector profile.\nHe is working on three-year operational plans and five-year capital plan options.\nPublic Works Report\nDirector of Public Works Garry Leathem told council water is being pumped from the river and is nice and clear.\nSnow removal is going well, and he is doing maintenance on equipment in preparation for the spring.\nAlso, the sewer line on 105 Ave. is being relined as the liner installed had a rip in it.\nHe has spoken to Alberta Transportation about potholes on 113 St. and bought patching compound for winter use to patch some of the streets the town is responsible for.\nFire Department\nPeter Robertson reported on the most recent fire department meeting.\nThere has been some confusion over whether the firehall is a public building or not.\nBy definition, a public building is one which is usually open to the public, which the firehall is not.\nThe Fire department is working on a new bylaw regarding its governance terms of reference, etc. In consultation with the town and MD CAOs.\nOnce written, councils will be able to approve it.\nPond Hockey\nCouncillor Robertson also brought in a poster for the Alberta Pond Hockey Gala Night in Grimshaw on March 11.\nApparently someone is interested in doing a documentary film about pond hockey and if it goes through the three actors who played the Hansen brothers in the movie Slapshot may come up.\nPREDA\nCouncillor Larry Chorney attended a Peace Region Economic Development Association meeting in Peace River chaired by Elaine Garrow.\nThere was discussion of the broadband project, a flax-hemp project, grants available for local airports.\nKamie Currie handed out a publication “Invest in Alberta and showed a video.\nHe added that Community Futures is looking for a member-at-large to represent the Fairview area.\nDAYCARE FUNDING APPROVED\nCouncil approved a motion to support construction of a new Daycare building.\nThe Daycare has awarded a contract for construction on the E.E.O. Site for $1,02I,730 and will require assistance.\nAs previously discussed by council, they agreed to match the M.D. of Fairview’s contribution of a grant for $150,000 and loan of $175,000 at 0% for 20 years.\nNew stones for curlers\nCouncil also approved a motion to donate $15,000 to the Fairview Curling Club to go towards the purchase of a full set of new curling stones to replace the old ones which have become chipped and worn (total cost $40-45,000).\nThe M.D. of Fairview has agreed to donate $15,000 and Clear Hills County also made a donation of\nFunding for Seniors Check in line refused\nCouncil declined a request from the Seniors Check-in line to donate $2,200 as they already fund it through FCSS.\nThe M.D. of Fairview and Clear Hills County have agreed to fund the check-in line in addition to the FCSS funding.\nThe remainder of funding required may have to be acquired through fundraising.\nHealth Complex parking sign request\nCouncil received a letter from Jamie Halliday of Alberta Health Services requesting the installation of one-hour parking signs on 106 Ave. between the hospital entry at 110 St. and the hospital loading dock to the west.\nHalliday said in his letter the rationale is to deter those who park there all day during operation of the public health office, to make it easier for those visiting public health to find nearby parking, especially pregnant women, parents with small children and the elderly with reduced mobility issues.\nCouncil agreed to install the signs and they will be enforced by the town bylaw officer as requested by hospital administration.\nDonation to Legion approved\nCouncil received a letter from the Fairview Legion requesting financial assistance for operating costs and approved a donation of $6,000.\nMommy and Me request for exemption granted\nCouncil received a letter from the Mommy and Me Society for an exemption to a bylaw which forbids the operation of snowmobiles or ATVs on property normally accessible to the public.\nMommy and Me would like to host an event with dogsleds giving people rides on school property but want a snowmobile to drive around to pack the snow down and need an exception to the bylaw as school property is normally accessible.\nCouncil approved a motion to give them an exemption to the bylaw providing the snowmobile is transported to the school on a trailer and the area is secured to avoid possible injuries related to the snowmobile.\nGPRC Fairview convocation invitation\nCouncil received an invitation to GPRC convocation ceremonies March 11. Councillor Larry Chorney will represent the town as Mayor MacLeod will be out of town.", "It can be difficult, as a jaded adult, to appreciate a great fairy tale—one where the hero always wins and naivety is a character strength rather than something to grow out of. So it is with Ni no Kuni II. But if you can look past this game’s more childish tendencies, you’ll find a fairy tale worth experiencing.\nLike its wonderful predecessor, Ni no Kuni II is a big role-playing game set in a colorful world reminiscent of a Studio Ghibli film. (Ghibli worked on the first game, but not this one, although some former Ghibli staff including animator Yoshiyuki Momose were heavily involved.) There are a few other carryovers and references to the first game, but otherwise, Ni no Kuni II feels brand new. Level-5 has stripped away all of the more tedious elements and added a bunch of smart features. One small example: In Ni no Kuni, to cast the Quicken Growth spell on a plant, you’d have to navigate three or four nested menus. In Ni no Kuni II, you just have to go up to the plant and press X.\nMost importantly, the developers have transformed the combat system. No longer will you have to try to sort through menus or manage a party full of AIs who love blowing all of their magic at the worst possible moment. Battles in Ni no Kuni’s sequel are set in real-time, like a Tales game, and they stay snappy and fun throughout the whole game.\nNi no Kuni II is far too easy (it desperately needs difficulty settings), the quests involve lots of mundane fetching, and the story is so sweet it borders on saccharine. Yet the game is also full of humor, delightful moments, and addictive systems. It looks beautiful, sounds fantastic (thanks to returning composer Joe Hisaishi), and performs great (never dropped below 140FPS at 1440p on my GTX 1080).\nNi no Kuni II’s childlike wonder managed to charm at least this tired adult.\nVideo GamesMultiplatform Video GamesMultiplatform Ni no Kuni II Video GamesMultiplatform Ni no Kuni II Ni no Kuni II Back of the Box Quote \"Fixes everything you didn't like about the first game\" Type of game Fairy tale JRPG Liked Charming, funny, and full of great moments Disliked Too easy; story whiffs at the end Developer Level-5 Platforms PC (reviewed), PS4 Release date March 23, 2018 Played Completed the game, along with many side quests and mazes, in 29 hours, 44 minutes, 26 seconds\nAdvertisement\nEvery good fairy tale needs a proper hero, and in Ni no Kuni II, that’s Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum, a blonde boy-king who is ousted from his throne in a violent coup. After the painful loss of a dear friend, Evan decides to start a brand new kingdom, called Evermore. His goal with Evermore is not simply to rule over a group of likeminded civilians. No, once Evan gets his new kingdom off the ground, he decides to travel around the world, forging alliances with Ni no Kuni II’s other nations and asking them to essentially swear fealty to Evermore, signing a pact of world peace.\nThat’s right: Evan, like Kefka and Luca Blight before him, wants to rule the world. If he wasn’t so damn sweet about it, he might make for a good JRPG villain. This particular child-king is too nice, though. He’s a goody-two-shoes with bad hair. Far more interesting is Roland, a president from a real-world country who winds up trapped in Ni no Kuni’s fantasy world and serves as advisor to the wannabe king. Roland’s motivations are a little inconsistent, but he brings a suave confidence and adult sensibility to the team. When Evan’s innocence gets cloying, at least Roland is there to keep things more grounded.\nIt’s a simple, childish story with a very bad ending, though there are enough fun jokes and goofy premises to keep things entertaining. What really stands out is the setting. Ni no Kuni II takes place within a bright, beautiful world full of colorful monsters and lively towns. There’s a city whose rules and regulations are determined entirely by the roll of dice, a corporation so massive that it got its own country, and an ocean-side village whose inhabitants don’t wear pants. The world is also full of optional caves, forests, and dungeons, and Ni no Kuni II rewards you well for exploring them.\nAdvertisement\nIt’s all peppered with goofy humor and charming little moments, enhanced by a great script from Richard Honeywood and the rest of his team at Level-5. They especially had fun with the items. You won’t just heal yourself with medicine; you’ll use Soreaway. You won’t just pick up fruits and vegetables; you’ll get Swirly Apples and Crybaby Onions.\nThere are hundreds of these entertainingly titled items, and they help fuel the intricate machinery of Ni no Kuni II. Snag enough milk and you can use it to upgrade one of your Higgledies, the Pikmin-like spirits who assist your party during battle. Grab the right lumber and you can make your swords more powerful at your kingdom’s weapon shop. Maintain a big enough mushroom collection and you won’t have trouble solving the mushroom-centric quizzes of your friendly local teacher. The sheer number of objects can be overwhelming, but nothing feels like a waste. Every time you’re out in the field, you’ll stuff your pockets with items, and chances are high you’ll be able to use them all for something.\nAdvertisement\nNi no Kuni II’s other fascinating component is the kingdom-building system, which allows you to improve and maintain your own sprawling city, sort of like a Suikoden game. As Evan and crew travel through the world, they’ll run into dozens of different people who are unsatisfied with their current lives and want to join Evermore. Usually you’ll have to do a side quest in order to get them to come along. A guard may want you to defeat some invading bandits, or an aspiring bodybuilder may want you to fetch him some lean protein. Once you’ve solved someone’s problem, they’ll mosey over to Evermore, where you can chat them up for free goodies and put them to work however you’d like.\nEach of these new recruits has a specialty. Some might work best at the spell-researching facility, while others are good at gathering materials in the farm or mining camp. It’s not hard to decide where to place each of these civilians, but it is hard to decide how you want to focus your kingdom. To govern Evermore, you’ll need to rely on a unique currency called kingsguilder, which you can use to construct new buildings, conduct research, and upgrade your kingdom. Kingsguilder is very limited, and it’s unlikely you’ll be able to max out every possible area of your kingdom, so you’ll have to specialize. Do you want to focus on getting the best armor? Learning the best spells? Maxing out your abilities as you explore the game’s tricky dimensional mazes, self-contained optional dungeons with their own rules and challenges?\nAdvertisement\nWhat’s most fun about those dimensional mazes, like every other dungeon in Ni no Kuni II, is that they give you the opportunity to run around and whack things. The combat system, a highlight of the game, is punchy and satisfying. It’s basically the opposite of the first Ni no Kuni. Different buttons correspond to strong, weak, ranged, and special attacks, and using them all to tear into enemies never stops feeling good. You’ll fight bad guys right on the battlefield (except when you’re on the world map), which does away with the friction you’ll find in trash battles during most RPGs. Fighting monsters doesn’t feel like an obstacle; it feels like a fun, natural part of exploration. The bulk of these encounters are way too easy—again, Ni no Kuni II desperately needs a difficulty slider—but they’re entertaining nonetheless.\nThe skirmish system, on the other hand, is nothing but friction. Certain encounters in the game will take place via skirmish—meaning, your kingdom’s army will have to battle other people’s armies—and Evan will have to march through a battlefield, leading groups of soldiers who stand near him. You have to smush these groups of soldiers into enemies, vaguely paying attention to the types of attacks each group uses, and it all feels messy and imprecise. There aren’t too many of these battles, fortunately. When you do have to deal with them, they feel half-baked.\nAdvertisement\nEarly in Ni no Kuni II, as Evan and his crew try to figure out what the kingdom of Evermore will offer to the world, one of the king’s advisors muses about Evan’s goal. “Unite the world, and there’d be no one left to fight,” he says. “That would certainly put an end to war.”\nNi no Kuni II is a very good role-playing game, one full of satisfying mechanics and fun battles. It’s also got quotes like that. Even for a fairy tale, this game is naive to the point of parody. Every challenge in the game can be overcome with sheer willpower. Every villain can be convinced to see the light. Everybody wants to serve Evan the boy-king, and all of his decisions are good and pure. But the game is just so charming, so fun, and so delightful to play, that it’s easy to get over that. It’s easy to get sucked in.", "Leicester City are underdogs in the second leg of the Champions League quarter-final against Atletico Madrid, defender Christian Fuchs has said ahead of Tuesday's game.\nAtletico have been in the quarter-finals of the Champions League for last three years and have progressed to the finals twice, losing to Spanish rivals Real Madrid in both finals.\nOnce relative Champions League unknowns, however, Atletico are now true European giants and will provide the sternest test yet of Leicester's fairy-tale continental adventure.\n...", "The Germany city of Düsseldorf promises to host more Christmas Markets on 2017 than ever before while giving visitors the chance to have fun on it's large ice rink next to the Königsallee shopping avenue.\nDüsseldorf will open its festive season on 23 November and the Christmas Market will be inviting visitors to the city centre with a large variety of Christmas worlds in different looks.\nFor the very first time the market has been extended beyond Christmas all the way up to 30 December and apart from this extension, the launch of the big ice rink on Corneliusplatz and the new Fairy Tale Market on Schadowplatz are two of the most important new features.\nThe children’s programme has been expanded overall so that this year, for example, there will be a children’s activities tent on Jan-Wellem-Platz with shows every day. The Christmas Market will remain closed on the Sunday of the Dead (26 November), Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (24 and 25 December).\nDuring the festive season, Düsseldorf will have lots of atmospheric new features. The ice rink has been relocated this year and will offer new activities.\nAt the northern end of Königsallee, directly adjacent to the Hofgarten and the Kö-Bogen, this year visitors will be able to enjoy a 1,700-square-meter ice rink on Corneliusplatz.\nThe skating fun will be enhanced by an extensive range of catering, with stalls set up around the rink. Right next door, the Christmas Market on Schadowplatz has been given a makeover.\nThe new motto this Christmas is “fairy tale market”. Scenes from fairy stories adorn the roofs of the cabins which will also be decorated with illuminated Herrnhut stars. This market is very much focused on items for children.\nEach of the motifs on display at the Märchenmarkt (Fairy Tale Market) – borrowed from famous German fairy stories by the Brothers Grimm – consists of three staggered elements that have been affixed to the roofs. This creates an impression of spatial depth and three-dimensionality for the viewer. Some parts of the silhouette cut-outs are movable and electrically-powered.\nFor the “Sterntaler” motif, the spherical starry sky rotates and fills the little girl’s dress – which she is holding up like an apron – with stars falling from the sky. The moment at which Sleeping Beauty awakens after being kissed by the prince is also animated, as is Rumpelstiltskin, dancing around a glowing fire.\nVisitors can of course also look forward to the classics of the Düsseldorf Christmas Market. Set against the backdrop of Düsseldorf’s City Hall and with a historical feel, is the Artisans’ Market. It’s the perfect place to discover and admire hand-made items while enjoying a glass of mulled wine.\nThe “Engelchenmarkt” (Little Angels’ Market) on Heinrich-Heine- Platz is adorned with small figures of angels and has a “heavenly atmosphere”.\nOther beautifully designed markets such as the “Sternchenmarkt” (Little Star Market) – idyllically located in the inner courtyard of Wilhelm Marx House at the Stadtbrückchen – or the cabins on Flinger Straße in the centre of the Altstadt (Old Town), reminiscent of Düsseldorf’s old burgher houses, also offer a deliciously cosy mix of food, drink and shopping.\nDirectly beside the Rhine on Burgplatz, Düsseldorf visitors will be able to get a bird’s eye view of the Christmas bustle: the lofty Wheel of Vision will be set up there again between October and January as a winter landmark, flanked by a number of food stalls.\nDüsseldorf city centre will be offering the appealing mix of a stroll through the Christmas Market and shopping. Attractive shops combined with the festive mood will turn Düsseldorf into a truly great experience. It is now more than ever the case that shopping in Düsseldorf will fulfil every wish.\nThe Kö-Bogen has made Düsseldorf an even more interesting place to shop, while Königsallee stands for a very special kind of shopping. Big international brands such as Armani, Hermès, Bulgari, Gucci, Versace and Dior, as well as local retailers, will be presenting gift ideas in a festively atmospheric ambience.\nOn Schadowstraße visitors can enjoy a mix of major department stores and smaller retail outlets, where they will find the right gift for every taste. On the way to the Rhine, the Altstadt and Carlstadt are home to plenty of boutiques, some of which also sell fashion by local designers. Many fashion and jewellery designers have settled in the districts of Flingern and Bilk that directly adjoin the city centre.\nTheir shops, along with the little cafés and restaurants, make these the perfect places to browse, sample, relax and, of course, do lots of shopping. On Sunday, 10 December shops in the city centre will be open for gift shopping from 1pm to 6pm.\nAnd what if your guests want to see even more of Düsseldorf and hear stories about Christmas and the city? Düsseldorf’s Altstadt will be beautifully illuminated with thousands of lights, producing a highly atmospheric setting for a guided tour of the city. 3\nThe two-hour Christmas Guided Tour will offer many insights into Düsseldorf’s Altstadt, as well as Christmas anecdotes. While the Düsseldorf Christmas Market is on, the tours start on Fridays at 4pm and Saturdays at 2pm, and end with Christmas cookies and a mulled wine or hot chocolate. Tours can be booked at www.duesseldorf-tourismus.de/weihnachtsmarkt\nDüsseldorf Tourismus GmbH’s Christmas Market hotel package will allow visitors to take it easy after their Advent stroll, giving them even more time for extensive sightseeing.\nThe package offers an overnight stay in a double room with breakfast from 65 euros per person. The hotel package is rounded off with a DüsseldorfCard, entitling the holder to free use of bus and rail during their stay, as well as many other discounts, and a Düsseldorf info pack with a travel guide.\nBecause it has numerous free parking spaces, Düsseldorf is perfectly prepared for coach tour operators. There are Christmas Market parking spaces in the Altstadt, guaranteeing that visitors don’t have to go far to reach the markets.\nThere will be additional parking spaces at the exhibition centre grounds on each Saturday. From here, guests can pick up a free day ticket with which they can get to the city centre in just a few minutes on the U78 subway line.\nYou can book your parking space online in advance by going to www.duesseldorf-tourismus.de/park This handy and convenient tool which also allows you to download and print your parking ticket, will help you to plan your trip to Düsseldorf perfectly. More information at www.duesseldorf-tourismus.de/en/our-top-events/duesseldorf-christmas-market/\n** Across the border in Belgium, there will be something special in Bruges during the festive period. However I'm not sure whether it's the piping hot waffles, magical Christmas markets lit up by twinkling fairy lights or real log fires in centuries old taverns…\nWhatever it is, you can experience it with DFDS's festive break to Bruges. You can choose between the Dover-Dunkirk and Calais routes and sail in comfort. Both ports are close to Bruges with Dunkirk only a one hour drive away and Calais around two.\nThere is a choice of a three- or four-star hotel, both centrally located in the city and you can extend your trip for up to three nights in Bruges.\nPrices start from only £96pp including return ferry crossing with a car and one night hotel stay with breakfast.", "The Original \"Beauty And The Beast\" Was VERY Different From Than The Disney Movie\nIn 1740, French author Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve wrote and published a collection of stories entitled La Jeune Ameriquaine et les Contes Marins. Within was the fairy tale \"La Belle et la Bête.\" Widely viewed as the oldest version of Beauty and Beast, \"La Belle et la Bête\" contained all of the now familiar elements of the much beloved story. There was a handsome prince cursed to live out his days as a monstrous beast and a courageous beauty who consents to be his prisoner in order to save her father.\nAs Beauty comes to know the Beast better, she soon realizes that, though he is monstrous to look upon, he has a good heart and a generous spirit. Nevertheless, she refuses the Beast’s daily proposals of marriage. It is only after going away from him to pay a visit to her father that she truly accepts just how little a handsome appearance matters when choosing a husband. In an abridged version of the tale, written by Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont in 1756, Beauty explains:\nADVERTISEMENT\n“It is neither wit, nor a fine person, in a husband, that makes a woman happy, but virtue, sweetness of temper, and complaisance, and Beast has all these valuable qualifications.”\nAn illustration by Warwick Goble for Beauty and the Beast, 1913.\nNo sooner does she declare her love for him than the Beast is transformed into a handsome prince. The prince informs her that a wicked fairy had cursed him to remain a monstrous beast until a young and beautiful girl agreed to be his wife. The spell now broken, Beauty and her handsome prince marry and proceed to live happily ever after.\nTaken as a whole, \"La Belle et la Bête\" appears, on its face, to be more of a morality lesson than a fairy tale. A young woman learns which qualities are most important in a prospective husband and, only by choosing wisely, does she earn her happy ending. This is a lesson which many an eighteenth and nineteenth century parent would have sought to drive home to their daughters. A lesson on choosing a worthy (though possibly less attractive) man instead of a handsome rake or a scoundrel.\nHowever, there was far more to the tale of \"La Belle et la Bête\" than simple advice to young ladies that they must look deeper than surface appearances. In fact, according to one Victorian scholar, tales of humans cursed to live as animals owed more to the ancient belief in metempsychosis than to morality and romance. Metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls, was the idea that a human soul did not perish at death, but instead moved on to another physical body—often that of an animal.\nCover of Beauty and the Beast, An Illustrated Picture Book by Walter Crane, 1874.\nIn his 1872 book Traditions, Superstitions, and Folklore, Charles Hardwick explains the reasoning behind metempsychosis during the time of the Druids, writing:\n“It is especially the object of the Druids to inculcate this—that souls do not perish, but, after death, pass into other bodies; and they consider that, by this belief more than anything else, men may be led to cast away the fear of death, and to become courageous.”\nThe belief that a soul could migrate into the body of another creature was added incentive to treat creatures kindly. Or, at least, not to commit murder or other savageries. To explain this, Hardwick quotes from an earlier essay on the origins of the religion of the Druids:\n“It appeared to Landor that Pythagoras, who settled in Italy, and had many followers in the Greek colony of the Phocaeans at Marseilles, and engrafted on a barbarous and bloodthirsty religion the human doctrine of the metempsychosis; for that finding it was vain to say, ‘Do not murder,’ as none ever minded that doctrine, he frightened the savages by saying, ‘If you are cruel even to the beasts and insects, the cruelty will fall upon yourselves; you will be the same.’”\nBeauty and the Beast, London: George Routledge and Sons, 1874.\nFree Download: Great Dames!\nGet inspired by some of our favorite interviews, featuring Dolly Parton, Solange, Tina Fey, Jessica Williams, Kathleen Hanna, Laverne Cox, the Broad City gals, and more! Plus, keep up with the latest from BUST. Download\nHumans who have been transformed into animals figure in many stories which pre-date the first publication of \"La Belle et la Bête.\" As Hardwick points out, Shakespeare “has several remarkable references to this superstition.” For example, during one scene in Hamlet, Ophelia recites a portion of the legend of \"The Baker’s Daughter\" in which Christ, in the guise of a beggar, visits a baker’s shop, begging for a loaf of bread. When the baker’s daughter refuses to feed him, he changes her into an owl. As Ophelia sings:\n“They say the owl was a baker’s daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but we know not what we may be.”\nMetempsychosis is just one of the many themes which have been read into the tale of Beauty and the Beast. Over the years, critics have argued that the story contains psychological themes, feminist themes, and themes of erotic pleasure. Indeed, some modern scholars state that the Beast is merely a symbol for Beauty’s animal nature. Once she has gone from her father’s house, she can finally accept the part of her which is animal-like and sexual, thus transforming from girl to woman.\nIllustration from Beauty and the Beast by Eleanor Vere Boyle, 1875.\nSome critics argue that Beauty and the Beast promotes the idea that women should be submissive and self-sacrificing. Still others claim that the story is primarily a means of tackling the subject of conflict between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie. Interpretations seem to vary, depending on which translation or retelling of the fairy-tale one reads—and depending on the academic or professional lens through which a particular critic views the story.\nDespite all of its magical trappings—and all of its many interpretations—at its heart \"La Belle et la Bête\" remains a simple and timeless fairy tale. It has since gone on to inspire multiple books, movies, musicals, and even my own Victorian romance novel, The Lost Letter. The idea that one must look past appearances to see the true value of a person continues to resonate. And the belief that kindness and compassion can unlock a person’s authentic beauty is as true today as it was in 1740 when Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve first published her now legendary story.\nthis post originally appeared on MimiMatthews.com and is reprinted here with permission.\ntop image: Disney\nMore from BUST\nHere's How Fashionable Women Dressed In The 1820s\nVictorian Advice On Breaking A Betrothal The Polite Way\nWhat Did Jane Austen And Charlotte Brontë's Obituaries Look Like?\nMimi Matthews is the author of The Pug Who Bit Napoleon: Animal Tales of the 18th and 19th Centuries and A Victorian Lady’s Guide to Fashion and Beauty (Pen and Sword Books, July 2018). Her articles on nineteenth-century history have been published on various academic and history sites, including the Victorian Web and the Journal of Victorian Culture. When not writing historical non-fiction, Mimi authors exquisitely proper historical romance novels. Her debut Victorian romance The Lost Letter can be ordered at Amazon. To learn more, please visit www.MimiMatthews.com.", "The awards season is expected to be overshadowed this year by the sexual misconduct scandal engulfing the movie industry\nPublished 10:56 PM, December 11, 2017\nLOS ANGELES, USA – \"The Shape of Water,\" Guillermo del Toro's fairy tale romance, led the Golden Globe nominations on Monday, December 11, with seven nods, including for best motion picture drama and actress Sally Hawkins.\n\"The Post\" and \"Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri\" followed with six nods and coming-of-age film \"Lady Bird\" got four nominations.\nThe announcements will give the nominees a welcome boost going into the race for March's Oscars, with the influential Screen Actors Guild nominations to come later this week.\nThe awards season is expected to be overshadowed this year by the sexual misconduct scandal engulfing the movie industry.\nThe other best motion picture drama nominees are \"Call Me By Your Name,\" another coming-of-age tale, World War II thriller \"Dunkirk,\" media drama \"The Post\" and \"Three Billboards.\"\nAlthough more high-profile than the SAGs, the Golden Globes are seen as less of an indicator of Oscars glory, as a relatively small group of non-US journalists – the Hollywood Foreign Press Association – chooses the winners, rather than the industry itself.\nOn the television front, HBO drama \"Big Little Lies\" – already rewarded with several Emmys – led with six nominations.\nFX anthology series \"Feud: Bette and Joan\" was close behind with four nominations, while \"Fargo,\" \"The Handmaid's Tale\" and \"This is Us\" grabbed three each.\nHBO comfortably led the television nominations with 12.\nThe 75th Golden Globe Awards will take place in Beverly Hills on January 7, with talk show host Seth Meyers presenting. – Rappler.com", "Russian National Ballet bring The Nutcracker to Bognor’s Alexandra Theatre on Thursday, October 12 (tickets 01243 861010).\nSpokeswoman Julia Ignatowa said: “It will be a wonderful treat full of glitter for the whole family! Join us for an unforgettable journey in the run-up to Christmas and be part of the magic as it unfolds.\n“Russian National Ballet has entertained thousands of people over the years, delivering high-quality ballet. This company is known for its attention to detail and more particularly for its dramatisation in dance of the beauty that this ballet is known for.\n“We specialise in promoting Russian culture and aim to bring a vast variety of shows from the most popular repertoire of classical ballet. No experience is needed to enjoy these classics. Our sets and costume designs, as well as the informative programmes make the productions very accessible and most of all, enjoyable.\n“The new production will delight and mesmerise the audience. The Nutcracker is a vibrant classical ballet. A family orientated production with the fairy tale element and some added glitz from the stunning new costumes.\n“The Nutcracker, written by E T A Hoffman, follows the adventures of a young girl Marie who is given a Nutcracker doll for Christmas, enters a dream like land of magic where she soon discovers the Nutcracker prince and dances with the beautiful snowflakes.”\nSet designer Lubov Sidelnikova added: “The Nutcracker is a delightful fairy tale with a gemstone of Tchaikovsky’s music. I wanted to embed the set design of the ballet as the perfect dream of a flawless world where everyone is happy and good always triumphs over evil. People are always trying to beautify their life and through beauty we try to create harmony and joy. In the set design of The Nutcracker I tried to create a sense of lightness and convey a celebration mood.”\nhttp://alexandratheatre.co.uk/", "Google has today launched a re-imagined version of its free Earth mapping service, weaving in storytelling and artificial intelligence.\nThe new programme lets people get a close-up look of the planet from the comfort of their computers, smartphones or tablets.\nThe new-look Google Earth enables its users to learn about far-flung corners of the globe under the guidance of scientists from Nasa and prestigious research institutions.\nGoogle Earth's new start-up screen offers a global view of the Earth. Pictured is North America and South America as seen by satellites\nGOOGLE EARTH 3D views of iconic landscapes and the world's hidden gems\n'Voyager' feature enables people digitally exploring the planet to be guided on interactive stories told by experts\nArtificial intelligence is used to build 'knowledge cards' that let users dive deeper into online information\nNewly installed 'Feeling Lucky?' feature for people who want to let the software suggest hidden gems such as Pemba Island off the Swahili coast\n'This is our gift to the world,' Google Earth director Rebecca Moore said.\n'It's a product that speaks to our deepest values around education and making information available to people.'\nOn opening the software, users are met with a view of the Earth from orbit.\nUsers can search for a location of choice, or use new features to explore areas they have never seen before.\nUpon selecting a location, the futuristic programme starts to zoom into the continent and then country of the location of choice.\nWhen another area is selected, the programme glides through the countries and oceans necessary to get to new location.\nA new 'Voyager' feature enables people digitally exploring the planet to be guided on interactive stories told by experts, boasting partners including BBC Earth, Nasa, Sesame Street, and the Jane Goodall Institute.\nGoogle artificial intelligence will be put to work for Earth users in the form of 'knowledge cards' that let them dive deeper into online information about mountains, countries, landmarks or other places being virtually visited.\nIt will also make suggestions on other locations armchair explorers might be interested in exploring based on what they have searched in the past.\n'This is the first time we have done this deep integration with the Google Knowledge Graph,' Earth engineering manager Sean Askay said.\nThe Eiffel Tower stands tall among Paris's ancient grey buildings. Artificial intelligence is used to build 'knowledge cards' (top right) that let users dive deeper into online information\nNew York's Empire State Building is pictured. The new programme lets people get a close-up look of the planet from the comfort of their computers and on Android smartphones\n'Everything Google knows about the world, you can know about the world.'\nThere is also a newly installed 'Feeling Lucky?' feature for people who want to let the software suggest hidden gems such as Pemba Island off the Swahili coast or the Oodaira Hot Spring in Yamagata, Japan.\nPeople can choose to fly around the world in Earth, using a 3-D button to see the Grand Canyon, Chateau Loire Valley and other stunning spots from any angles they wish.\nThe London Eye (left), Westminster Bridge (middle) and the Houses of Parliament (right) in London are visible in stunning detail on the new software\nNot all of the world's sites can be seen from close-up. The Great Pyramid at Giza and the Pyramid East can only be seen from overhead, but in more detail than ever before\n'With the new Earth, we want to open up different lenses for you to see the world and learn a bit about how it all fits together; to open your mind with new stories while giving you a new perspective on the locations and experiences you cherish,' Earth product manager Gopal Shah said in a blog post.\nOnline explorers cruising the mobile version of Earth can also capture pictures on their travels, sending friends digital postcards.\nNew Earth was launched on Google's Chrome and Android software, with versions tailored for Apple devices and other internet browsing software promised soon.\nThere is also a newly installed 'Feeling Lucky?' feature to let users see 3D views of the world's hidden gems. When activated, the feature selected Jioufen, a mountain town in northeastern Taiwan\nWhen pressed a second time, the software selected Yellowstone National Park in the US. The park's 3,000 square mile (7,770 square km) mountain range is captured in close detail\nThe new 'Voyager' feature enables people digitally exploring the planet to be guided on interactive stories told by experts. Pictured is a tour of world's best cities for wildlife by BBC Earth series producer Fredi Devas\nIt's the first time that Earth can be reached on a web browser instead of through applications installed on devices.\nThe move allows Google to tap into more powerful computing power at data centers in the internet 'cloud' instead of relying on the capabilities of smartphones and other devices.\nThe new Google Earth is available now on Chrome or on Android.\nIt will arrive on iOS devices later this year.", "Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nIf you’ve grown up in Cambridge you’ll know that the annual Arts Theatre Pantomime is somewhat of an institution.\nWhere the question on the playground would be not ‘are you going to the panto?’ but rather ‘when?’\nIt is enjoyed every year by parents and children alike. With jokes and gags which will make you belly laugh whether you’re six or sixty.\nThis year the Cambridge Arts Theatre panto is Jack and the Beanstalk.\nA fairy-tale based upon the life of humble boy Jack Trott and his quest to save Princess Kate from the evil giant Gog Magog who is terrorising the town of Amarillo.\nThe King, Tony Christie, is forbidden from singing for fear of waking up the giant Gog Magog.\nBut what’s it like watching this whole hullabaloo as a child? And what are the top moments?\nWe asked six year old, Anna Rabbett what her favourite moments were, and what really got her laughing.\nDame Trott’s Diner\nWithout giving too much away, this is the part of the panto which delivers the most slapstick comedy. There is falling over, tonnes of whipped cream, an Elvis impersonator and some very large frilly knickers on display…\nAnna said: “I thought it was really funny when Dame Trott and Simon fell over, they kept slipping and sliding everywhere, and the cream kept squirting them in the face.”\nPrincess Kate’s revenge\nIn true twenty first century style our heroin Princess Kate doesn’t need saving, from evil giant Gog Magog’s even more evil servant Flesh Creep. And after being captured manages to batter nine bells out of him, whilst singing Taylor Swift, if that’s not girl power I don’t what is.\nAnna said: “I thought it was nice to see Princess Kate kicking Flesh Creep after he was really horrible to her, I didn’t like him, and he was mean and green.”\nMadam Trott and her love affair\nIn true panto fashion our Dame had a firm favourite in the audience, in this case a chap called Arnie. Throughout the performance Madam Trott would reference Arnie and every time the whole audience would laugh in a ‘thank god it’s not my dad’ kind of way.\nAnna said: “It was really funny how Dame Trott kept going up to that man in the audience especially when she made him sing, his tiger roar was really funny.”\nSilly Simon\nThe loveable fool Simon, or Pantalon to the dramatists out there is an archetypal panto character, most closely a likened to Buttons in Cinderella, or Feste in Twelfth Night. He’s dim witted, loveable and wise all in his own way.\nAnna said: “I really liked how everyone would sing when Simon came on stage, he was really silly and loved his cow.”\nFairy sweetcorn\nThere is always that character in panto you know is going to be a hit, and in this one there were many. The underdog of which was fairy sweetcorn. She was as her name would suggest sickeningly sweet, but fiery none the less, so it’s unsurprising that sassy six year old Anna thought the fairy was pretty cool.\nShe said: “I really liked fairy sweetcorn’s dress, she was my favourite fairy, although fairy ratatouille was really funny.”\nFleshcreep\nThe mark of a good panto villain is making a child in the audience cry, whether the poor mite was just teething or he really was terrified of the evil beast, Fleshcreep was definitely pretty scary.\nPolitical satire, evil green lighting and that classical well pronounced British accent meant that Fleshcreep was terrifying, and annoyingly, quite sexy.\nAnna said: \"I didn't like the evil one, he was really scary and horrible.\" - That's a compliment, I promise.\nFinal musings and ice cream in the interval\nThis isn't really a funny moment per se, however it's definitely worth a mention.\nAs a child one of the best bits of going to the panto is enjoying a pot of ridiculously decadent ice cream, during the break.\nWe recommend the chocolate- treat yourselves it's christmas.\nAnna said: \"The ice cream was so chocolatey and delicious, you have to have a treat at the panto.\"\nWith a mouthful of ice cream and a grin on her face Anna said: \"Jack was definitely my favourite character in the panto, he was really brave and saved the princess. The whole show was really funny, and cool.\"\nI have to agree, I'm sometimes a bit dubious about Panto having had my heartbroken after seeing Gareth Gates as Robin Hood but this was a far cry from that, everything from the sets to the lighting, music, and costumes were all visually brilliant. It's great to see people getting involved and being a bit silly this time of year, and this panto gives the people of Cambridge an outlet to do that.\nAs well as being wildly entertaining for the tots The Arts Theatre panto is fantastic for grown ups too, riddled with innuendo, political satire and one liners.\nGags which made the grown-ups giggle, and fall about their seats, plus in tune singing is a novelty which all comes into play during this classic and witty panto.\nPlus you get to see Tony Christie singing this is the way to Amarillo about 50 times throughout and that never gets old, as the dame liked to remind us.\nJack and the Beanstalk at the Arts Theatre features is this the way to Amarillo star Tony Christie as the king, and pop star Liza Goddard as the fairy queen.\nIt is running at the Cambridge Arts Theatre until January 7 2018, with tickets still available online. To get yours head to the arts theatre website.", "Now that 2017 is finally here, we have a whole new year of movies to look forward to. And one of the most anticipated early releases is a live-action version of the animated classic Beauty and the Beast. Today, we have two new TV spots to get fans ready for this enchanted fairy tale slated to hit theaters on March 17.\nThe beloved tale will be retold for the big screen with a modern live-action lens and the help of transformative CG magic. Emma Watson and Dan Stevens will star as Belle and the Beast/Prince respectively, and Luke Evans will play the role of Gaston. Emma Thompson has joined the cast as Mrs. Potts and Kevin Kline as Belle's father, Maurice. These new TV spots debuted on YouTube today, but it isn't clear when more footage will be released as we continue the countdown towards what will surely be one of 2017's biggest blockbusters.\nThis live action adventure is based on the classic French tale centering on Belle, whose father is taken captive by the Beast after being lost in the woods. The young woman agrees to trade her life for her fathers and ends up falling in love with him. This releases a witch's curse on the Beast, which turned him into the monster. The supporting cast includes Ewan McGregor as Lumiere, Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Plumette, Ian McKellen as Cogsworth, Josh Gad as LeFou and Stanley Tucci as Cadenza.\nEight-time Oscar-winner Alan Menken, who won two Academy Awards for the 1991 animated classic, will score the film, which will feature new recordings of the original songs in addition to several new songs written by Menken and Sir Tim Rice. Bill Condon will direct from a script by Stephen Chbosky, and the film will be produced by Mandeville Films' David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman. Production got under way last May at Shepperton Studios in London.\nThis fairy tale adaptation will be going up against Sony's action-comedy Baby Driver from director Edgar Wright when it hits theaters on March 17, 2017. The live action adaptation is also sandwiched between a number of high-profile releases, with Kong: Skull Island and The Boss Baby arriving a week earlier on March 10, 2017, and Knights of the Roundtable: King Arthur and Power Rangers arriving on March 24. Take a look at these new Beauty and the Beast TV spots below." ]

[ "Earlier this year, World Cafe host Talia Schlanger announced that she is leaving World Cafe in order to pursue new creative endeavors. This week, WXPN announced her successor as Raina Douris, an award-winning radio personality from Toronto, Ontario, coming to WXPN from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), where she was host and writer for the daily live national program Mornings on CBC Music. Though she is sad to be leaving, Talia is thrilled to be handing the show off to an amazing host who she loves listening to and who she knows you will love, too. Talia's last show as host of World Cafe will be Friday, Sept. 27. Be sure to tune in all next week as she recalls some of her favorite interviews and moments on the show, we wish her all the best in the future and thank her for all of her amazing work. In this interview, you'll hear Talia welcome Raina to the World Cafe airwaves for the very first time. Listen in the player." ]

[ "We're excited to announce that Gwen Thompkins is joining World Cafe as our New Orleans correspondent. Gwen is a New Orleans native and a public radio veteran. As a senior editor for NPR's Weekend Edition, Gwen routinely made Scott Simon laugh before she moved to Nairobi to serve as NPR's East Africa correspondent. Now Gwen is back in New Orleans where she hosts Music Inside Out on WWNO. As a World Cafe correspondent, she'll be hosting occasional sessions from New Orleans that showcase that city's bottomless pool of musical talent. In this conversation, World Cafe host Raina Douris gets to know Gwen while spinning some of the music that's provided the soundtrack to Gwen's life. They also reveal a couple of the New Orleans artists that Gwen will be welcoming to World Cafe soon. And you'll hear Gwen's take on what it's like living in New Orleans during the coronavirus pandemic.", "Wrapping up a year of some incredible sessions, this week, World Cafe is digging into the archives for some of its best performances and interviews of 2017. You'll hear sessions from hosts Talia Schlanger, David Dye and Ann Powers, with artists including the outspoken Father John Misty, graceful vocalist Alison Krauss, veteran rocker Robert Plant, the Chuck Berry, Jr. and more.", "Editor's note: Friday marks David Dye's last day as full-time host of World Cafe, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. I am certainly the luckiest radio host I know. I have come to work each day to find out which of my heroes I am going to talk to next. Even as my last day hosting World Cafe rolls out, I am preparing to interview Aimee Mann and one of the greats, Ray Davies of The Kinks. As Talia Schlanger takes over World Cafe come Monday, that should let you know that I am not disappearing. For 25 years this has been my world — always with the specter of the next show on the horizon. I won't miss that responsibility. My life is going to be different. I hope it's a little slower: more reading and baseball, less updating my Twitter feed. I look forward to putting on an album just because I want to hear it, not as show prep. World Cafe will continue as a living, breathing entity — hopefully for 25 more years. The staff is more pumped than ever. Great things are in the wind. I'll be checking in with Ms. Schlanger once in a while. And I will be listening — and I hope you will be too. Radio is nothing without listeners completing the circle. You know, we can feel you out there! The artists and I thank you for 25 years. —David Dye P.S.: We turned the tables for my last on-air show as full-time host and had Ari Shapiro from NPR's All Things Considered interview me! Hear the complete conversation in the player above.", "Now that the new year's well under way, World Cafe hosts David Dye and Talia Schlanger share their most anticipated upcoming releases of 2017. Their picks include new music from Sampha, who served as the secret sauce on some of the best R&B tracks of the past year, and from instrumental geniuses Chris Thile and Brad Mehldau, who've melded minds for a double album that comes out later this month. Get ready to get pumped for a tremendous new year in music! Stream and download the complete segment in the player above.", "On Thursday, June 25, Bob Boilen hosted episode three of Tiny Desk Contest Top Shelf. He was joined by Contest judge and host of WXPN's World Cafe Raina Douris, who shared her favorite entries from the 2020 Tiny Desk Contest. When asked about what she looks for in entries, Douris said, \"You have to put on a show that feels big behind a little, tiny desk: Do you jump out? Do you make this little desk feel like a huge, huge stage?\" Douris and Boilen invited one artist who made her tiny desk feel like a huge stage into the livestream: Tia P. from Inglewood, Calif. Tia P. talked about how she approached recording her entry, \"151,\" saying she treated it as if the fans and judges were in the room with her. \"I miss doing [live shows] the most. I'm a musician so there's nothing like that real interaction with the crowd,\" Tia P. said. \"My thing was to treat it as if you guys were already here, as if we were doing it live ... I wanted to bring you guys into my world and take you out of quarantine mode.\" Douris' favorite Tiny Desk Contest entries included: Deal Casino, \"Just A Cow\"&nbsp; Tia P., \"151\"&nbsp; Nick Shoulders, \"Too Old To Dream\"&nbsp; Piel, \"Custodian\"&nbsp; Calvin The II, \"Hope\"&nbsp; You can watch previous Tiny Desk Contest Top Shelf episodes and sign up to be reminded about upcoming episodes at topshelf.nprpresents.org.", "On this week's show co-host Robin Hilton manages to heave himself off of the floor (after his beloved Kansas Jayhawks lost in the NCAA tournament AGAIN) long enough to hit the play button on some phenomenal new music. Host Bob Boilen and World Cafe host Talia Schlanger try to cheer him up with their own favorite songs of the week: 1. Perfume Genius: \"Slip Away,\" 2. Sufjan Stevens, Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner and James McAlister: \"Saturn,\" 3. Gorillaz: \"We Got The Power,\" 4. The Family Crest: \"Mirror Love,\" 5. Hippo Campus: \"Monsoon,\" 6. Kevin Morby: \"Come To Me Now,\" 7. Teen Daze: \"Dream City,\" 8. Alexander F: \"You're Such A Kill\"", "Once a month, NPR Music checks in with hosts and music curators from public radio stations across the country to find out which new songs they just can't let go. The depth and variety of their selections is always a joy to behold, and this month's list is no exception. Whether your pleasure is new-wave chamber pop, hypnotic trance-blues or Ethio-jazz that's literally made of star stuff, public radio has you covered. Listen at the audio link to hear Folk Alley and WYEP's Cindy Howes, Wyoming Public Media's Micah Schweizer and World Cafe's Talia Schlanger share their picks, and read on for the full list.", "Talia here with a \"longtime listener, first-time caller\" moment. I've admired David Dye from afar for years, so I was thrilled when he welcomed me to make my first on-air appearance as the new Contributing Host on World Cafe. We talked about my past work as a host at the CBC, my history as a professional head-banger and our shared love of small venues. David was even gracious enough to let me spin a couple tunes. Since I just moved from Toronto for this gig, I chose to share two of my favorite Canadian artists: Andy Shauf, a magical musical craftsman from the prairies of Bienfait, Saskatchewan, and the sassy and syncopated Begonia from Winnipeg, Manitoba. And hey, since we didn't have time on air to play all of my Canadian favorites, I collected a bunch more in this post. Hope you dig.", "With just over a month to go until the new year, the season of \"best-of\" lists is upon us. It's a time for celebrating the musical gems that made you hit repeat all year, or for discovering some great songs and artists you might have missed. To ease you into a list-making mood, we at World Cafe came up with a couple of fun categories celebrating a few great songs from 2016: five \"old-school\" jams with a retro feel, picked by David Dye, and five cutting-edge \"new-school\" tracks, chosen by Talia Schlanger. (And you may discover, as we did, that these categories are more fluid than you might think.)", "While you're driving to your nearest polling station or waiting in line to vote, World Cafe's Talia Schlanger and WXPN's Bruce Warren weigh in with some of the greatest albums that have turned 18 this year.", "You might wonder why Hiss Golden Messenger's new album is called Quietly Blowing It — because bandleader M.C. Taylor has not been blowing it at all. Since World Cafe host Raina Douris last spoke with Taylor in 2019, Hiss Golden Messenger's last album, Terms of Surrender, was nominated for best Americana album at the Grammy Awards. And when the pandemic hit, Taylor didn't spend his time bingeing reality TV (not that there's anything wrong with that); instead, he wrote and recorded an entire new record. In this session, the singer-songwriter talks about that album, his experience over this past year and how his music evolves over time, which you'll hear as he performs songs from throughout his career, beginning with \"Sanctuary\" from his latest record.", "We kick this week's show off with the wild ride that is Tank And The Bangas, our unanimous pick to win this year's Tiny Desk Contest. They're from New Orleans and have the kind of playful, infectious energy that makes a band impossible to miss. You can hear their winning song, \"Quick,\" in our podcast — but to really appreciate how special they are, you should scroll down the page and watch their winning video. We're also joined on the show by one of the judges for this year's contest, and the newly named host for WXPN's World Cafe, Talia Schlanger. Talia talks about what it was like watching the Tiny Desk contest entries and shares new music from the '90s shoegaze group Ride. We've also got long-awaited new music from the Canadian rock group Land of Talk. After a stunning debut in 2010, the band largely disappeared, but frontwoman Elizabeth Powell has finally returned with a worthy followup, Life After Youth. We've got the first single from it, a beautiful ode to self-determination called \"Inner Lover.\" Also on the show: Bob drops a bomb on me with surprising new music from one of my all-time favorite artists, the Argentine singer and electronic musician Juana Molina; multi-instrumentalist Jay Som and the New York-by-way-of-Camaroon singer known as Vagabon both have new albums that perfectly blend wistful meditations with fuzzy guitars; and NPR Music's Marissa Lorusso stops by the studio to share a fantastic new cut by Bellows.", "It's late March, which can only mean one thing: Time for my beloved Kansas Jayhawks to take a premature nosedive in the NCAA men's basketball tournament! Accordingly, we begin this week's show with an annual tradition: me whining to Bob Boilen about my deep, dark, post-tournament depression. Bob says it's madness to keep putting myself through this, but I can't stop. Even with the cloud of defeat hanging over us (me), I managed to heave myself off of the floor long enough to hit the play button on some phenomenal new music from Perfume Genius, who has followed 2014's Too Bright with his biggest, boldest sound yet (which is really saying something). I also found comfort in the drifting, ambient sounds of Teen Daze and a profoundly moving elegy to a lost sister from the band Hippo Campus. World Cafe host Talia Schlanger joined us from the studios at WXPN in Philadelphia to try to cheer me up with an uplifting dance-pop anthem from Gorillaz, while Bob does his best to begin the healing with a cut from Sufjan Stevens, who is collaborating with composer Nico Muhly, The National's Bryce Dessner and drummer James McAlister for a galactic project they're calling Planetarium. Also on the show: Kevin Morby's love letter to cities and the diverse people who live there; a big, joyful sing-along from The Family Crest; and a dark and gritty guitar rock cut from Brooklyn band Alexander F. -- Robin Hilton", "The National is about to release its seventh studio album, Sleep Well Beast, on September 8. But days before it comes out, on September 5, the band is going to play that record in its entirety live for NPR.The new songs revolve around the fears and struggles within relationships, particularly that of singer and lyricist Matt Berninger and his wife, the writer Carin Besser, who co-wrote some of the lyrics on this album. Sleep Well Beast is characteristically dark and sonically rich — and some of the best music this band has made.Today we're sharing a conversation between Matt, myself (All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen) and Talia Schlanger, host of World Cafe.", "Updated on July 20 at 1:47 p.m. ET. The listening party has ended, but you can stream the album below via Spotify or Apple Music. This Friday at 2 p.m. ET, join us for an online listening party for Lianne La Havas' self-titled new album, hosted by World Cafe's Raina Douris and featuring a live conversation with NPR Music's Suraya Mohamed and Lianne La Havas herself. You can RSVP via NPR Presents and watch via YouTube. The London-based singer-songwriter didn't mean for five years to pass without an album. She toured heavily after 2015's Blood was released, performing at the Tiny Desk and supporting acts like Coldplay and Alicia Keys. And then, as it does, life got in the way — a time that inspired many of the songs on Lianne La Havas about falling in and out of love, and learning to love herself. The music rattles with yearning and urgency, captured by a live-in-the-room sound. When featuring the single \"Bittersweet\" on Heat Check in March, NPR Music's Sidney Madden wrote that La Havas' voice \"pulls you up into the hemisphere with tight strings of levity.\" So please join us in the chat room to ask questions, or just to shout out your love and thoughts to Lianne La Havas herself. Let's listen together!", "In 2017, NPR Music published a list of the 200 Greatest Albums Made By Women. The list, selected by women from across the public radio system, launched our series Turning the Tables, which aims to radically change how we talk about the history of popular music. This year, Turning the Tables is asking a new question: How does music by women define our current era? To answer that question, we'll be publishing a list of the best songs of the 21st century by women and nonbinary artists next Monday, July 30. All that week, we'll also be publishing essays that tackle the question of what it means to focus on women's music in the 21st century. And we'll follow that with a series of pieces on the most influential women musicians of our time. We think nothing goes better with canon-busting than a little celebration. So to kick off this season of Turning the Tables, we're teaming up with Lincoln Center Out Of Doors again for two events to celebrate our list. On Tuesday, July 31, members of the voting panel for this year's Turning the Tables list will discuss some of their favorite songs from the playlist. The conversation will be moderated by Talia Schlanger, host of WXPN's World Cafe, and will feature Rolling Stone's Suzy Exposito; The Ringer's Lindsay Zoladz; journalists and scholars Lara Pellegrinelli and Laina Dawes; and music journalists and cultural critics Liz Pelly and Cyrena Touros — plus me, representing NPR Music. Doors open at 7:00 pm at the Bruno Walter Auditorium at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Then, on Wednesday, August 1, our own critic (and Turning the Tables co-creator) Ann Powers will be hosting a night of music and conversation with some incredible 21st century musicians: Carly Rae Jepsen, Jamila Woods, Mitski, Phoebe Bridgers and I'm With Her. Doors open at 7 p.m. ET at NYC's Damrosch Park. Both events are free; you can find more details at lcoutofdoors.org.", "Hi, World Cafe fans! I just moved to the U.S. from Toronto, Canada, to become World Cafe's new contributing host and producer. Yes, I'm from Drake's hometown. And yes, that's the most frequently asked question since I've been here. But if your musical knowledge north of the 49th parallel doesn't extend past Drizzy and The Six, you're in luck. I brought a pile of musical gifts across the border with me. Below, find your introduction to 10 Canadian acts you definitely want on your radar. Who's new to you on this list? Who do you love? Who did I miss? Let me know on Twitter — I'm @TaliaSchlanger. Can't wait to share the best of the best in the U.S. and beyond, now that I'm officially on World Cafe turf!", "Updated Jan. 29 at 2:30 p.m. ET The Listening Party is over, but you can still watch the album stream and live conversation above for 72 hours. Join us in an online listening party for Arlo Parks' debut album, Collapsed in Sunbeams, hosted by World Cafe's Raina Douris and featuring a live conversation with Parks herself. The event will take place on release day, Jan. 29, at 1 p.m. ET. You can RSVP via NPR Presents and watch via YouTube. Born, raised and based in London, Parks began releasing demos and her first single (\"Cola\") in 2018. She quickly found fans at the BBC, released two EPs and performed a Tiny Desk (home) concert one year later. Now 20 years old, she's one of public radio's 2021 artists to watch. \"British R&B singer and songwriter Arlo Parks creates songs filled with warmth, empathy and attention to literary detail,\" WXPN's Bruce Warren wrote for the feature. \"Parks' songs welcome you into a charming world of beauty. She has a stunning musical maturity for someone so young, not to mention a singular voice.\" So please join us in the chat to ask questions, or just to shout out your love and thoughts to Arlo Parks. Let's listen together!", "<em>All Songs Considered'</em>s Robin Hilton is joined by NPR Music's Rodney Carmichael, Stefanie Ferndandez, Lars Gotrich and Stephen Thompson – along with special guest Talia Schlanger, host of WXPN's <em>World Café </em>– for a quick run through the best new albums out on May 25. This includes the highly anticipated (and instant classic) album, <em>Daytona </em>from rapper PUSHA-T, reggaetón mega-hit maker J Balvin, raw and ragged rock from Thunderpussy, effervescent synth-pop from CHVRCHES and more. FEATURED ALBUMS: Thunderpussy: <em>Thunderpussy,</em> PUSHA-T: <em>Daytona, </em>Aisha Burns: <em>Argonauta, </em>CHVRCHES: <em>Love Is Dead,</em> J Balvin: <em>Vibras, </em>Zaytoven: <em>Trap Holizay, </em>Witch Mountain: <em>Witch Mountain. </em> Other notable releases for May 25: Sudan Archives: <em>Sink,</em> Graveyard: <em>Peace, </em>Jenny Hval: <em>The Long Sleep, </em>Ari Roar: <em>Calm Down, </em>Chad Valley: <em>Imaginary Music, </em>Wand: <em>Perfume </em>", "September 18, 2019, Philadelphia- WXPN, the member-supported public radio station of the University of Pennsylvania and producer of the NPR-distributed daily music program World Cafe, today announced that Raina Douris will become the new host of World Cafe starting on October 7. Douris, an award-winning radio personality from Toronto, Ontario, comes to World Cafe from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), where she was host and writer for the daily live, national morning program Mornings on CBC Music. She is also involved with Canada's highest music honors: since 2017 she has hosted the Polaris Music Prize Gala, for which she is also a jury member, and she has also been a jury member for the Juno Awards. Douris has also served as guest host and interviewer for various CBC Music and CBC Radio programs, and red carpet host and interviewer for the Juno Awards and Canadian Country Music Association Awards, as well as a panelist for such renowned CBC programs as Metro Morning, q and CBC News. She succeeds Talia Schlanger as World Cafe host, who was also a CBC broadcaster before joining World Cafe in 2016. Schlanger announced earlier this year that she is leaving World Cafe in order to pursue new creative endeavors. Douris began her career at Toronto rock station 102.1 the Edge, and then continued on to CBC Radio 3, where she hosted daily music-focused shows. In 2013, she was part of the team that launched Central Ontario Broadcasting's Indie88 radio station, and served as its music director and afternoon host before moving to the morning show. In both 2014 and 2015 she was chosen as the \"Best Radio Personality in Toronto\"by Now Magazine readers for her work. She is a 2009 graduate of Ryerson University's Radio & Television Arts program. \"Raina brings a lot to World Cafe, including a deep love and knowledge of music and a refreshing way of communicating that on the radio and social platforms to a national audience,\" said WXPN General Manager Roger LaMay. \"Music is one of the deepest, most meaningful ways human beings can connect to each other,\" said Douris. \"It's a connection that can seem transcendent; almost magical. I've spent my life chasing that magic and I'm thrilled that the chase has led me to World Cafe. I can't wait to discover and share music with World Cafe's passionate, curious audience - and I look forward to approaching conversations with the artists who create that music with that same passion and curiosity — to bring you real, genuine, thoughtful conversations you can't hear anywhere else.\" A unique daily program of musical discovery, World Cafe is where more than half a million listeners each week are introduced to an eclectic blend of contemporary sounds from both legendary and up-and-coming artists, through exclusive interviews, performances and special features. It is recorded and produced at WXPN in Philadelphia, with additional exclusive content from its Nashville contributors and gathered from locations across the globe. World Cafe is distributed to more than 200 U.S. radio stations by NPR, and can be heard on WXPN from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays. To learn more about World Cafe, visit http://www.xpn.org/world-cafe and http://www.npr.org/sections/world-cafe/. Follow Raina Douris on Twitter and Instagram. About WXPN WXPN, the nationally recognized leader in Triple A radio and the premier guide for discovering new and significant artists in rock, blues, roots and folk, is the non-commercial, member-supported, public radio service of the University of Pennsylvania. WXPN producesWorld Cafe, public radio's most popular program of popular music that is distributed by NPR to more than 200 U.S. radio stations, and the Peabody Award-winning Kids Corner. WXPN serves the greater Philadelphia area at 88.5 FM, the Lehigh Valley at 104.9 FM, Worton/Baltimore at 90.5 FM, Lancaster/York at 88.7 FM, Harrisburg at 99.7 FM, North Jersey/Poconos at 91.9 FM, and the world via online streaming at www.XPN.org. The WXPN app brings all of WXPN to any mobile device. WXPN producesXPoNential Radio on XPN2 as its secondary radio channel in HD, also available online. www.xpn.org. Press Contact Elise Brown elisewxpnpr@gmail.com 215-990-6955 About NPR NPR's rigorous reporting and unsurpassed storytelling connect with millions of Americans every day — on the air, online, and in person. NPR strives to create a more informed public — one challenged and invigorated by a deeper understanding and appreciation of events, ideas, and cultures. With a nationwide network of award-winning journalists and 17 international bureaus, NPR and its Member Stations are never far from where a story is unfolding. Listeners can find NPR by tuning in to their local Member stations (npr.org/stations), and now it's easy to listen to our stories on smart speaker devices. Ask your smart speaker to, \"Play NPR,\" and you'll be tuned into your local Member station's live stream. Your speaker can also access NPR podcasts, NPR One, NPR News Now, and", "The rock singer Gord Downie died today after a long battle with brain cancer. The lead singer of the beloved Canadian band <em>The Tragically Hip</em> was 53. NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with Talia Schlanger, host and radio producer at World Cafe, about Downie's music and legacy.", "Yes, it's true: Harry Styles of the British boy band One Direction has taken a huge left turn on his debut solo album, turning in an infectious, sometimes gritty batch of rock songs inspired by The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and other classic bands he grew up listening to. Robin kick's this week's show off with one of these surprising new songs, the playful earworm \"Carolina.\" Bob follows with the complete opposite, a song from Kalmia Traver he's currently obsessed with. Traver, a singer and saxophonist from the band Rubblebucket, has a new solo album under the name Kalbells, filled with a kaleidoscope of colorful sounds, including coyote howls and whistling. Also on the show: World Cafe host Talia Schlanger joins us with a gorgeous, stripped-down tear-jerker from Anthony LaMarca , singer of folk-pop duo The Building, recorded at her request; Fleet Foxes does some soul-searching with another track from its first new album in nearly six years; Dr. Danny of the psych-rock band The Lemon Twigs goes solo with a trippy new EP; and The National reflects on the age of alternative facts with a cut from its upcoming album Sleep Well Beast.", "One of the best parts of our \"jobs\" here at the World Cafe is when we discover inspiring new music. Whether it's a singer-songwriter, an indie rock band or an underground rapper, there's so much creativity swirling around in the music ecosystem. Case in point is Jason Singer, who performs as Michigander. Singer has the most astounding knack for writing anthemic pop songs. Wise beyond his years with an angelic confidence in his voice, he's adept at crafting those musical moments that ring with high emotional impact. It's all there in his songs; driving beats, shimmering guitars, tug-at-your-heart lyrics, and big hooks. You can imagine his songs in shows like This Is Us, or Grey's Anatomy. The songs he writes linger in your head and heart long after they're finished. Singer, a listener to the Cafe, crossed our paths at World Cafe when he tweeted Cafe host Talia Schlanger in April 2017, asking if she would check out his new song, \"Fears.\" She did, and we wound up playing it on the show. We were instantly impressed with the song. Michigander has dropped a few singles and is releasing his debut EP, Midland, on March 16. Named after the town where Jason grew up and currently lives, the record features six songs, including two previously released singles \"Fears\" and \"Stolen.\" The project was recorded in Adrian, Mich. with producer Jake Rye at Social Recording Company. Listen to the World Cafe premiere of \"Alice,\" a sweeping, rocking love song from Midland.", "Update 5/29 2 p.m. ET: The archive of the Premiere event is temporarily available below. The Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright has announced the premiere of Unmaking Unfollow The Rules, a behind-the-scenes documentary chronicling the extraordinary creation of his new album, Unfollow The Rules, his first in eight years. The short film premieres on Friday, May 29 at 1 p.m. ET, exclusively with World Cafe via NPR Live Sessions. In addition, the premiere will be accompanied by a special Q&A with Wainwright, hosted by World Cafe's Raina Douris. Unfollow The Rules is out July 10 via BMG. Credits: Director: Jeff Richter; Studio: Earthquake Productions; Executive Producers: John Loeffler and Jörn Weisbrodt; With: David Boucher, Mitchell Froom, Petra Haden, Jim Keltner, Blake Mills, Rob Moose, David Piltch and Rufus Wainwright.", "NPR's Tavis Smiley welcomes Rain Pryor, daughter of legendary comedian Richard Pryor, into his Crenshaw District studio for a few laughs.", "The Bright Light Social Hour is a psychedelic rock band from Austin, Texas, formed in 2006 by Jack O'Brien and Curtis Roush. The band's live show and 2010 debut album were so popular that The Bright Light Social Hour won an unprecedented six Austin Music Awards in 2011, including Band Of The Year. There have been two more studio albums since then, including this year's Space Is Still The Place. On World Cafe today, the CBC's Talia Schlanger talks with O'Brien and Roush about the themes of the new album, which takes a close look at their vision for a new South. Watch the band play \"Ouroboros\" and download the World Cafe performance of \"Infinite Cities\" below.", "As we put 2015 to rest, World Cafe invites NPR Music's Ann Powers to take a look at musical offerings for the new year. Several major, established artists have announced new releases — including David Bowie, who has a marvelous, jazz-informed album called Blackstar coming out Jan. 8. Powers also spotlights a new release from Lucinda Williams, as well as a set of covers that the late Jeff Buckley recorded as demos and a new album from Philadelphia's Santigold. Exciting new artists are on the rise in 2016, too. Powers describes the synth-pop trio Wet as high in \"quirkiness and humanity\" on its debut album, Don't You. She plays a song from 24-year-old Virginian Dori Freeman, whose debut is produced by Teddy Thompson, and a new track from Brett Harris, whose music Powers calls \"bubble-gummy and crafty pop.\"", "Last week, World Cafe landed in Nashville to kick off World Cafe Nashville, a series of upcoming studio sessions and events showcasing the broad, vibrant musical landscape of Music City. There's definitely something in the water there, and with World Cafe Nashville, we'll be tapping into what makes that music scene tick. At our Oct. 28 show at City Winery in Nashville, we recorded \"The Intoxicating Sounds of Steelism and Nashville's Femmes Fatales\" for an upcoming broadcast. Who are those Femmes Fatales, you might ask? That would be Ruby Amanfu, Caitlin Rose — and Lera Lynn. Lynn, whom many folks know from her appearance last year on HBO's True Detective as a singer in the dive bar The Black Rose, released the beguiling Resistor earlier this year. She embarks on a tour Tuesday, and when we saw her last week, she'd just released a new song, \"Image.\" We're premiering the new video for \"Image\" here. \"Image,\" Lynn says, \"is a reflection on American culture, our infatuation with celebrity, infamy, shock value and drama. Each of us plays a role in the creation and proliferation of that dynamic and the success of toxic, vapid people and ideas, simply by allocating even the smallest amount of attention to them.\" Lynn mines a noirish, loungey, eclectic and magical musical territory similar to the kind that Tom Waits explored in songs like \"Singapore\" and \"Clap Hands,\" from his masterpiece Rain Dogs. In \"Image,\" Lynn takes us down a dark, sultry, Americana-tinged path imbued with a heightened paranoia. She captures the tension of the current media environment, singing, \"I am a headline, I am the undermine.\" \"Image\" is out now on Resistor Music.", "On this week's All Songs Considered, Bob is joined by NPR Music's Stephen Thompson, who kicks off the show with a premiere from the folk pop sibling duo Lily & Madeleine. \"The Wolf Is Free\" highlights the sisters' subtle harmonies. Bob follows that up with the new single from California's wild card ensemble Foxygen; \"How Can You Really\" floats on a lilting beat and sneaks in an understated chorus that will be lodged in your head for days to come. Next the hosts get a call from NPR Music's Ann Powers, who has recently become enamored with a young Nashville singer named Adia Victoria. Her new single (and only available recording) \"Stuck In The South\" was released a few weeks ago and has sent ripples through the Nashville country scene. Later in the show the hosts play \"Runaway,\" the infectious pop-rock track from Self's new EP Super Fake Nice and a raucous number from London's Fat White Family called \"Is It Raining In Your Mouth?\" Stephen takes us out with up-and-coming EDM star Porter Robinson's \"Divinity,\" featuring sweet vocals from Stars' Amy Milan and enough joyous bounce to make Stephen grin.", "Each month, NPR Music asks a panel of public-radio hosts and music curators to share the songs they have on repeat. October's mix doesn't disappoint: It offers a rich variety of genres and moods, hand-picked by folks with impeccable taste. Listen at the audio link to hear KOSU's Ryan LaCroix, World Cafe's Talia Schlanger and WFUV's Alisa Ali spin their picks. Read on to listen to all 10 songs — and see what our experts have to say about their selections. SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Every month, NPR Music calls public radio hosts to check on what's hot on their playlists. Here's a sampling of what's in heavy rotation. RYAN LACROIX: My name is Ryan LaCroix. I'm the host of the Oklahoma Rock Show on KOSU and The Spy in Oklahoma City. (SOUNDBITE OF BEAU JENNINGS & THE TIGERS SONG, \"BACK IN TOWN\") LACROIX: What I picked this month is \"Back In Town\" by Beau Jennings and The Tigers. There is this parallel to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. There's that hard-charging guitar, a definite wall of sound. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, \"BACK IN TOWN\") BEAU JENNINGS AND THE TIGERS: (Singing) No one bothers anymore to try and write the hits. LACROIX: You know, Beau's kind of an institution here with his band Cheyenne and his other projects. And Beau Jennings really delivers a really honest line towards the end, and it becomes a refrain about wanting to go see a local band but first he gets - he has to get a babysitter. It's (laughter) it's just a really funny refrain that as a dad I totally relate to and that I think a lot of parents can relate to. BEAU JENNINGS AND THE TIGERS: (Singing) The empty bottles are playing tonight. I think I'm going to get a sitter. The empty bottles are playing tonight. TALIA SCHLANGER: Hey, I'm Talia Schlanger, a new contributing host at World Cafe. My pick for heavy rotation is called \"Creeping\" and it's by Obongjayar. It's kind of your first introduction or our first introduction to this brand-new artist who feels like he's just leapt out of the gate fully formed and sucking you right into his world. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, \"CREEPING\") OBONGJAYAR: (Singing) Creeping, squeezed from the floorboards, this city don't sleep, this city don't sleep. SCHLANGER: Oh, did you hear that, that drop out - that drop out there? I am a sucker for when the bass drops out of a song and Obongjayar has done that so powerfully in this tune. It's not even a minute in and he's just pulling the rug right out from under you. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, \"CREEPING\") OBONGJAYAR: (Singing) No cell but believe none of these people all leave (ph). SCHLANGER: Obongjayar wrote this tune about sort of the unsung heroes of 24-hour London. These are the people that you don't see or appreciate because they're working while you're sleeping. And you can hear that in the soundscape on this song, right? And you've got that picture, corners, crevasses, late night. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, \"CREEPING\") OBONGJAYAR: (Singing) Squeezed from the floorboards. Yeah, this city don't sleep. SCHLANGER: It's just so rare to hear sort of the first offering from an artist who has as distinct a point of view as Obongjayar has on this. And I think it's really that fearless outsider mentality, right, Nothing to lose. This is what I see. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, \"CREEPING\") OBONGJAYAR: (Singing) They're creeping in, they're creeping in, creeping (ph). ALISA ALI: Hey, there I'm Alisa Ali from WFUV in New York City. So the heavy rotation pick this month is \"Same Old Lie\" by Jim James. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, \"SAME OLD LIE\") JIM JAMES: (Singing) It's the same, it's the same, it's the same old lie. ALI: Jim James, like most people, is real - he's really focused on our current political climate. And it's really hard to, you know, not feel disappointed in what's going on. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, \"SAME OLD LIE\") JAMES: (Singing) It's the same old lie you've been reading out, bleeding out. Now who's getting cheating. You best believe it's the silent majority and if you don't vote, it's on you, not me. ALI: That's a truth bomb right there. And it's a clear call to action. So this is a political song for sure - no doubt about it. But the thing that I love about it is that it's not preachy and that he approaches it from a place of hopefulness and of positivity. He feels that, you know, we can make a change. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, \"SAME OLD LIE\") JAMES: (Singing) It's the same old lie. It's the same, it's the same, it's the same old lie. SIMON: A sampling of music in heavy rotation at public radio stations across the country. You can see the full list at nprmusic.org. Our own heavily rotated theme music is by BJ Leiderman.", "Sweden is home to some of the most exciting pop music around. In a special session with host David Dye, World Cafe features three emerging artists: Lykke Li, El Perro del Mar, and Anna Ternheim. In the same day, Peter Moren of Peter, Bjorn and John also performs songs from his new solo CD. Out of the three women featured in this session, Lykke Li taps into pop music more than the others. Electronic beats, funky production techniques, and sensuous vocals help make her debut, Youth Novels, a standout. Born Sarah Assbring, El Perro Del Mar is already an international indie-pop sensation. Her melancholic voice brings to mind the sensibilities of '60s-style girl groups and The Beach Boys. Her latest album is titled How Did We Forget? Singer-songwriter Anna Ternheim is a new name to the U.S., but she's already won several Swedish Grammy awards. With a folky pop sound like that of Beth Orton, Ternheim takes on America with her U.S. debut, Halfway to Fivepoints.", "Some say the glass of 2018 is on-quarter empty; others say the glass is three-quarters full. We say, \"Wow, we've had some incredible artists perform in 2018 on World Cafe and it's only April!\" So cheers to them! Rifle through this roundup below for any sessions you may have missed or want to revisit from our first quarter of the year. From one of the tastiest live bands to grace our studio courtesy of Lizz Wright, to the time Noel Gallagher swooped in with 10 musicians and his own power generator, to Jen Cloher performing a burner inspired by the debate over Australia's same-sex marriage laws alongside her wife Courtney Barnett." ]

[ "(CNN) -- Monday's 2009 Major League Baseball home opener for the New York Mets at their new ballpark promises to reignite controversy -- and not just over the team's suspect pitching. Some Mets fans feel the $400 million stadium-name deal is a bad one for all parties in these economic times. Though the Mets played exhibition games there earlier this month, they will officially debut their new home, Citi Field, against the visiting San Diego Padres. The $800 million-plus Queens facility is undoubtedly a state-of-the-art baseball complex with many modern upgrades from the Mets' home for the past 44 years, Shea Stadium, which is still in the process of being demolished a few hundreds yards away. One lifelong Mets fan summed up his emotions about saying goodbye to Shea and hello to Citi by saying: \"It was time for a new stadium, but I'm going to miss Shea very much.\" The controversy arises not from the disappearance of the venerated old stadium but from the fact that rather than attach the iconic Shea name to the new ballpark, in November 2006 the Mets entered into an agreement with Citigroup for naming rights for the new stadium. Reports have put the value of the deal at $400 million spread out in payments of $20 million per year over the course of the next 20 years. That would make it one of the most lucrative stadium naming arrangements in history. According to the Mets, besides the naming rights for Citi Field, \"The fully integrated partnership includes Citi brand and business unit presence throughout the new ballpark.\" While other corporations have invested in similar deals in the past, the financial crisis has focused particular attention on Citigroup, the Mets, and the practice of paying vast sums of money for what is essentially a long-term advertisement. Citigroup, which now does business as Citi, has been the recipient of billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded bailout money over the past year, causing many to question the prudence of $400 million going toward branding Citi Field, especially when Citigroup cut nearly 75,000 jobs in 2008, capped by 50,000 announced in November. Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, D-Ohio, has been an outspoken critic of the deal. He has called attention to the issue of corporate spending discretion, or lack thereof, particularly when jobs are at risk. \"At the same time they're defending this $400 million stadium-naming deal, they lay off 50,000 people. Now, how many people could you employ for $400 million?\" The Mets claim that the construction of Citi Field created more than 6,000 temporary full-time equivalent jobs, with approximately 1,000 new positions resulting from ongoing operations at the ballpark. One person whose job isn't at risk is Mets all-star third baseman David Wright. One of the franchise's most popular and marketable players, Wright is careful not to make any \"errors\" when confronted with the controversy surrounding his new Citi Field home. \"I don't comment on things that I don't know about. I'm a baseball player, so I go out there and worry about my swing,\" he said. Watch fans give views on Citi Field name game » . Kucinich conceded that paying to name a stadium is indeed \"great advertising except for one thing, the American taxpayers have invested heavily in these banks and the bailout fund should not be used for this purpose.\" He advocates that the government, now a direct investor in Citigroup, has the obligation to monitor all aspects of how federal bailout funds are used, which in Kucinich's opinion includes any marketing or promotional endeavors. Not all Mets fans agree. One ardent fan said he's happy his hard-earned tax dollars are going to help fund the Mets' new stadium. \"A lot of people pay for advertisements every day. We shouldn't be ashamed of it. Taxpayer money goes to waste on a lot of other things. Let's go Mets, I say!\" But another fan said, \"If it is indeed our tax money that is actually running the stadium, I wish that I wouldn't have to pay as much money to go see a game.\" A group of fellow fans, many liking the sound of a \"Mets rebate\" in these troubling economic times, warmly greeted his idea before an exhibition game against Boston on April 3. David Wright and the rest of the New York Mets, along with 42,000 boisterous fans, will formally open the new ballpark when the first regular-season game there begins at 7 p.m. Monday." ]

[ "Luxury pad: Leslie Alexander, owner of the Houston Rockets basketball team, has paid $42 million for a penthouse in New York's 18 Gramercy Park (pictured) The owner of the Houston Rockets basketball team has paid $42 million for a duplex penthouse in New York City's Gramercy Park. Leslie Alexander’s purchase has made records in real estate prices and represents the highest sale price in downtown Manhattan, according to the Wall Street Journal. The condo has 6,330 square feet of interior space with five bedrooms and 5½ baths, a library and gallery. There are four terraces taking up 1,889 square feet of space, one of which faces Gramercy Park with views of the Chrysler building. The luxury home has an outdoor infinity pool with a sun deck on one terrace and a heated whirlpool on another. Both terraces open from the master bedroom. Alexander, 70, who was valued at around $1.2 billion, would have put a down payment of around $8,400,000 on the condo, with a monthly installment of $194,681, including his mortgage, according to the real estate listing on streeteasy.com. In 2006 it was revealed that Alexander was amongst the 400 richest people in the US. The 18 Gramercy Park duplex, which is located on the 17th and 18th floors, is a conversion designed by Robert A.M. Stern that set records for condo prices soon after it went on the market last year. Lucky number 5: The penthouse condo has five bedrooms and five and a half baths . Bright and beautiful: The condo (not pictured) has great views over Gramercy Park . Sprawling: The 6,330-square foot home (not pictured) also has a library and gallery . The building, which was a former . Salvation Army residence for women, was developed by Zeckendorf . Development and Eyal Ofer Global Holdings. They . were two of the development partners of Mr Stern's 15 Central Park . West, a building that holds current records for the most expensive . closed condo sale in Manhattan, said the Wall Street Journal. Alexander, . a former Wall Street trader from New Jersey, bought the Rockets in July . 1993 and in his first season as owner, the Rockets won their first-ever . NBA title. They repeated as champs in 1995. From . 1997 until early 2007, Alexander was the owner of the WNBA's Houston . Comets. The Comets won the league's first 4 WNBA championships from 1997 . to 2000. Basketball: Leslie Alexander, (left) with newly-signed player for the Houston Rockets, Scottie Pippen . He sold the team to Hilton Koch in January 2007 and the Comets folded a year later. He was named the best owner in the NBA by Forbes in 2008. He also owns a vineyard on Long Island and the related company Leslie Wine, launched in 2008. He also has a residence in Houston. Alexander started trading options and bonds for a Wall Street firm before he broke off to form his own investment company, The Alexander Group, in 1980. Alexander divorced his wife, Nanci, in 2003 in a secret divorce in which he paid her $150 million.", "The sheet metal firm standing in the way of Tottenham Hotspur's £400 million stadium redevelopment has suffered 'bomb threats', according to the owners. Archway Sheet Metal Works Ltd stands alongside the club's White Hart Lane ground in north London, on the last patch of land the club needs to start work on its new 56,000-plus capacity stadium. The family-run firm was issued with a compulsory purchase order (CPO) in 2012, but argues that the Premier League club is unlawfully trying to force it out of the premises, according to submissions from the company to the High Court. Archway Sheet Metal Works, which is located next to White Hart Lane on the last patch of land Tottenham Hotspur need for their stadium development is arguing at the High Court that the compulsory purchase order it has been issued with is unlawful . Archway was issued with a compulsory purchase order (CPO) in 2012, but argues this is invalid, and is asking a judge to quash the enforcement which would enable the club to buy the 25,000 sq ft site . Archway, which is owned by Tottenham fan Josif Josif, 46, was gutted by fire in a suspected arson attack, and Mr Josif says his firm has been subjected to bomb threats. The London Borough of Haringey made the compulsory purchase order in March 2012 and it was confirmed by the Communities Secretary in July 2014 following a public inquiry. The company argues that the compulsory purchase order is invalid, and is asking a High Court judge to quash the enforcement which would enable the club to buy the 25,000 sq ft site. If the application succeeds it would be a major blow to the controversial plans for the new stadium complex. As well as challenging the legality of the CPO itself, Archway argues that proposed new changes to the Spurs project have come to light which are so substantial that they 'alter the viability case made at the inquiry' and further undermine the order. The new proposals involve 'massive intensification of the scheme' - making it substantially different from the project for which the CPO was obtained. Tottenham, who take on Fiorentina in the Europa League this Thursday, already has planning permission for the new 56,000-plus capacity stadium it hopes to open for the 2018/19 season (artists impression) Archway (pictured) argues that proposed new changes to the Spurs project have come to light which are so substantial that they 'alter the viability case made at the inquiry' and further undermine the order . Christopher Lockhart-Mummery QC, appearing for Archway, is submitting to the judge that an application for disclosure of documents held by Tottenham Hotspur Ltd has revealed the extent of the changes. The QC said in written submissions that the Premier League Club dismissed these as matters of 'minutiae' within 'a sea of detail' which was 'irrelevant'. However, the Tottenham documents in fact revealed discussions had taken place involving an updated design of the Spurs stadium and increasing its capacity by 5,000. Last November, a mystery fire gutted the Archway premises, which is alongside White Hart Lane's North Stand. The owners also say they have received 'bomb threats' Mr Justice Dove, who has revealed he is an Aston Villa fan, has been told by Archway lawyers that the police are currently investigating a suspected case of arson . Other potential improvements included an increase in residential development, incorporating 900 units in five blocks, plus 60,000 square feet of commercial development space and a medical centre and a 30,000 square feet gym and fitness centre. Mr Lockhart-Mummery says the proposals reveal the scheme is now potentially on 'a substantially different scale', raising substantial new issues as to its viability. Discussion of the new proposals, says the QC, have taken place between Haringey Council and Tottenham Hotspur Ltd and representatives 'at high levels of Government', including UK Trade and Investment and HM Treasury, as well as the Greater London Authority (GLA) and Transport for London. The owners of the firm have been in a dispute with Spurs for the last decade over its redevelopment plans . Last November, a mystery fire gutted the Archway premises, which is alongside White Hart Lane's North Stand. Mr Justice Dove, who has revealed he is an Aston Villa fan, has been told by Archway lawyers that the police are currently investigating a suspected case of arson. The owners say they have received 'bomb threats'. Mr Josif who runs the family business, said at the time of the fire: 'People were calling us and threatening us and we were receiving bomb threats and that started a few months ago, but we don't know if that's got anything to do with it.' The firm describes itself as a 'wonderfully old-fashioned family business' producing metal items for the catering and hospitality industry. The firm describes itself as a 'wonderfully old-fashioned family business' producing metal items for the catering and hospitality industry . The owners have been in a dispute with Spurs for the last decade over its redevelopment plans. Tottenham want to build the new capacity stadium next to the existing White Hart Lane ground, where they have played since 1899, which holds just over 36,000. Spurs hope that moving to a larger, state-of-the-art stadium with an increased capacity will help bring in more revenue, making it easier to compete with top European clubs. North London rivals Arsenal moved into their 60,272-capacity Emirates Stadium in 2006. The club, who take on Fiorentina in the Europa League this Thursday, already has planning permission for the new stadium it hopes to open for the 2018/19 season, after Archway's move to challenge the decision in the High Court resulted in a revised construction programme. The club was said to be considering moving to a temporary home for a season during the construction period. Options mooted included Wembley and the Olympic Stadium, while reports of a move to stadium:mk in Milton Keynes were met unfavourably by many fans. A Tottenham club spokesman said: 'We have already successfully and amicably relocated more than 70 businesses in the area to the satisfaction of all parties concerned and a number of these organisations continue to reside in the borough. 'Whilst we were able to accommodate all these other businesses' requests, in the instance of Archway, we have been unable to reach agreement over the period of the last seven years.'", "GoPro director Nick Woodman is set to be named the highest-paid CEO of 2014 at the tender age of 39. The pioneering camera innovator clinched the title after being granted 4.5 million restricted stock units - valued at $284.5 million - at the end of the year. It won him the top spot on the annual Bloomberg Pay Index. Slumping to second place, Chenerie Energy's Houston-based chief executive Charif Souki was valued at $281 million. And now the firm has announced it is cutting his pay. In his prime: GoPro creator Nick Woodman, 39, is set to be named America's highest-paid CEO of 2014 . Woodman's product - a camera which can be fixed to helmets, the body, or a hand-held pole - made waves in when it debuted in 2006. They are used by professionals and hobbyists conquering six-foot waves, treacherous ski slopes, scrappy dirt track races and bungee jumps. The cameras have also been used to film inside of the mouths of alligators, sharks and polar bears - and Woodman's wife Jill giving birth to one of their sons. The Californian surfing couple have come a long way since the business was founded in 2004 with one product: a waterproof film camera. Before sales took off, Woodman posed as the model for their self-made adverts. But his posing days didn't last long. In 2006, the firm launched its first digital camera. Three years later it began selling a high-definition camera. The cameras are light, small and waterproof. They have other uses besides sports. TV producers use them to film in areas where big professional cameras can't go. Since launching its high-definition camera in 2009, it has sold 8.5 million of them, including 3.8 million in 2013. Its cameras are sold in more than 25,000 stores and cost between $200 and $400. The day the company first went public, they sold 3.6 million shares of GoPro stock to rake in an astounding $86 million before taxes. The pioneering camera innovator clinched the title after being granted 4.5 million restricted stock units - valued at $284.5 million - at the end of the year . Woodman's product - a camera which can be fixed to helmets, the body, or a hand-held pole - made waves in when it debuted in 2006 . Before sales took off, Woodman posed as the model for their self-made adverts (pictured behind Woodman, his wife Jill and their two children). But his posing days didn't last long . Woodman's shares were worth slightly more than $1.2 billion at the IPO price. As stock prices continue to increase, and including some of Woodman's other assets, Forbes estimates that his net worth is now more than $2.3 billion. Chinese tech manufacturer Foxconn, which owns about 11 million shares of GoPro stock that are worth a collective $425 million. Riverwood Capital, a private equity firm, currently has about $650 million in GoPro stock. Nick Woodman is the founder and CEO of GoPro, a camera which can be fixed to helmets, the body, equipment or a hand-held pole. They are used by professionals and hobbyists conquering 6ft waves, treacherous ski slopes, scrappy dirt track races and bungee jumps. The cameras have also been used to film inside of the mouths of alligators, sharks and polar bears - and Woodman's wife giving birth to one of their sons. They are WiFi capable, typically come with remotes for control and have a capacity of 64GB currently. They are also versatile thanks to numerous add-ons, including LCD screens, and the most expensive model is $400. Woodman's father, Dean, has also found himself an overnight millionaire. The elder Woodman loaned his son $200,000 to help get GoPro off the ground. Dean Woodman - who sold none of his shares at the IPO - now owns $280 million in GoPro shares. As Forbes notes, that is a 140,000 percent return on his initial $200,000 investment. Its list of competitors is short, but growing. Consumer electronics companies Garmin, Samsung and Sony have all entered the market. GoPro had the best-selling camcorder in 2013, according to government paperwork filed by the company. It also sells accessories such as cases, battery packs and mounts that help users attach their cameras to surfboards, helmets or their wrists. It also has a free app and software that lets users edit, store and publish their videos to their social media accounts including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. Additional growth may come from the wild videos its cameras create, which the company hopes to use to create a media company. The Bloomberg Pay Index tracks the 100 highest-paid executives in firms that trade on US exchanges. The pay package is assessed by tracking each company's stock prices, which changes the value of their equity awards. Slumping to second place, Chenerie Energy's Houston-based chief executive Charif Souki (pictured) was valued at $281 million. And now the firm has announced it is cutting his pay .", "By . James Nye . A $60 million high school football stadium that opened to massive fanfare in 2012 will be shut down for the upcoming season after cracks were found in the building's concrete concourse. Administrators in Allen, Texas, northeast of Dallas, had hoped to have Eagle Stadium ready for this fall's games, but said further inspections found the structural problems will need significant repair. They insist the architectural firm and construction company will fund any repairs. The district said Tuesday that both companies had offered $1 million each to allow repairs to begin, but that their insurance companies refused to make the payments. Eagle Stadium at Allen High School: One of the most expensive high school football stadiums in the United States will close because of structural defects . 'Our commitment to Allen students and taxpayers remains firm that the stadium be repaired properly at the expense of those responsible for the failure: the architect and the builder,' superintendent Lance Hindt said in a statement. Allen taxpayers approved a $119 million bond issue that included funding for the 18,000-seat stadium, with a high-definition video board, a second deck on one sideline and vendor stands hawking Chick-fil-A and Texas barbeque. The facility is the flashiest example of the grandeur of high school football in Texas, where the 'Friday Night Lights' have been glamorized in books, movies and television. But the district had to close the stadium in February after extensive cracks were discovered in the concourse. An outside consulting firm hired by the district has found further building code violations, including parts of the stadium where seating capacity exceeds the legal maximum by more than 70 percent. Closure: The scoreboard is shown at Eagle Stadium at Allen High School in Allen, Texas. The $60 million high school football stadium that opened to massive fanfare in 2012 will be shut down for the upcoming season after cracks were found in the building's concrete concourse . Fixing structural problems at Allen Eagle stadium may require demolishing major components, possibly in areas that include the athletic field, a preliminary forensics report says . Administrators in Allen, Texas, northeast of Dallas, had hoped to have Eagle Stadium ready for this fall's games, but said further inspections found the structural problems will need significant repair. They insist the architectural firm and construction company will fund any repairs . Allen, which won the Class 5A Division I state championship last year, will not sell football season tickets this year. It will host three 'home' games at two stadiums in neighboring Plano and switch two other home games to road games. The $60 million stadium has developed cracks of nearly an inch wide in the concrete of its elevated concourse that could make it unsafe, the school district said this week. The Allen Eagles football team won their division last year in statewide competition. 'It is unacceptable. Our students, families, and the entire community have always supported the district and our commitment to them is to make sure this issue is appropriately resolved,' Beth Nichols, the interim school superintendent, said in a statement on Thursday. The eye-popping price for the 18,000-seater stadium that includes a $1.3 million scoreboard, was financed as part of a voter-approved $119 million bond package. A full inspection and review by an outside engineering and consulting firm is expected to be completed by June. 'It's a big deal when you spend that much money and something goes wrong that quickly,' said Rob Richey, who lives in Allen and has two children attending school in the district.", "(CNN) -- If the \"Old Lady\" of Italian football needs a sharp reminder of where she wants to be, Wednesday's European Champions League clash should provide it. Any trip to the Bernabeu to face Real Madrid -- the nine-time champion of Europe -- is one to savor, even for a club of Juventus' stature. It will also reinforce president Andrea Agnelli's resolution that his rejuvenated side still has a long road to travel before its regeneration is complete. The Turin team's name in Latin means \"age of youth\" -- and this journey, for a club formed 115 years ago, is indeed still maturing. When Agnelli took charge in 2010, becoming the fourth member of his family to take the role, the Italian giant was still piecing itself together from the \"Calciopoli\" match-fixing scandal which saw it stripped of two Serie A titles and demoted to the second division in 2006. The 37-year-old has overseen a transformation of Juve's fortunes on and off the pitch, the club having moved to a new stadium at the start of a season in which it would claim its first title in nine years. Yet despite increasing revenue by 32.8% in the past financial year, the \"Bianconeri\" still made a loss of €15.9 million ($21.9 million). Real Madrid, on the other hand, posted revenue of €520.9 million ($715.8 million) -- 36.9% of which was profit. \"Stadium and sponsorship, those are the two elements that we have to grow, to reach a point to become independent from Champions League revenues,\" Agnelli told CNN in an exclusive interview. \"Then, once you get them, that is the extra fat you can work on. \"At the moment, and this is the thing that worries me the most, we are still dependent on that (Champions League income) to make the numbers meet.\" Juventus made more money than any other club in last season's competition -- €65.3 million ($89.7 million) -- over €10 million more than eventual winner Bayern Munich. That figure owed largely to a domestic television deal that improved once fellow Italian club Udinese failed to negotiate its way through the playoff stages. The windfall underlines how vital a revenue stream it is for the club, and the precarious nature of an existence which relies on the luxurious flow of money from competing at Europe's top table. That fact is even more evident after last weekend's results. Despite leading 2-0 at Fiorentina on Sunday, Juve eventually fell to a 4-2 defeat, a result that leaves it five points behind leader AS Roma and vulnerable to attack from the likes of old rivals AC Milan and Inter -- both circling below. If Juve doesn't manage to make it a hat-trick of a successive Serie A titles, it must at least cling onto third spot to qualify for the Champions League playoffs. Should the club then make the lucrative group stages, that revenue will tide it over until the end of next season, when several key financial shackles will be lifted. \"This year and the following we are going to struggle, but in 2015-16, that is when a number of important contracts expire and others can kick in,\" Agnelli explained. \"That should put us in a position to become independent from European sports competition revenue. That will be very important for the club. \"It means the year you might fail on sports results, it doesn't compromise the work in (other) years. \"The only alternative you have if that is the case is to sell an asset you have grown internally, and we don't want to do that because we want to be competitive.\" A vital component of Juve's future is its new stadium. Its former Stadio delle Alpi home, built for the 1990 World Cup in Italy, was cavernous and crumbling. Stifling in terms of facilities and atmosphere, it had become a 69,000-capacity relic. The Juventus Stadium may be significantly smaller, with an all-seater capacity of 41,000, but it is regularly full and provides a far more intimate experience for spectators. Whereas the stands at the Stadio delle Alpi were an average of 70 meters away from the pitch, fans at its replacement are just seven meters from the action. And though the move has increased revenue, Agnelli claims Juve is being held back by a clutch of old stadiums that proliferate Serie A. \"Our stadium has been very important but I think we've filled the gap with the European competition,\" Agnelli added. \"At the moment it's very important from an environmental point of view because it really does give a different rush to the team. But we struggle in terms of pricing because all our competitors are in old stadiums. \"The perfect benchmark for our stadium is Stamford Bridge -- 41,000 people both of them -- but Chelsea generate more than double we do in terms of pricing.\" According to Agnelli, Juventus Stadium is not only vital to renewing his club's future, but can also act as a lightning rod for Italian football. Whereas once it was the most desired place to play domestic football in Europe, now it has fallen behind England, Germany and Spain, with Portugal and France gaining ground all the time. \"There are a lot of resources which can be gained from the stadium but we also suffer from the same show, which is being put up at our competitors' stadiums. They are obsolete and they price them completely differently,\" Agnelli explained. \"You can debate that Juventus vs. AC Milan is the same as AC Milan vs. Juventus in terms of the show on the pitch but the theater is completely different -- they price it one way, we price it another. \"That kind of becomes unacceptable for the spectator. Once all the others get new stadiums -- if and when -- that means you can raise the whole level of the show. \"That for us is paramount because us alone, we are just a white flag, as interesting as we might be.\"", "Little chef, big price: Kuwati bought the chain for £15million . Little Chef has been gobbled up by Arab investors. The British chain has been sold to Kuwaiti-based Kout Food Group for . around £15million by private equity firm Rcapital, saving 1,000 jobs in . its 81 outlets. The 55-year-old chain was put up for sale in May when Rcapital said it . was ‘resigned’ to losing the name as most bidders would want to rebrand . the chain. Now the London-based firm can afford almost two million of the café’s £7.69 ‘Olympic’ fry ups. Describing its ‘deep affection’ for the chain, Rcapital said it had . managed to secure a future for the brand, whose mascot Fat Charlie . became a popular image on the nation’s A-roads. Little Chef was bought by Rcapital in 2007 after going into administration. Jamie Constable, chief executive of Rcapital, said: ‘Having owned Little . Chef for a long time it feels like we are selling part of ourselves. ‘But we take comfort that the new owners will take the brand to the next . stage.’ It is understood several firms, including British coffee chain . Costa as well as American fast food giants McDonalds and KFC, also bid . for the troubled firm. Rcapital cut about 500 jobs and reduced the number of outlets from 234 to 83. All but two have been sold in the deal. Top chef Heston Blumenthal was also brought in to spice up the menu in 2009, accompanied by a Channel 4 TV documentary. But the three Michelin starred chef was later dropped because some of . his dishes, including braised ox cheek and healthy strawberry, yoghurt . and granola breakfasts, proved unpopular. Managers were also annoyed by . demands such as talking toilets. Saved: The deal means 1,000 jobs in 81 branches across the country could be save- along with the brand's well-known mascot . Kout Foods Group said it ‘had exciting plans to revitalise the Little Chef brand’. Fadwa al-Homaizi, chairman of Kout’s UK arm, said: ‘Little Chef will . benefit from a process of brand renewal in keeping with current trends, . supported by traditional British values.’ Kout owns franchises for Burger King, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell in Kuwait, and has been expanding in the UK. It owns Maison Blanc, the patisserie chain founded by celebrity chef . Raymond Blanc, as well as more than 30 Burger King and eight KFC . franchises. Quintessentially British: The roadside restaurant are best known for their English breakfasts. Customers complained when top chef Heston Blumenthal added granola to the breakfast menu . The Little Chef chain started out as an 11-seat restaurant in Reading in 1958, set up by entrepreneur Sam Alper. Modelled on American diners, it expanded rapidly through the 1970s and 1980s, boasting more than 400 branches at its peak. But it suffered from the rise in motorways, service station food courts and a tired menu.", "By . Emma Glanfield . A multi-million pound deal which saw coal mining firm Bumi split from its co-founder was sealed amid a flurry of explosive tweets in which warring billionaires described each other as 'dumb'. London-based mining firm Bumi - now known as Asia Resource Minerals plc (ARMS) - has completed a long-awaited separation from its co-founders - an Indonesian family conglomerate known as the Bakrie group. After the restructuring deal was closed, fellow founder Nat Rothschild – the 42-year-old scion of the wealthy banking dynasty - took to his Twitter page to take a swipe at a member of the Bakrie family. Exchange: Nat Rothschild (left) sent a message on Twitter to Aga Bakrie (right) which said: 'Thanks for buying back a worthless pile of turd' He posted: ‘Thanks for buying back a worthless pile of turd’ directly to Aga Bakrie, the son of the chairman of the Indonesian group. It started a flurry of fiery messages between the pair, who have been bickering since the company's shareholders voted in December to split from the co-founding Bakrie family in a major restructure. Oxford-educated financier Mr Rothschild also labelled Adika ‘Aga’ Nuraga Bakrie, 32, ‘extremely dumb’, during the public Twitter row which erupted after the corporate break up. He wrote: ‘Whilst your dad is an evil genius (yes I'm paying nirwan a compliment), the word on the street is that you are extremely DUMB!’ Mr Bakrie responded to the message with: ‘Haha... \"Dumb\" I believe that’s the word that has been associated with you by most of the people that I have met.’ Asia Resource Minerals was founded as Bumi in 2010 by the influential Bakries and financier Nat Rothschild, with the aim of giving London investors access to promising Indonesian coal assets. Nat Rothschild sent a message on Twitter to Aga Bakrie, son of the chairman of the Indonesian conglomerate, which said: 'Thanks for buying back a worthless pile of turd' Financer Mr Rothschild also labelled Adika 'Aga' Nuraga Bakrie 'extremely dumb', during the public Twitter row which erupted after the corporate break up . Aga Bakrie, the son of the chairman of the Indonesian-based Bakrie group, hit back at the claims and labelled Bumi co-founder Mr Rothschild 'dumb' as well . But the business suffered from boardroom rows, allegations of wrongdoing and falling coal prices. Its shares have lost almost 80 per cent of their value since the business was set up. To revive the business's fortunes, . shareholders voted in December to split from Indonesia's Bakrie family, . but it took longer than expected due to difficulties of raising the . necessary cash. With . the split completed, ARMS will now focus on turning around its other . main Indonesian subsidiary, Berau Coal, while giving up a stake in . Asia's top thermal coal exporter PT Bumi Resources. ARMS Chief Executive Nick von Schirnding said he felt ‘vindicated’. He . said: ‘There were a number of stakeholders saying this would never . happen. I can't say it has been easy, it was a complicated transaction, . but to have achieved this is excellent for our shareholders. Mr Rothschild, pictured in February last year, took to his Twitter page to take a swipe at the powerful business group after the deal was closed . ‘Our . focus is on our subsidiary now. We need to regain credibility and . today's announcement is the first step in that direction.’ ARMS said it would now return $400 million to shareholders but did not give any timeframe and did not specify in what form the money will be returned. Shareholders welcomed the completion of the separation but said they hoped ARMS would return closer to the $501 million it got from the deal. Mr Rothschild said: ‘I think it's important to return the maximum amount of money because there is no appetite from the major shareholders, certainly not from me, to entrust money with the management team in London to redeploy that capital. ‘We want the business ... to be run as efficiently as possible and for all dividends to be passed through to shareholders.’", "After taking his company public last week, GoPro's 39-year-old founder Nick Woodman is now officially a billionaire. On Monday, the third day of trading for the sporty camera company, the stock price opened up an additional 8 percent from the close of business on Friday. GoPro shares are now up 60 percent from the IPO price of $24 a share. Cha-Ching! GoPro founder Nick Woodman is now a billionaire after taking the camera company he founded public . The day the company first went public, Woodman and his wife, Jill, who helped him found the business, sold 3.6 million shares of GoPro stock to rake in an astounding $86 million before taxes. As if that weren't enough, Forbes reports that Woodman still owns more than 52 million Class B shares, which gives him a voting stake of 48 percent of the company. When the company first went public, Woodman's shares were worth slightly more than $1.2 billion at the IPO price. As stock prices continue to increase, and including some of Woodman's other assets, Forbes estimates that his net worth is now more than $2.3 billion. Other investors are also cashing in on the IPO, including the Chinese tech manufacturer Foxconn, which owns about 11 million shares of GoPro stock that are worth a collective $425 million. Riverwood Capital, a private equity firm, currently has about $650 million in GoPro stock. Woodman's father, Dean, has also found himself an overnight millionaire. The elder Woodman loaned his son $200,000 to help get GoPro off the ground. Dean Woodman - who sold none of his shares at the IPO - now owns $280 million in GoPro shares. As Forbes notes, that is a 140,000 percent return on his initial $200,000 investment. Stock rising: GoPro stock prices have increased by 60 percent since its IPO on Thursday . The company, which has its headquarters in San Mateo, California, was founded in 2004 by Woodman and his wife. Its first product was a waterproof camera that used film. In 2006, it launched its first digital camera. Three years later it began selling a high-definition camera. The cameras are light, small and waterproof. They have other uses besides sports. TV producers use them to film in areas where big professional cameras can't go. Its list of competitors is short, but growing. Consumer electronics companies Garmin, Samsung and Sony have all entered the market. GoPro had the best-selling camcorder last year, according to government paperwork filed by the company. Since launching its high-definition camera in 2009, it has sold 8.5 million of them, including 3.8 million in 2013. Its cameras are sold in more than 25,000 stores and cost between $200 and $400. Competition: GoPro's list of competitors is short but growing, as Garmin, Samsung and Sony have all entered the market with similar products . It also sells accessories such as cases, battery packs and mounts that help users attach their cameras to surfboards, helmets or their wrists. It also has a free app and software that lets users edit, store and publish their videos to their social media accounts including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. Additional growth may come from the wild videos its cameras create, which the company hopes to use to create a media company. 'We believe GoPro is well-positioned to become the first media company whose content is captured exclusively using its own hardware,' the company said in its government filing.", "Energy  giant Npower faces a multi-million-pound fine and a ban on telesales activity over a bills shambles that has hit 280,000 customers. Industry regulator Ofgem has given it an ultimatum to improve customer service and deliver accurate bills by August or face a fine that could top £10million. The ruling is a victory for the Daily Mail’s MoneyMail section, which triggered the investigation last year by submitting a dossier highlighting the shambles to the watchdog. Energy Secretary Ed Davey said it was 'unacceptable that so many Npower customers have not received the customer service they deserve' It contained dozens of letters and . emails from people who suffered poor service, wildly inaccurate bills . and frustrating delays in getting refunds. Npower received almost 1.4million . complaints in 2013 – and the number in the first three months of 2014 . was up 70 per cent on a year ago. Hundreds of thousands of customers . were not sent bills for months, sometimes more than a year, despite . making repeated requests to know how much they owed. The result was that . they then faced huge bills – of more than £1,000 in some cases – . followed by demands to pay up or face some kind of enforcement action. There were also serious problems with . incorrect direct debit payments. Some customers are owed hundreds of . pounds by Npower as result of over-payments, but have had difficulties . getting their money back. Npower admitted in September that a . computer glitch caused by a transfer to a new billing system had caused . problems with 700,000 customer accounts. In December, it apologised and . agreed to make a payment of £1million to vulnerable customers by way of . redress. However the company still has a huge . backlog of more than 400,000 bills to sort out and has been given an . ultimatum by Ofgem to reduce that figure to 100,000 by the end of August . or face a telesales ban. Big six energy supplier must cut the number of accounts in its late billing backlog from around 400,000 today to 100,000 over the next three months . The watchdog also announced an . investigation into poor customer service associated with the way it . handled complaints that could lead to a huge fine.Sarah Harrison, . Ofgem’s senior partner in charge of enforcement, said Npower customers . had suffered ‘service failures’ for too long. ‘We have been increasingly concerned about the slow progress to tackle failings,’ she said. MoneyMail has been inundated with complaints from Npower customers. After a series of reports detailing wildly incorrect billing, delays getting refunds and poor customer service, we handed Ofgem a dossier of customer complaints last July. Chris Stacey and Natalie Kew from South Woodham Ferrers, Essex, were among the angry users after moving to Npower. The switch took five months to sort out, then the couple were not billed for nine months and were also locked out of their online account. After MoneyMail intervened Npower sorted out the issue and paid £400 in compensation. Mr Stacey said the firm was ‘incompetent from day one’. ‘Npower’s recovery plan has not . delivered as far and fast as is necessary. Our analysis of complaints . data also raises some serious concerns which will be thoroughly examined . in our investigation.’ Thousands of people have contacted . Citizens’ Advice for help in dealing with Npower. Its chief executive, . Gillian Guy, said: ‘Exposing customers to bill shock is completely . unacceptable. Providing accurate bills and dealing with problems quickly . are the basics of decent customer service. Npower is a long way from . providing that.’ Energy Secretary Ed Davey joined the attack, describing Npower’s customer service as ‘unacceptable’. Npower is a subsidiary of the giant . German utility firm RWE, which has a history of failing British . consumers. When it owned Thames Water it was fined £9.7million for . failures in 2005 and 2006. It has also been criticised over its . tax affairs. The firm made £750million profit in the three years 2009 to . 2011 but paid no corporation tax. Npower’s UK chief executive, Paul . Massara, wrote to all 3.4million customers in December apologising but . the company was forced to issue a second apology yesterday. It said it has assigned an extra 650 . staff to help resolve customer service problems and it is spending . £20million to improve its systems. Mr Massara said Npower was ‘committed . to getting things right for our customers’ and promised that none would . be left out of pocket. Energy tariff prices are in a constant merry-go-round with suppliers battling to pinch customers - you - from each other. Shrewd . consumers can take advantage of this by doing exactly that - moving . deals every six months to a year to ensure they are on THE cheapest . deal. Even moving every other year will save you significant amounts. Suppliers offer their cheapest rates via online tariffs so if you're ready to switch, it will certainly pay to do so. If . you are one of the millions of people who have NEVER switched (i.e. stuck with your original supplier), then you will DEFINITELY save a big . chunk of cash, possibly as much as £300 a year. Prices . are different all over the country and the cheapest supplier for you . will depend where you live. You only need to be interested in the tariff . that is going to be cheapest where you live, so do your own comparison . to find the best price. By Amy Andrew .", "A federal judge has ordered Apple to pay more than $530 million to a licensing firm over its iTunes software. In 2013 Smartflash sued Apple for infringing patents related to accessing and storing downloaded songs, videos and games. And after two years of trials - including eight hours of deliberation - the jury awarded in favour of the Texas-based firm. A federal judge has ordered Apple to pay $532.9 million to a licensing firm over of its iTunes software (pictured). Smartflash sued Apple for infringing patents related to accessing and storing downloaded songs, videos and games. And after eight hours of deliberation the jury awarded in favour of the Texas-based firm . Apple has now been ordered to pay Smartflash $532.9 million (£343 million) for infringing a total of three patents. The jury determined Apple had not only used Smartflash's patents without permission, but did so willfully. Smartflash filed its first patent infringement against the tech giant in May 2013. A jury in California recently found in favour of Apple in a billion-dollar class-action lawsuit over the price of its iPod music players . A jury in California recently found in favour of Apple in a billion-dollar class-action lawsuit over the price of its iPod music players. Apple had argued the software provided necessary security protection. The jury rejected claims Apple's use of restrictive software froze out rival portable music player manufacturers. The jury said Apple's iTunes 7.0, released in the fall of 2006, was a 'genuine product improvement,' meaning that new features were good for consumers. It said that patent owner and co-inventor Patrick Racz met with a firm called Gemplus - now known as Gemalto - to discuss the technology. One of people at this meeting was Augustin Farrugia who is currently a senior director at Apple. The filing accused Apple of using technology covered by Smartflash’s patents to create and develop its iTunes software. Despite the win, however, Smartflash had been asking for $852 million (£550 million). ‘Smartflash is very happy with the jury's verdict, which recognises Apple's longstanding willful infringement,’ said Brad Caldwell, a lawyer for Smartflash. But Apple has said it will appeal, adding the outcome was another reason reform was needed in the patent system to curb litigation by companies that don't make products themselves. ‘We refused to pay off this company for the ideas our employees spent years innovating and unfortunately we have been left with no choice but to take this fight up through the court system,’ Apple said in a statement. The trial was held in Tyler which over the past decade has become a focus for patent litigation. It was in Tyler federal court that a jury in 2012 ordered Apple to pay $368 million (£237 million) to VirnetX for patent infringement. But a federal appeals court later threw out that damages figure, saying it was wrongly calculated. Smartflash filed its first patent infringement (shown) against the tech giant in May 2013. It said that patent owner and co-inventor Patrick Racz met with a firm called Gemplus  - now known as Gemalto - to discuss the technology. One of people at this meeting was Augustin Farrugia who is currently a senior director at Apple . Apple tried to avoid the recent trial by having the lawsuit thrown out. Apple had asked the jury to find Smartflash's patents invalid because previously patented inventions covered the same technology. But US District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, who presided over the case, ruled earlier this month that Smartflash's technology was not too basic to deserve the patents. Smartflash has also filed patent infringement lawsuits against Samsung, HTC and Google.", "By . Mark Prigg . Apple has confirmed it is buying Beats Electronics, the headphone and music streaming service set up by rapper Dr. Dre and recording impresario Jimmy Iovine. The $3bn acquisition by far the most expensive in Apple's 38-year history, and comes three weeks after the deal was first rumoured - although the initial price was believed to be $3.2bn. Apple Boss Tim Cook revealed the deal, saying 'We have known these guys forever, we've dated, we've gone steady and now we are getting married.' Scroll down for video . Beats by Apple, from left to right, music entrepreneur and Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Beats co-founder Dr. Dre, and Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue pose together at Apple headquarters in Cupertino as Cook revealed Apple's $3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics . Beats was founded in 2008 by Dr. Dre, now a hip-hop producer, and Iovine, a longtime recording industry executive who is currently chairman of Universal Music Group's Interscope Geffen A&M Records. It now dominates the luxury headphone market. Its equipment also has been a big seller in Apple's stores. Operating from its Culver City, California, headquarters, Beats commands 62 percent of the $1 billion U.S. market for headphones priced above $100, according to NPD Group. The gear, which emphasizes bass, also has been endorsed by several star athletes, including San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and New Jersey Nets forward Kevin Garnett. Beats Music, the music streaming subsidiary of the electronics maker, has more than 250,000 subscribers, according to Cook. 'I’ve always known in my heart that Beats belonged with Apple,' said Jimmy Iovine. As part of the acquisition, Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre will join Apple. 'The idea when we started the company was inspired by Apple’s unmatched ability to marry culture and technology. Apple’s deep commitment to music fans, artists, songwriters and the music industry is something special.' The price consists of $2.6 billion in cash and $400 million in Apple stock that will vest over an unspecified time period. The deal is expected to close before the end of September. It is believed Apple is also interested in Beats expertise in developing wearable products and it edges closer to a much anticipated iWatch launch, . With $1.1 billion in revenue last year, Beats is already making money and will boost Apple's earnings once the new fiscal year begins in October, Apple CEO Tim Cook said in an interview. 'This relationship started a decade ago, so we know there is an incredible cultural fit. 'These two guys have a very rare set of skills. It's like finding a particular grain of sand on the beach. It's that rare.' Iovine, 61, and Dre, 49, will both become key executives in Apple's music divisions, though Cook said their roles haven't been determined yet. Cook said Beats' music streaming service was the main selling point in the deal. Beats headphones are sold along side iPods in an Apple store -Apple plans to roll them out across the world . The growing popularity of music streaming services such as Pandora and Spotify has been reducing sales of songs and albums, a business that iTunes has dominated for the past decade. U.S. sales of downloaded songs slipped 1 percent last year to $2.8 billion while streaming music revenue surged 39 percent to $1.4 billion, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. Although Apple broke into streaming with the launch of iTunes Radio last September, the service has not been as popular or as lucrative as the company expected, according to two people familiar with the matter. The people were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. Apple is counting on the Beats acquisition to boost its cachet with teenagers and younger adults while trying to remain a leader in digital music — an industry that looks much different than when Apple reshaped the scene with the 2001 debut of the iPod. Dr. Dre, who founded Beats electronics with record producer music producer Jimmy Iovine. The firm could now be sold to Apple. The purchase marks Apple CEO Tim Cook's biggest strategic break from the way the Cupertino, California, company was led under co-founder Steve Jobs, who died in October 2011. Jobs favored smaller acquisitions and didn't believe subscription music plans would be popular. Before Beats, Apple's biggest acquisition had been its $400 million purchase of NeXt Computer, a company that Jobs founded after being ousted from Apple in the 1980s. Cook said he never considered what Jobs would have thought about the Beats' acquisition. Jobs 'told me to do what was right,' Cook said. 'And I am 100 percent certain this is what is right. 'This is one of those things that we will look back upon and say it was meant to be.' Sony Music CEO Doug Morris, who considers Iovine to be his best friend, believes Cook is making a smart move that will give Apple even more credibility in the music industry. 'It's a game changer because Jimmy is that kind of guy who can change a game,' Morris said. 'I am not saying he is Steve Jobs, but he is a guy with new ideas and he really knows how to build the bridge between music and technology.' But some analysts question whether Beats will be a good fit for Apple, which makes most of its money selling hardware such as iPhones and iPads. Beats has also partnered with a host of celebrities, including Lady Gaga, to create endorsed earphones. Forrester Research analyst Frank Gillett says Apple would have been better off developing its own headphones in-house and expanding into music subscriptions through iTunes. 'It's hard to understand why Apple would have to spend $3 billion on a nascent streaming service and a line of bass-heavy headphones,' Gillett says. Yukari Iwatani Kane, the author of 'Haunted Empire,' an inside look at Apple since co-founder Jobs' death, also sees a disconnect. 'Culturally, Beats is the complete opposite of Apple,' Kane says. 'It's known for being loud and bold and in your face. It doesn't fit with Apple's understated, discerning brand.' The Beats deal also aligns Apple with the push toward higher-quality music, reversing a decline in fidelity as people abandoned vinyl records for CDs and then switched from CDs to MP3s. The Beats move follows a string of high-priced deals in Silicon Valley, after Google acquired smart home developer Nest Labs for $3.2bn and Facebook offered an initial $19bn for WhatsApp Messenger, and then bought VR firm Oculus for $2bn. Apple executives Tim Cook and Eddy Cue have previously met with Iovine to discuss streaming music services and Apple and Beats have partnered up to sell Beats earphone products in Apple Retail stores.", "First Great Western Trains were braced for travel chaos after the final whistle. With the game finishing at 9.56pm, supporters had just 30 minutes to make the one and only train, which departed at 10.26pm. With more than 10,000 supporters expected to be rushing back to London Paddington, the advice from an official steward was ‘run!’ Anyone unlucky enough to miss the final service faced hotel charges upwards of £400. This England fan may look happy, but many would have been rushing for the final train . Tickets were few and far between, although Sportsmail was offered a pair for £400 by a profiteering tout shortly before kick-off. They had a face value of £80 each and had originally been allocated to local rugby club, Newport RFC. Policemen were within 10metres of the touts, however they seemed to have no problem with the black-market dealing. Viagogo, the major resale website, were charging up to £750 a pair. Radio One’s DJ Spoony came up with the set-list to accompany the dazzling pre-match light show. Coincidently, the music celebrity shares the same name as England centre Jonathan Joseph. His tunes were followed up by a rousing anthem performance by the Band of the Welsh Guard, who found themselves lost in the concourse before their rehearsal! Meanwhile, the Male Voice Choir revved up the parochial crowd from pitchside. Radio One's DJ Spoony came up with the set-list to accompany the pre-match light show . Catering staff were kept busy with chefs preparing 9,000 hot dogs (£3.70 each), 4,000 pies (£3.50 each) and 2,000 hospitality meals for hungry supporters. Upwards of 60,000 pints of beer were expected to be sold, with prices ranging between £4 and £4.70. An additional 2,000 members of staff were brought in to meet the demand; including 900 waiters, waitresses and bar staff, 770 security stewards and 35 chefs across 10 kitchens. Former England international Victor Ubogu was left looking for someone to watch the game with after his guest dropped out at the last minute. The retired Bath prop said on Twitter: ‘Client can't attend. Two tickets for Wales v England plus day return on the luxury Northern Belle from Paddington + hospitality. Opening the roof of Millennium Stadium will add an extra £2.54 to the Welsh Rugby Union’s annual electricity bill. It takes 20 minutes for the 400 tonne panels to retract, using 3.2km of tensioning cables. Warren Gatland lost his battle to have the roof closed and made his frustrations known in his pre-match television interviews, saying: 'It's our stadium. We shouldn't be dictated to by the opposition.'", "A multi billion-dollar lawsuit, which has been ten years in the making, could be in jeopardy. Apple is accused of abusing its monopoly position in the digital music player market, and only earlier this week lawyers claimed the firm had deliberately deleted rivals' songs from iPods. But, the tech giant has launched an eleventh-hour challenge after presenting new evidence suggesting the women named as claimants may not have bought models covered by the suit - making the claims invalid. Apple is accused of abusing its monopoly position in the digital music player market. Earlier this week, lawyers claimed it had deliberately deleted rivals' song from iPods from 2007 to 2009. But, the tech giant has challenged the suit after presenting evidence suggesting the plaintiffs' models of iPod may be invalid . If true, this could derail the long-running, class-action case over the tech giant's use of restrictive software that kept iPods from playing digital music sold by competitors to its iTunes store. The case went to trial in California this week, after being filed a decade ago. On Wednesday, the prosecution told the court that for at least two years, Apple deleted songs from iPods that had been bought from rival music stores. Each time an Apple user with non-iTunes music tried to sync their devices, between 2007 and 2009, the tech firm urged them to restore the players to factory settings. Apple is accused of abusing its monopoly position in the digital music player market, and only earlier this week lawyers claimed the firm deliberately deleted rivals' song from iPods. The case went to trial in California this week, after being filed a decade ago. Plaintiffs are claiming that Apple's restrictive software froze out competitors and allowed Apple to sell iPods at inflated prices. They are seeking $350 million (£224m) in damages, which could be tripled if the jury finds Apple broke federal anti-trust law. Apple stopped using the particular software in question in 2009, which means the lawsuit only covers iPod models bought between September 2006 and March 2009. On Wednesday, the prosecution told the court that Apple deleted songs from iPods that had been bought from rival music stores. Each time an Apple user with non-iTunes music tried to sync their devices, between 2007 and 2009, the tech firm urged them to restore the players to factory settings. And the lawyers claimed this was a deliberate move to wipe the rival files, and cause the users' music libraries to 'blow up.' But Apple insisted the move was a legitimate security measure. Now, Apple has said new evidence shows the two women named as plaintiffs may not have bought iPod models covered by the lawsuit. And the lawyers claimed this was a deliberate move to wipe the rival files, and cause the users' music libraries to 'blow up.' Attorney Patrick Coughlin said: 'You guys decided to give them the worst possible experience and blow up' a user's music library.' But Apple insisted that the move was a legitimate security measure. Security director Augustin Farrugia said in court that his company was protecting users from hackers and malware by removing MP3s downloaded from outside of iTunes. Now, Apple has said new evidence shows the two women named as plaintiffs may not have bought iPod models covered by the lawsuit. Plaintiffs are claiming Apple's restrictive software froze out competitors and allowed Apple to sell iPods at inflated prices. They are seeking $350 million (£224m) in damages, which could be tripled if the jury finds Apple broke federal anti-trust law. Apple stopped using the particular software in question in 2009, which means the lawsuit only covers iPod models bought between September 2006 and March 2009. This means the colourful iPod Nano, released in September 2009, and later generations of the devices are not covered. After plaintiff Marianna Rosen gave evidence, Apple lawyers said they checked the serial number on her iPod Touch and found it was purchased in July 2009. In a letter sent to the court late on Wednesday night, Apple lawyer William Isaacson said it appears the other plaintiff, Melanie Wilson, bought iPods outside the relevant time frame or, in one instance, purchased a model that did not have the specific version of software at issue in the case. Opposing lawyers are not ready to give up the case, but US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers told both sides to file written arguments on whether the trial should proceed because she wants to begin considering the issue. 'I am concerned that I don't have a plaintiff. That's a problem,' the judge said at the end of the trial's third day of evidence in Oakland. Mr Isaacson, who suggested the lawsuit could not proceed without a claimant, said he was asked for proof that either woman had purchased an iPod covered by the case. Claimants say Apple's (co-founder Steve Job is pictured) restrictive software froze out competitors. Apple stopped using the software in 2009, which means the lawsuit only covers models bought until March 2009. But serial numbers show plaintiff Marianna Rosen's iPod was bought in July 2009 . Plaintiffs' lawyer Bonny Sweeney said her side was checking for other receipts. She conceded that Ms Wilson's iPods may not be covered, but also noted that an estimated eight million owners were believed to have bought the affected iPods. This isn't the first time Apple has been in trouble for controlling music on devices. Earlier this year, the firm automatically added U2's Songs of Innocence album to millions of iOS devices without permission. In total, the album was added to iTunes Store customers in 119 countries. Users took to Twitter and Facebook to express outrage at the plans and many moaned the album was difficult to remove from their devices. In response, the tech giant now created a dedicated page that lets users remove the album by signing in with their Apple ID . Reports claim Apple paid the band $100 million as part of the deal. The judge appeared irked at the last-minute hitch in a case that was originally filed nearly 10 years ago. She said she was not ready to decide without further briefing, but indicated she did not want to leave the issue unresolved indefinitely. Apple declined to comment on legal proceedings. This isn't the first time Apple has been in trouble with users for controlling music on devices. Earlier this year, the firm automatically added U2's Songs of Innocence album to millions of iOS devices without permission. In total, the album was added to iTunes Store customers in 119 countries. Users took to Twitter and Facebook to express outrage at the plans, and many moaned the album was difficult to remove from their devices. In response, the tech giant created a dedicated page that lets users remove the album by signing in with their Apple ID. This isn't the first time Apple has been in trouble for controlling music on devices. Earlier this year, the firm automatically added U2's Songs of Innocence album to millions of iOS devices without permission. It was then forced to create a dedicated page (pictured) that made it easy for disgruntled users to remove the files .", "By . Mark Prigg . Facebook has bought a virtual reality headset firm in an unexpected $2bn deal that puts it in a head on battle with Sony. The social network announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Oculus VR, a California firm founded by 21 year old college dropout Palmer Luckey that is developing leading VR headset. 'Mobile is the platform of today, and now we're also getting ready for the platforms of tomorrow,' said Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Scroll down for video . The future of Facebook? The Oculus Rift headset in action. Facebook today bought the firm for $2bn . MailOnline was able to try Oculus Rift at the CES show in Las Vegas earlier this year. At first we were skeptical - the headset looks bulky, although it is surprisingly light when  attached via straps. However, once our demo started, doubts were quickly forgotten. The technology, still just a developer's version, is breathtakingly good. While the resolution still doesn't give the feeling of quite being in the real world, it does make you think you are actually in a virtual world. During several demonstrations we entered a vast dungeon and flew through space, with head tracking meaning the images moved perfectly as the user's head moves. It's not quite ready for primetime yet, but is almost there - and the Oculus Rift headset finally delivers on the long awaited promise of virtual reality. 'It's different from anything I've every experienced in my life,' said Zuckerberg. The firm is among the most advanced in the VR field, and recently began taking orders for the latest version of its $350 developers version. 'Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate,' said Zuckerberg. 'Immersive gaming will be the first, and Oculus already has big plans here that won't be changing and we hope to accelerate. 'The Rift is highly anticipated by the gaming community, and there's a lot of interest from developers in building for this platform. 'We're going to focus on helping Oculus build out their product and develop partnerships to support more games. 'Oculus will continue operating independently within Facebook to achieve this. 'But this is just the start. 'After games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. 'Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face - just by putting on goggles in your home.' The $2bn deal includes $400 million in cash and 23.1 million shares of Facebook common stock. 'Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate,' said Mark Zuckerberg, pictured . Oculus is the leader in immersive virtual reality technology and has already built strong interest among developers, having received more than 75,000 orders for development kits for the company's virtual reality headset, the Oculus Rift. Facebook said 'While the applications for virtual reality technology beyond gaming are in their nascent stages, several industries are already experimenting with the technology, and Facebook plans to extend Oculus' existing advantage in gaming to new verticals, including communications, media and entertainment, education and other areas.' Oculus is the leader in immersive virtual reality technology and has already built strong interest among developers 'The Matrix - that's always been the dream,' said one Oculus Rift executive of its headset, pictured . The Oculus prototype, pictured, is packed with components - many of which Mark Zuckerberg claims can be found in a mobile phone, making the gadget relatively easy to produce . 'We are excited to work with Mark and the Facebook team to deliver the very best virtual reality platform in the world,' said Brendan Iribe, co-founder and CEO of Oculus VR. 'We believe virtual reality will be heavily defined by social experiences that connect people in magical, new ways. Palmer Luckey of Oculus . 21-year-old Palmer Luckey began Oculus when he was just 15, working on prototypes in his parent's garage. He started developing his own head-mounted VR displays when he was still in high school, and was in college when he created the first prototype of a consumer-priced VR headset called the Oculus Rift - although he eventually left to work on the project full time. MailOnline met Luckey at the CES show in Las Vegas, where he showed an incredible amount of enthusiasm for the product. He said he believed the technology's time had come. The firm originally turned to Kickstarter to raise money, but has since raised funds from investors across silicon Valley - until it was today bought by Facebook for $2bn. 'It is a transformative and disruptive technology, that enables the world to experience the impossible, and it's only just the beginning.' Oculus recently raised $75m to make the headset. 'Over the past 16 months, we’ve grown from a startup to a company whose technology is poised to change the way we play, work and communicate,' said Brendan Iribe, CEO of Oculus VR at the time.", "(CNN) -- A free Lamborghini in Miami, Florida. Brazos, a new luxury condo development in Austin, Texas, will auction off its rooms at deep discounts in May. Complimentary housekeeping in Phoenix, Arizona. Two bedrooms for the price of one in Atlanta, Georgia. It's a buyers market again for condominium shoppers after years of artificially high prices and speculation. Marketing gimmicks, along with auctions, upgrades and incentives, continue to be wildly popular for developers desperate to relieve the inventory glut. \"We want to move the products as fast as we can,\" said Summer Dunham, marketing manager for Starpointe Communities, which develops luxury condominiums in Scottsdale, Arizona, one of the first states slammed by the nation's housing crises. \"It was very slow in 2008. Everyone had difficulty selling.\" So in February, the determined company auctioned off 20 four-story condominiums overlooking a golf course, private park and three swimming pools against a mountain backdrop. The upscale properties were priced as high as $1.6 million before the market sank. The auction was declared a success for the company, which sold nearly all of its units in a weak market where only 115 out of nearly 2,000 available units have closed in the first quarter of this year, according to a report by Metrostudy, a research firm tracking the condo market. And bargain hunters were jazzed to pay, on average, $600,000 for a unit at the auction. \"Developers will bend over backwards to sell these units,\" said Brad Hunter, chief economist at Metrostudy. \"There is no limit on the number of ways they will work with someone to sell at this point.\" Condominium sales continue to sag amid soft demand from buyers. Metrostudy reported that sales prices nationwide have dropped from a massive and unsustainable pace that reached a crescendo in 2006. Sales are at a virtual standstill today. For example, only 158 units closed out of 3,137 available units in Palm Beach County, Florida, during the first three months of this year, according to Metrostudy. The situation has only worsened with the economic downturn, Hunter said. Buyers are tightening their wallets and demanding lower prices. Recovery isn't expected for several more years in some markets, the firm says. Even more troublesome, thousands of new units are entering saturated condo markets such as Miami, Florida, and Phoenix, Arizona. Much of the financing from the projects came before the condo market collapse, experts say. Meanwhile, the value of existing condominiums is falling. The National Association of Realtors found that the prices for existing condos has dropped nearly 16 percent since 2006. The small number of recent sales probably were brought on by the deep discounts, said Walter Molony, spokesman for the group. \"The condo market is starting to improve, but you still have a long way to go,\" Molony said. Other prospective buyers are having trouble obtaining loans to make down payments in a tight credit market, housing experts say. This month, Fannie Mae implemented additional fees on condominium loans regardless of applicants' credit scores. Some private mortgage lenders are also refusing to give loans to buyers for condos that are empty or have delinquent owners. But if buyers do have the cash saved up, now may be the best time to finance. Interest rates have fallen to under 5 percent in some places. In some condo markets, marketing teases are still popular. While they may not make the sale, they spark interest, sellers say. \"At one point, they were giving away free flights, free Vespas,\" said Ben Kakimoto, a Realtor at John L. Scott Real Estate specializing in condos in Seattle, Washington. Kakimoto said at least five more high-rise luxury condos are set to open in downtown Seattle this year in addition to the oversupply already on the market. His research shows there is a 9.2-month supply of condos in Seattle -- the highest number his company has ever seen. A healthy market should have about five or six months of supply, he says. High-end shoppers will find luxury properties like the South of Fifth development in South Beach, Florida, which offered a free Lamborghini worth $260,000 when buyers purchased one of the multimillion-dollar properties, said Sildy Cervera, who managed the sales. \"The fear factor is still holding people back,\" said Cervera, who ended the promotion this month after receiving ample inquiries but few buyers. In recent months, auctioning has become a popular way for developers to liquidate their properties. When consumers name a price, they can feel confident they are getting rock-bottom prices, said Chris Longly, a National Auctioneers Association spokesman. Auctioning also can encourage more buyers, he said. Next month in Austin, Texas, Kennedy Wilson, a California company that handles auctions nationally, will auction units at the Brazos, a sophisticated development with prices previously at $200,000 to $1.6 million. Instead, the starting bid prices will range from $80,000 to $600,000. Kennedy Wilson President Rhett Winchell said he has received four times as many inquiries for auctions in the last year, compared with the previous year. \"We can sell out 30 to 50 properties at one single event,\" he said. Last month in Atlanta, sellers auctioned off The Horizon at Wildwood, where sleek contemporary condos originally priced at $375,000 went for $200,000. In Atlanta, only 645 units units sold, leaving more than 6,000 units unsold in 2008, according to Haddow & Company, a real estate consulting firm. It was here, at the Horizon auction last month at a W Hotel -- where drinks and finger foods were served -- that cattle rancher George Drake, 73, and his wife purchased a new two-bedroom condo for nearly 40 percent off. \"I got a fine deal,\" said Drake, who is currently painting the walls before he and his wife move in next month. \"I am really pleased.\"", "You wouldn't think you would find Australia's best bargain hunter 85 kilometres from the nearest shop. Ian Burnett, 46, has made an art of online shopping, securing deals on everything from Nintendo WII's to state of the art DVD recorders, for hundreds less than sold in retail. And he's happy to share his shopping tips. The biggest drawback? You'll have to spend hours on bargain sites, like CatchOfTheDay waiting for the best deals to appear. Ian Burnett from Jeparit Victoria has spent $28,000 over 8 years on CatchOfTheDay and has saved $10,000 . The father of four admits he has sat on the site for 12 hours straight before and spends a few hours on it a day . 'I've sat on the site for 12 straight hours before,' Ian told Daily Mail Australia. 'At 12 o'clock everyday, they release a new product... So you obviously have to be online for that.' Ian began using CatchOfTheDay in 2006 when they first started and were only releasing one product per day. 'They maybe had 1000 of the one product in stock and they'd just wait until it ran out,' he said. 'The first thing I bought was a Thompson DVD recorder and they were the awesome, expensive thing back then and I only paid $76.' His insider shopping tips include checking the site everyday after 12 for brand new bargain and signing up to their Facebook page to get exclusive deals. Ian's best bargain was a Nintendo WII that he purchased for his children, saving $300 off the retail price . His insider shopping tips include checking the site everyday after 12 for brand new bargain . He purchases gifts for his children, groceries and various household items from CatchOfTheDay . 'I also buy in bulk as they have a shipping cap,' he said. 'You can pick up 10 or 20 items and get them shipped for the same price as if you got one.' Ian also said he has paid for a yearly subscription to CatchOfTheDay free shipping before for $75 and for an avid shopper like him, that saves a lot. Comparing products to others sold at big retailers is also important according to Ian, as you can see how much is being saved. And for a father of four who works in a supermarket, he is very much in the know. Ian's proudest purchase was a Nintendo WII for his four children after they insisted it was all they wanted. He did not think he'd be able to fork out the $400 for one in retail so he used his skills to find one discounted to $99. 'I have also purchased a Tom Tom for $10 on a super bargain birthday sale,' he said. Ian has spent $28,000 in his eight years of using CatchOfTheDay and believes he has saved over $10,000. Ian's family have followed in his footsteps and are also crazy about finding online deals . Ian buys his products in bulk in order to save money on the shipping costs . 'The postie bringing it all to your door is so much easier than travelling to a shopping centre and spending hours looking for an item' His shopping tips include buying in bulk, signing up to Facebook and checking the websites everyday after 12 . Ian believes that even if he lived in a big city, he would still use online shopping due to its convenience . The 46-year-old father of four lives in Jeparit, 400 kilometres from Melbourne and the isolation means online shopping is Ian's only option. He not only purchases appliances and other household items, but also uses CatchOfTheDay to purchase his groceries too. 'I think that if I lived in a big city, I would still use online shopping,' Ian said. 'The postie bringing it all to your door is so much easier than travelling to a shopping centre and spending hours looking for an item.' Tragedy struck for the Burnett family last September when a spontaneous grass fire wiped out their Jeparit home, taking much of their online shopping haul with it. 'We tried to put it out, but our home was a 1985 federation style home made of old, dry wood so as soon as it hit, it went up in flames,' he said. Although still rebuilding their home, Ian is optimistic, especially in relation to his shopping. 'It just means I get to buy all this crazy stuff again!'", "By . Nick Harris . What price a World Cup? The bottom line for FIFA is that Brazil 2014 will earn the world governing body at least £2.55billion. By the next tournament, in Russia in 2018, that will have jumped above £3bn to cap an extraordinary doubling in income between 2006 and 2018. As the new issue of specialist sports business journal Sportcal Insight details, TV income for this summer’s event alone will be about £1.5bn. Winner: FIFA President Sepp Blatter holds up the name of Russia as the 2018 World Cup host . German and Italian broadcasters are paying £163million each, the French around £122m, the BBC and ITV combined around £120m for UK rights, and US broadcasters £150m. That is set to soar in 2018 and beyond. The World Cup is uniquely popular, with roughly a third of the planet’s seven billion population expected to watch at least one of the 64 games on television. The final in Rio will be the most watched event of any kind in the world in 2014, and it is expected that the average global audience per match this summer will easily top 150m. Last time the average was 188m per match. Such an extraordinary reach means FIFA can attract some of the biggest brands in the world aspartners and sponsors. Adidas have paid £120m to be partners for the current four-year cycle up to Brazil 2014. Visa and Emirates are each paying £66.8m, Coca-Cola £75m, and Hyundai and Sony also spending tens of millions. McDonald’s, Budweiser and a raft of others are also paying to be associated with the beautiful game, meaning FIFA will earn £733m at least from commercial deals this summer. Excited: It seems the entire world has got in the Samba mood for Brazil 2014 with less than a week to go . 2.2 BILLION - number of people in the world (31 per cent of 7bn) who watched at least one World Cup match in 2010 on TV . 188.4 MILLION - the average live global TV audience per World Cup match. The World Cup is like 64 Super Bowls in a month, except every one is bigger . 530.9 MILLION - the live global TV audience for the 2010 World Cup final . 17.3 MILLION - the average viewers per match in Brazil for 2010 World Cup, rising to an average of 44m for Brazil games . 5.3 MILLION - average UK TV audience for 2010 World Cup . 17.9 MILLION - the highest audience for England vs Germany . Ticket sales, hospitality packages and merchandise will add another £315m. Where all this money goes is a different matter entirely. FIFA distribute much of it around the world to associations and development projects. Unquantifiable amounts go on expenses for FIFA executives. And more than a billion dollars is sitting in FIFA’s bank account. For more see this week’s Sportcal Insight magazine. Sao Paulo stadium: The World Cup will be one of the most watched events on television .", "(CNN) -- There are thousands of football stadiums around the world, ranging from multi-million-dollar, all-seater arenas to traditional old grounds that could probably do with a bit of TLC and a lick of paint. Everyone knows about iconic structures such as Brazil's Maracana, the mark II Wembley in London and Spain's Santiago Bernabeu and Camp Nou, but many quirkier venues are also worth a visit. CNN has picked out eight that offer something slightly different to the norm. Tell us what you think, is your favorite ground missing off the list? 1. Estadio da Madeira, Portugal At first glance this 5,500-capacity stadium is not at all unusual, although two ends of the ground are wire fencing with no seats. But the location, high above Madeira island's capital of Funchal, qualifies this venue for attention. Games are often called off for fog and it is no wonder. The only road up to the ground is a narrow twisting track, easy to miss with just a single makeshift sign to indicate the right direction. Driving up the narrow road it is hard to believe you are heading to a ground which has hosted Europa League football, until after a couple of kilometers you can spot the floodlights, high above the tree line like a scene from the film \"The Field of Dreams\" and its imaginary baseball ground. This stadium is for real and boasts good facilities, including the Cristiano Ronaldo football academy, but its surreal setting takes some beating. 2. Braga Municipal Stadium, Portugal . Portugal's second entry in our list was designed by famed architect Eduardo Souto de Moura, winner of the 2011 Pritzker Architecture Prize, and is unique for its rugged beauty. Built in 2003, in time to be one of the venues for Euro 2004, Moura carved the stadium into the face of the adjacent Monte Castro quarry which overlooks the city of Braga. And, since it was built, the team's fortunes on the pitch have improved as well, culminating in them reaching the final of the Europa League last year. Moura received his Pritzker prize this year from a well-known statesman, who said: \"This is Eduardo's most famous work -- he took great care to position the stadium in such a way that anyone who couldn't afford a ticket could watch the match from the surrounding hillside.\" That statesman? U.S. President Barack Obama. 3. Stadion Kantrida, Croatia . Situated in the Croatian city of Rijeka and home to the club of the same name, this stadium might be small, holding only 10,000 fans, but is perfectly formed. Like Braga's ground, one side of the arena is dwarfed by a giant cliff face. However, the Kantrida offers visual beauty on the other side as well, being perched alongside the crystal blue waters of the Adriatic Sea. The setting is so beautiful that since 1990 it has hosted some of Croatia's home international matches. 4. Allianz Arena, Germany . No apologies for the inclusion of Munich's new stadium. In an age when impressive new arenas are being built every year, this one takes the breath away for its unusual exterior. Despite the controversy that surrounded its huge cost (reported to be in the region of $400 million) and allegations of corruption and underhand dealings in its construction, this makes the list for its magnificent tire-shaped design that dominates its surroundings. But what really sets it apart is the paneling that makes up the facade, which can be independently lit with white, red, or blue light depending on which team is playing there -- something no other arena in the world can do. The Allianz Arena hosted the 2006 World Cup semifinal between France and Portugal and is the setting for the 2012 Champions League final. 5. Estadio Hernando Siles, Bolivia . Although not officially the highest stadium in the world -- that honor goes to a ground in Peru -- this one makes the list because of its national importance and controversial history. Situated in the capital city La Paz, at 3,637 meters (11,932 feet) above sea level, it is Bolivia's national arena and plays host to three club teams, including the appropriately named The Strongest. For years, international opponents claimed Bolivia had an unfair advantage playing there, and it's hard to argue with some of the results it has spawned. Just two years ago, the mighty Argentina were humbled 6-1 there -- the two-time world champions' worse defeat for six decades -- while Brazil suffered their first World Cup qualifying reverse in 40 years when losing 2-0 in 2003. FIFA has made attempts to ban the stadium from hosting such matches in the past, but the Bolivians fought tooth and nail to fight the suspension and -- in the end -- football's world governing body relented. 6. Stade Velodrome, France . Love it or hate it -- and most people hate it -- Marseille's famous old arena is just plain odd. It's the largest club ground in French football, holding 60,000 fans, and has hosted two World Cup semifinals (in 1938 and 1998) as well as numerous top rugby matches. Yet, despite its location on the windy Mediterranean coast, and repeated proposed renovation projects, spectators must suffer everything that nature has to offer, as the stadium has no roofing on the stands. Finally, work is now in progress to provide spectators with some respite from the elements, with work expected to be completed in plenty of time for when France hosts Euro 2016. 7. Svangaskard Stadium, Faroe Islands . This is a real gem of a stadium. Situated in the village of Toftir, it used to be the permanent home for all Faroe Islands home matches, although it has now been usurped as the national team venue by a newer ground in the capital Torshavn. The Svangaskard holds just 6,000 fans but once been, never forgotten. From afar it looks like it is perched precariously on the edge of rugged rocks and once up close, you realize just how near it is to the sea. Breathtakingly beautiful views surround the ground, so take a camera, and also some very warm clothing because you really will be at the mercy of the north Atlantic Ocean. 8. Cape Town Stadium, South Africa . Possibly the most beautiful stadium in the world for a variety of reasons. Built at a cost of $600 million in time for the 2010 World Cup, not only is it pleasing on the eye, but its location is simply stunning. With the landmark Signal Hill on one side, the Atlantic Ocean on the other and Table Mountain also in the background, it is a stadium that shows off Cape Town's natural beauty with sumptuous effect. And, as if it didn't have enough going for it, the stadium also played host to some of the best matches during the World Cup, with Germany beating Argentina 4-0 and the five-goal semifinal thriller between the Netherlands and Uruguay just two of its highlights.", "Energy and Climate Change committee chairman Tim Yeo accused comparison sites of 'behaving more like backstreet market traders' Rip-off price comparison websites are under pressure to compensate customers who lost out because they were kept in the dark about cheap energy deals. MPs on the Energy and Climate Change committee have accused industry giants of acting like back street market traders to boost their profits at the expense of families struggling to pay for heat and light. The companies in the firing line are uSwitch, MoneySupermarket, ComparetheMarket, Confused.com and Go Compare, which spend millions on TV ads presenting themselves as the consumer champions. MPs said the firms set up their websites in such a way that people shopping around for cheaper gas and electricity were directed towards suppliers that pay them millions in commission. Customers searching for better tariffs were presented with a drop-down menu of energy firms that pay commission, rather than a list of all the deals available, including cheaper options from small suppliers. The net result was that the firms collected a payment of £50-£70 for each dual fuel switch, while consumers may have ended up paying hundreds of pounds more than they needed to. In a report published today, the committee said the firms should pay compensation to all the customers who missed out on the cheapest energy deal as a result of the suspect tactics. The Conservative chairman of the committee, Tim Yeo MP, said: ‘Consumers trust price comparison services to help them switch to the best energy deals available on the market. 'But some energy price comparison sites have been behaving more like backstreet market traders than the trustworthy consumer champions they make themselves out to be in adverts on TV. ‘Some comparison sites have used misleading language to dupe consumers into opting for default options that only display commission earning deals. An advertisement for MoneySupermarket. The site defended themselves by saying they operate according to the standards of an industry code approved by Ofgem . 'And others have previously gone so far as to conceal deals that do not earn them commission behind multiple drop-down web options.’ He added: ‘As an immediate and essential first step towards rebuilding confidence, the companies should compensate any consumers who have been encouraged to switch to tariffs that may not have been the cheapest or most appropriate for their needs.’ However, the Committee has no power to force the firms to pay compensation beyond the pressure to ‘name and shame’. MPs are concerned that consumers are kept in the dark about the commission payments and believe there is a good case for making website disclose the amount when a customer decides to switch. Mr Yeo said: ‘We have no objection to commission being paid by suppliers to price comparison websites as long as the arrangements are clearly disclosed.’ The committee is also calling on the industry regulator Ofgem to set up a new licensing regime for price comparison websites to replace existing voluntary codes in order to ensure they give customers a fair deal. The chairman said: ‘The current hands-off approach is clearly not working and the lack of contrition from some companies even when faced with proof that they misled customers has convinced us that some form of licensing of energy price comparison sites may be needed. ‘If the Government wants more people to switch energy supplier then it has to ensure that energy price comparison services are transparent and trusted. ‘We recognise that the criticisms contained in this report do not apply across all price comparison websites. 'We hope that the debate sparked by this report on how price comparison websites operate will provide all sites – both good and bad – with an opportunity to take stock of their operations and strive for greater transparency.’ Comparethemarket hit back at the MPs, accusing them of being sensationalist. MPs said the firms set up their websites in such a way that people shopping around for cheaper gas and electricity were directed towards suppliers that pay them millions in commission . A spokesman said: ‘We have never misled customers and are very disappointed by the sensationalist approach of making broad brush accusations against the whole industry. ‘Within the report, the Committee does concede that their criticisms do not pertain to all price comparison websites. 'We have always maintained we are totally transparent and only make money when people save money.’ uSwitch said it has paid compensation in the ‘rare’ cases where customers may have been misled. Chief executive, Steve Weller, said: ‘Price comparison websites have a vital role to play in making the energy market work for consumers. 'Our simple, free to use service saved consumers £112 million on their energy bills last year. ‘Customers have the clear choice to compare plans on our website across the whole energy market. 'In line with our complaints process, we have made payments to customers in the very rare occasions where we have fallen short of our strict procedures over the phone.’ Gocompare.com said: ‘We constantly review our website to identify any changes needed, and have already made improvements to our energy comparison service which we believe will encourage people to make an active decision regarding their energy tariffs.’ MoneySupermarket and Confused.com both said they operate according to the standards of an industry code approved by Ofgem.", "By . Steve Nolan . PUBLISHED: . 04:33 EST, 21 June 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 06:15 EST, 21 June 2013 . According to a report, chemists and pharmaceutical companies are rigging the price of so-called 'specials' drugs to overcharge the NHS . Drug companies and pharmacies have been accused of striking up underhand deals to overcharge the NHS millions of pounds. Pharmaceutical companies may have inflated the price of more than 20,000 drugs that are not covered by NHS price regulations. Following an undercover investigation by its reporters, the Daily Telegraph claims that the prices of the so-called 'specials' drugs - those prescribed when a patient has needs that cannot be met by normal licensed medicine - have been rigged with chemists offered backhanders to sell them. The newspaper secretly recorded representatives from several drugs manufacturers offering reporters posing as pharmacists deals on 'specials' that would see both their firms and chemists pocket additional NHS cash. The investigation found that some of the firms offered to provide invoices for some of its drugs at double the cost price. Chemists would then pass that invoice onto the NHS which would pay the inflated bill. Other companies are alleged to have offered to supply generic drugs free of charge in return for the right to supply the chain with special drugs. Another firm offered to pay an annual fee to chemists who sold their drugs. The Telegraph said that Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has ordered an investigation following its report. Scandal? The report alleges that companies are marking up the price of more than 20,000 drugs . He told the Telegraph the allegations were 'deeply concerning'. Health secretary Jeremy Hunt has said that an investigation will be launched . 'We have always been clear that NHS money should always be spent wisely for the benefit of patients. 'Any specific information received indicating or alleging fraud will be investigated by NHS Protect.' Jim Gee, a former chief executive of the NHS counter-fraud service, said: 'Behaviour of this type diverts funds from where they are intended and undermines the provision of quality patient care. 'The victims are the British people and the Government need to ensure that the NHS is better protected in future.' The drugs companies said they were looking into the claims allegedly made by their representatives, while it was reported that one firm had suspended a member of staff. A spokeswoman for Pharmarama International Limited, based in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, said it would not comment while an internal investigation was being conducted. Quantum Pharmaceutical said it was investigating the allegations and had suspended a member of staff. The spokesman added: 'We have clear and strict internal policies regarding the trading agreements that we operate with our customers, which are entirely legitimate, lawful and ethical. 'We remain fully commitment to providing a quality, value for money service to our customers and will be giving our full co-operation to the Department of Health and other regulators in the event of any subsequent industry-wide response relating to the report’s findings.' Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for drugs firm Temag told the Telegraph: 'It would be totally unrepresentative to make any suggestion that we are involved in any sort of practice to unfairly charge the NHS.'", "As Apple's antitrust case enters its final stages, a former engineer has revealed the firm deliberately blocked rivals' music from its iPods (pictured) After just a few hours of deliberation, a jury in California has found in favour of Apple in a billion-dollar class-action lawsuit over the price of its iPod music players. The eight-member jury in U.S. District Court rejected a claim by attorneys for consumers and iPod resellers, who argued that Apple's use of restrictive software froze out competing makers of portable music players. Apple had argued that the software provided necessary security protection. However, the jury said Apple's iTunes 7.0, released in the fall of 2006, was a 'genuine product improvement,' meaning that new features were good for consumers . Attorneys for the plaintiffs said they plan to appeal. 'We're glad we got this to the jury,' said attorney Bonny Sweeney, who had argued on behalf of the estimated 8 million consumers who purchased iPods from 2006 to 2009. But she asserted that a ruling by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, kept the jury from considering the full effect of the iTunes software update that was the focus of the trial. The case was filed nearly ten years ago and dates to a time when Apple used anti-piracy software that prevented its iPods from playing songs that were downloaded from online outlets that competed with Apple's iTunes stores. 'We thank the jury for their service and we applaud their verdict,' Apple said in a statement. 'We created iPod and iTunes to give our customers the world's best way to listen to music. 'Every time we've updated those products — and every Apple product over the years — we've done it to make the user experience even better.' As Apple's billion-dollar antitrust case entered its final stages, a former engineer earlier this week claimed the tech giant deliberately blocked rivals' music from its iPods. Rod Schultz, who worked as a senior software engineer at Apple between 2006 and 2008, said he worked on a project 'intended to block 100 per cent of non-iTunes clients.' The project was also set up to 'keep out third-party players' that competed with Apple's iPod, according to the Wall Street Journal. Mr Schultz was subpoenaed by the prosecution to prove Apple restricted rival music on its iPods, which ultimately pushed up the prices of the devices. Apple is accused of abusing its monopoly position in the digital music player market, and only earlier this month lawyers claimed the firm deliberately deleted rivals' song from iPods. The case went to trial in California last month, after being filed a decade ago. Plaintiffs are claiming Apple's restrictive software froze out competitors and allowed it to sell iPods at inflated prices. They are seeking $350 million (£224m) in damages, which could be tripled if the jury finds Apple broke federal anti-trust law. Apple stopped using the particular software in question in 2009, which means the lawsuit only covers iPod models bought between September 2006 and March 2009. Mr Schultz, who worked on Digital Rights Management (DRM), security and data encryption for iTunes and iPods during this time at the firm, said he was an 'unwilling witness' and was not happy about discussing his work, codenamed Candy. Apple, and Mr Schultz, claimed the aim of the project was to improve iTunes and protect its users from malware and other threats caused by downloading non-iTunes music. They added it was not the firm's intention to stifle competition. Earlier in the trial, the prosecution told the court that Apple deleted songs from iPods that had been bought from rival music stores. Each time an Apple user with non-iTunes music tried to sync their devices, between 2007 and 2009, the tech firm urged them to restore the players to factory settings. Apple is accused of abusing its monopoly position in the digital music player market, and only earlier this week lawyers claimed the firm deliberately deleted rivals' song from iPods. The case went to trial in California last month, after being filed a decade ago . Plaintiffs claim Apple's restrictive software froze out competitors and allowed to sell iPods at inflated prices. Apple stopped using the particular software in question in 2009, which means the lawsuit only covers iPod models bought between September 2006 and March 2009. A timeline of Apple releases is pictured . Apple is accused of abusing its monopoly position in the digital music player market, and only earlier this week lawyers claimed the firm deliberately deleted rivals' song from iPods. The case went to trial in California this month, after being filed a decade ago. Plaintiffs are claiming that Apple's restrictive software froze out competitors and allowed Apple to sell iPods at inflated prices. They are seeking $350 million (£224m) in damages, which could be tripled if the jury finds Apple broke federal anti-trust law. Apple stopped using the particular software in question in 2009, which means the lawsuit only covers iPod models bought between September 2006 and March 2009. Earlier in the trial, the prosecution told the court that Apple deleted songs from iPods that had been bought from rival music stores. Each time an Apple user with non-iTunes music tried to sync their devices, between 2007 and 2009, the tech firm urged them to restore the players to factory settings. And the lawyers claimed this was a deliberate move to wipe the rival files, and cause the users' music libraries to 'blow up.' But Apple insisted the move was a legitimate security measure. And the lawyers claimed this was a deliberate move to wipe the rival files, and cause the users' music libraries to 'blow up.' But Apple insisted the move was a legitimate security measure. The court case was almost dismissed earlier this month when the judge disqualified one of the claimants because her iPod wasn't bought during the time period detailed in the case. The other claimant withdrew her claims. But 65-year-old Massachusetts business consultant Barbara Bennet read about the floundering case online and volunteered to represent consumers in the suit. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has repeatedly shown impatience with the attorneys for not doing a better job of vetting the original named claimant in the case, who are supposed to represent the 'class of affected consumers'. 'We shouldn't have been here in the first place,' Rogers said as attorneys on both sides debated how to proceed Tuesday morning. A video testimony of late Apple boss Steve Jobs was played earlier in the trial, filmed six months before his death in 2011. In the testimony, Mr Jobs defended the software and said: 'We were very scared' of the prospect that hackers could break Apple's security system. He added that this might jeopardise Apple's contracts with music recording companies that didn't want their songs to be pirated. 'We would get nasty emails from the labels,' he added. Judge Rogers said she plans to send the case to the jury for deliberations early next week. A video testimony of late Apple boss Steve Jobs (pictured) was played earlier in the trial. In the testimony, Mr Jobs defended the software and said: 'We were very scared' of the prospect hackers could break Apple's security system because it might jeopardise Apple's contracts with music recording companies .", "Chewing gun companies have been told they must contribute to the £60million bill to remove gum from Britain's streets. The appeal is issued today by the Local Government Association (LGA), which represents almost 400 councils in England and Wales. It believes the chewing gum firms must stump up a 'substantial' sum of the costs to remove the 'plague on our pavements'. Town halls want firms to make a 'substantial' contribution to the £60m cost of removing gum from UK streets . LGA environment spokesman councillor Peter Box said: 'Chewing gum is a blight which costs councils a fortune to clean up and takes hours of hard work to remove. It's ugly, it's unsightly and it's unacceptable. 'The UK gum industry is a multimillion-pound business and we believe in the principle of the \"polluter\" paying. The chewing gum giants should be making a substantial contribution to help with the sterling work that councils are doing in removing it. 'Councils have no legal obligation to clear up the gum. They are doing the right thing but unfortunately the manufacturers are not. 'We acknowledge firms are contributing to litter prevention campaigns. However, given the size of the bill faced by councils in these tough economic times, this isn't cutting the mustard.' The problem of discarded gum is most acute in city centres - here workers scrape gum from Oxford Street . The average piece of gum costs about 3p to buy but around £1.50 - fifty times that price - to clean up, according to the LGA. Councils are also calling on producers to switch to a type which is biodegradable and easier to remove. The problem of discarded gum is most acute in towns and city centres. Westminster Council says almost three million pieces are dropped on the streets in the West End of London each year. Ed Argar, Westminster Council's cabinet member for city management, transport and infrastructure, said: 'Dealing with the sticky mess of discarded chewing gum on our streets swallows a huge amount of resources, in terms of both money and man-hours. 'Something needs to change if we are to find a real and lasting solution to the problem, rather than just dealing with the consequences.' Wrigley's said it was taking the issue of littered gum 'seriously' and urged people to dispose gum properly . Local authorities have tried a number of measures to tackle the problem of discarded gum. Hundreds of thousands of pieces of gum were removed from Manchester's streets in a £40,000 blitz, while other councils have brought in recyclable paper sheets to fold around gum and bins with anti gum-littering messages. Despite that, the LGA stressed it was not calling for a fresh 'gum tax', instead appealing for firms to show 'corporate responsibility.' Gum giant Wrigley said it 'takes the issue of littered gum very seriously'. A spokeswoman added: 'Wrigley is dedicated to tackling the issue of litter and will continue to support these and other initiatives that focus on achieving behavioural change amongst the few who continue to dispose of their waste irresponsibly.'", "By . Victoria Woollaston . As news broke last night that Facebook had bought virtual reality firm Oculus VR, one developer took to Twitter to very publicly voice his concerns. Markus Persson - owner of game company Mojang - said he had been working with the startup to build a virtual reaity version of his popular brick-building game Minecraft. In a tweet, he said: 'We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus. I just cancelled that deal. Facebook creeps me out.' Scroll down for video . Swedish developer Markus Persson tweeted, pictured, that he has cancelled the Oculus Rift version of Minecraft because he didn't want to work with Facebook, adding the site creeps him out. Facebook announced the purchase of the virtual reality headset yesterday . Markus Persson, pictured, owns Mojang, the company which created the brick-building video game Minecraft . The 34-year-old from Sweden then posted a blog which when into more detail about the decision. 'I definitely want to be a part of [virtual reality], but I will not work with Facebook,' wrote Persson. 'Their motives are too unclear and shifting, and they haven’t historically been a stable platform. 'There’s nothing about their history that makes me trust them, and that makes them seem creepy to me. 'And I did not chip in 10 grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition. 'I have the greatest respect for the talented engineers and developers at Oculus. It’s been a long time since I met a more dedicated and talented group of people. 'I understand this is purely a . business deal, and I’d like to congratulate both Facebook and the Oculus . owners. But this is where we part ways.' As a consolation, Minecraft fans will still be able to play a modified version called Minecrift. Minecraft was created in 2009. At the start of the game, a player is put into a 'virtually infinite . game world.' They can then walk around different terrains, including mountains, forests and caves. Although there won't be an official Minecraft game for Oculus Rift, there is a modified version called Minecrift, pictured, that lets players immerse themselves in their brick worlds . Minecraft launched in 2009. At the start of the game, a player is put into a 'virtually infinite game world.' They can then walk around and build towns and cities. The game was initially made for the PC but there are now Xbox 360 and mobile versions available, pictured . Players can also fly up in the air for a birds-eye view of the landscape. Players . are given blocks and tools to build towns and cities. As a player . progresses they can earn advanced tools and building blocks in different . materials. The game was initially made for the PC but there are now Xbox 360 and mobile versions available. Facebook announced it had bought the virtual reality firm in an unexpected $2bn deal yesterday. The deal puts the site in direct competition with Sony, which unveiled its own virtual reality Project Morpheus last week. The future of Facebook? The Oculus Rift headset in action. Facebook announced yesterday it had signed a 'definitive agreement' to buy Oculus VR for $2 billion . MailOnline was able to try Oculus Rift at the CES show in Las Vegas earlier this year. At first we were sceptical - the headset looks bulky, although it is surprisingly light when  attached via straps. However, once our demo started, doubts were quickly forgotten. The technology, still just a developer's version, is breathtakingly good. While the resolution still doesn't give the feeling of quite being in the real world, it does make you think you are actually in a virtual world. During several demonstrations we entered a vast dungeon and flew through space, with head tracking meaning the images moved perfectly as the user's head moves. It's not quite ready for primetime yet, but is almost there - and the Oculus Rift headset finally delivers on the long awaited promise of virtual reality. The social network said it has reached . a definitive agreement to acquire Oculus VR - the California firm . founded by 21-year-old college dropout Palmer Luckey. 'Mobile . is the platform of today, and now we're also getting ready for the . platforms of tomorrow,' said Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. 'It's different from anything I've every experienced in my life,' said Zuckerberg. The . firm is among the most advanced in the VR field, and recently began . taking orders for the latest version of its $350 (£211) developers version. 'Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate,' said Zuckerberg. 'Immersive gaming will be the first, and Oculus already has big plans here that won't be changing and we hope to accelerate. 'The Rift is highly anticipated by the gaming community, and there's a lot of interest from developers in building for this platform. 'We're going to focus on helping Oculus build out their product and develop partnerships to support more games. Oculus will continue operating independently within Facebook to achieve this. 'But this is just the start. After games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. 'Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate,' said Mark Zuckerberg, pictured . 'Imagine enjoying a court side seat at . a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the . world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face - just by putting on . goggles in your home.' The deal includes $400 million (£242 million) in cash and 23.1 million shares of Facebook common stock. Oculus is the leader in immersive virtual reality technology and has already built strong interest among developers, having received more than 75,000 orders for development kits for the company's virtual reality headset, the Oculus Rift. Facebook said: 'While the applications for virtual reality technology beyond gaming are in their nascent stages, several industries are already experimenting with the technology, and Facebook plans to extend Oculus' existing advantage in gaming to new verticals, including communications, media and entertainment, education and other areas.' Oculus is the leader in immersive virtual reality technology and has already built strong interest among developers 'The Matrix - that's always been the dream,' said one Oculus Rift executive of its headset, pictured . The Oculus prototype, pictured, is packed with components - many of which Mark Zuckerberg claims can be found in a mobile phone, making the gadget relatively easy to produce . 'We are excited to work with Mark and the Facebook team to deliver the very best virtual reality platform in the world,' said Brendan Iribe, co-founder and CEO of Oculus VR. 'We believe virtual reality will be heavily defined by social experiences that connect people in magical, new ways. 'It is a transformative and disruptive . technology, that enables the world to experience the impossible, and . it's only just the beginning.' Oculus recently raised $75 million (£45 million) to make the headset. 'Over . the past 16 months, we’ve grown from a startup to a company whose . technology is poised to change the way we play, work and communicate,' said Brendan Iribe, CEO of Oculus VR at the time. Palmer Luckey (pictured right) began Oculus when he was just 15, working on prototypes in his parent's garage. He started developing his own head-mounted VR displays when he was still in high school, and was in college when he created the first prototype of a consumer-priced VR headset called the Oculus Rift - although he eventually left to work on the project full time. MailOnline met Luckey at the CES show in Las Vegas, where he showed an incredible amount of enthusiasm for the product. He said he believed the technology's time had come. The firm originally turned to Kickstarter to raise money, but has since raised funds from investors across silicon Valley - until it was bought by Facebook for $2bn.", "Hayley Parsons, the founder of insurance comparison website GoCompare is to net £44m by selling her stake in the successful business . Eight years ago, Hayley Parsons sat at her kitchen table and sketched out a plan for a price comparison website. Today, the married mother-of-two is £44million richer after selling her shares in the company, GoCompare – best known for its adverts featuring ear-splitting opera singer Wynne Evans. The 41-year-old, from Cwmbran, South Wales, left school with six GCSEs and dreamed of becoming an interior designer. If she had succeeded, she says ‘today all the houses in the UK could be covered in animal print’. Instead, she took a job in a small insurance firm, where she made cups of tea and did basic admin. In her late twenties, she moved to Cardiff-based Admiral insurance where she worked in sales, and later helped launch the first UK motor insurance comparison site, Confused.com - the first car insurance comparison site in the UK. But after 14 years, Mrs Parsons – whose motto is ‘well-behaved women seldom make history’ – quit the firm and set up a rival site, a move she admits was ‘scary’. She and two former colleagues from Admiral worked from her kitchen table, later moving to premises where staff had to build their own Ikea desks. Her husband Mark gave up his job as a sales and marketing director to care for their two sons – aged four and 11 – when the company began to expand. Mrs Parsons was an unconventional boss, coming in dressed up as a devil on Halloween and setting up an office relaxation room, complete with a football table, a PlayStation and a Wii. Her company grew rapidly, and she was soon chief executive of a multi-million pound corporation. Last year GoCompare reported sales of £110million and pre-tax profits of £25million. Car insurance firm esure has owned half of GoCompare since 2010, when it exercised an option taken out in 2007 to buy a stake in the business. It bought the rest of the business in a £95million deal yesterday, including Mrs Parsons’ 23 per cent remaining stake. Ms Parsons wanted to employ a Welsh opera singer to star in television adverts for GoCompare . It had valued the businesswoman's 23 per cent stake at around £44m. She sold it and stepped down as chief executive on the condition that the firm would keep the headquarters in South Wales. Mrs Parsons – who lives in an £840,000 five-bedroom home in Old St Mellons, near Cardiff – is now one of the richest businesswomen in Britain. 'I am very proud that a company I started at my kitchen table eight years ago has achieved so much in such a short period of time,' said Mrs Parsons. 'Today, we are a leading price comparison business in the UK and this is credit to all the wonderful, hard-working people we have in Newport.' She added that she has ‘done all right for a Welsh girl from the Valleys’. And she admitted that she had been lucky to have had the complete support of her husband, before joking: ‘I call him a house husband, and he calls himself a man of leisure, so we have debates over his job description.’ But despite her success, she says she does not live a champagne lifestyle and ‘can’t stand some of the people I meet in the business world, who think they’re important just because they’ve got money or they’ve got power or they’ve got a big title’. Ms Parsons set up the business in 2006 and it has become known for its adverts featuring an opera singer . She said: ‘I meet so many people in business who just get stuck up their own backsides and that’s not me at all.’ And when she was previously asked if she had ever faced challenges as a woman in business, she said: ‘I think that some women become transfixed with the “glass ceiling”. ‘I’ve always thought that if you believe there is a glass ceiling, you’ll spend your life on the floor looking up at it.’ As well as Ms Parsons, other selling shareholders in today's deal include GoCompare's employee benefit trust and current and former directors and staff. Jon Morrell, who is esure's deputy chief operating officer, will take over from Ms Parsons as GoCompare's chief executive. She added that esure's commitment to keep GoCompare's headquarters in Newport was an 'extremely important' part of her decision to sell the business. The deal, which is subject to Competition and Markets Authority approval, is expected to complete in the first quarter of next year. Find out more about Chwarae Teg here. Hayley Parsons was born in Cwmbran and grew up in the Valleys in Wales. She left Croesyceiliog comprehensive school in Wales at the age of 16 with five GCSEs. According to a recent Sunday Times Rich list the self-confessed 'Welsh girl from the Valleys' is now estimated to be worth around £95m. Ms Parsons lives in Rogerstone in Newport with her partner Mark and has two children, aged four and 11. She lives just a few miles from where she grew up in Cwmbran in a £840,000 five-bedroom home. The couple met in 2001 and as GoCompare took off, Mark quit his job as the sales and marketing director of a busy printing firm to stay at home with their eldest son. Speaking in 2010, she said: 'I call him a house husband, he calls himself a man of leisure, so we have debates over his job description.' In 1992 Ms Parsons got a job in sales at Cardiff-based insurer Admiral where she was to work for the next 14 years. During this time she quickly rose up the ranks. When she was 21 she helped set up an insurance broker called Gladiator and then was instrumental in the launch of the first car insurance comparison website, Confused.com by Admiral. In 2006 she left the company as she had always dreamed of running her own business and wanted to make a site that functioned better for customers. Ms Parsons then worked with a small team of two which grew to six to design GoCompare. She is known as a good networker and met a contact who offered £1.5m to invest in the fledgling business. Ms Parsons was awarded an OBE in 2012 . They moved into their own premises with a team of 20 who had to put their own Ikea desks together before Ms Parsons was forced to move the office again as the team grew to more than 70 people. In just eight years the company grew to employ around 200 people and was recently valued as being worth almost £195m. Ms Parsons worked with her team to come up with the idea of having Gio Compario for the adverts and wanted to employ a Welsh singer so chose Wynne Evans. In return for loyalty from her employees Ms Parsons has kitted out her offices with a relaxation room, complete with a Wii, Playstation and football table. GoCompare functions by listing insurance by the level of cover provided, rather than by the cheapest price. The site was invited to join the British Insurance Brokers Association (BIBA) in 2008. It is so popular it now provides a quote every second. The businesswoman was made an honorary fellow of the University of Newport in 2011. In 2012 Ms Parsons was awarded an OBE for services to the economy. During the same year Gocompare.com was awarded the Investors in People 'Gold' award. Earlier this year she was appointed to the Entrepreneurship Panel for Wales. Following speculation in recent years that Ms Parsons would sell the company she has referred to it as 'my baby.' Ms Parsons, now 41, said her staff were very important to her and a key part of the decision to sell was that the business would remain in Wales.", "As Apple's antitrust case enters its final stages, a former engineer has revealed the firm deliberately blocked rivals' music from its iPods (pictured) As Apple's billion-dollar antitrust case enters its final stages, a former engineer has revealed the tech giant deliberately blocked rivals' music from its iPods. Rod Schultz, who worked as a senior software engineer at Apple between 2006 and 2008, said he worked on a project 'intended to block 100 per cent of non-iTunes clients.' The project was also set up to 'keep out third-party players' that competed with Apple's iPod, according to the Wall Street Journal. Mr Schultz was subpoenaed by the prosecution to prove Apple restricted rival music on its iPods, which ultimately pushed up the prices of the devices. Apple is accused of abusing its monopoly position in the digital music player market, and only earlier this month lawyers claimed the firm deliberately deleted rivals' song from iPods. The case went to trial in California last month, after being filed a decade ago. Plaintiffs are claiming Apple's restrictive software froze out competitors and allowed it to sell iPods at inflated prices. They are seeking $350 million (£224m) in damages, which could be tripled if the jury finds Apple broke federal anti-trust law. Apple stopped using the particular software in question in 2009, which means the lawsuit only covers iPod models bought between September 2006 and March 2009. Mr Schultz, who worked on Digital Rights Management (DRM), security and data encryption for iTunes and iPods during this time at the firm, said he was an 'unwilling witness' and was not happy about discussing his work, codenamed Candy. Apple, and Mr Schultz, claimed the aim of the project was to improve iTunes and protect its users from malware and other threats caused by downloading non-iTunes music. They added it was not the firm's intention to stifle competition. Earlier in the trial, the prosecution told the court that Apple deleted songs from iPods that had been bought from rival music stores. Each time an Apple user with non-iTunes music tried to sync their devices, between 2007 and 2009, the tech firm urged them to restore the players to factory settings. Apple is accused of abusing its monopoly position in the digital music player market, and only earlier this week lawyers claimed the firm deliberately deleted rivals' song from iPods. The case went to trial in California last month, after being filed a decade ago . Plaintiffs claim Apple's restrictive software froze out competitors and allowed to sell iPods at inflated prices. Apple stopped using the particular software in question in 2009, which means the lawsuit only covers iPod models bought between September 2006 and March 2009. A timeline of Apple releases is pictured . Apple is accused of abusing its monopoly position in the digital music player market, and only earlier this week lawyers claimed the firm deliberately deleted rivals' song from iPods. The case went to trial in California this month, after being filed a decade ago. Plaintiffs are claiming that Apple's restrictive software froze out competitors and allowed Apple to sell iPods at inflated prices. They are seeking $350 million (£224m) in damages, which could be tripled if the jury finds Apple broke federal anti-trust law. Apple stopped using the particular software in question in 2009, which means the lawsuit only covers iPod models bought between September 2006 and March 2009. Earlier in the trial, the prosecution told the court that Apple deleted songs from iPods that had been bought from rival music stores. Each time an Apple user with non-iTunes music tried to sync their devices, between 2007 and 2009, the tech firm urged them to restore the players to factory settings. And the lawyers claimed this was a deliberate move to wipe the rival files, and cause the users' music libraries to 'blow up.' But Apple insisted the move was a legitimate security measure. And the lawyers claimed this was a deliberate move to wipe the rival files, and cause the users' music libraries to 'blow up.' But Apple insisted the move was a legitimate security measure. The court case was almost dismissed earlier this month when the judge disqualified one of the claimants because her iPod wasn't bought during the time period detailed in the case. The other claimant withdrew her claims. But 65-year-old Massachusetts business consultant Barbara Bennet read about the floundering case online and volunteered to represent consumers in the suit. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has repeatedly shown impatience with the attorneys for not doing a better job of vetting the original named claimant in the case, who are supposed to represent the 'class of affected consumers'. 'We shouldn't have been here in the first place,' Rogers said as attorneys on both sides debated how to proceed Tuesday morning. A video testimony of late Apple boss Steve Jobs was played earlier in the trial, filmed six months before his death in 2011. In the testimony, Mr Jobs defended the software and said: 'We were very scared' of the prospect that hackers could break Apple's security system. He added that this might jeopardise Apple's contracts with music recording companies that didn't want their songs to be pirated. 'We would get nasty emails from the labels,' he added. Judge Rogers said she plans to send the case to the jury for deliberations early next week. A video testimony of late Apple boss Steve Jobs (pictured) was played earlier in the trial. In the testimony, Mr Jobs defended the software and said: 'We were very scared' of the prospect hackers could break Apple's security system because it might jeopardise Apple's contracts with music recording companies .", "By . Rupert Steiner and Martin Robinson . PUBLISHED: . 17:30 EST, 28 February 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 09:42 EST, 1 March 2013 . Sports Direct has raced to the rescue of collapsed fashion chain Republic snapping up 116 stores, saving 2,100 jobs. It is the latest distressed acquisition by the downturn-busting retailer controlled by founder Mike Ashley. Earlier this week he released an eye-watering £100million fortune by selling down some of his stake in the business he floated in 2007. Snapped up: Mike Ashley's Sports Direct has moved in on Republic, which collapsed earlier this month . Collapse: The Republic brand has gone bust but Mr Ashley has now saved 116 retail stores and 2,100 jobs along with its head office in Leeds, its websites and brands . Insiders say the share sale was unconnected to the Republic deal which was a transaction conducted by Sports Direct. Sports Direct (up 3p to 417.5p) has already invested in Sir Tom Hunter’s Cruise fashion chain and bought 20 JJB Sports stores and stock as it seeks to diversify into fashion. The firm said it had struck a deal with administrator Ernst & Young to acquire the bulk of the Republic stores, the head office in Leeds, stock, as well as Republic’s website and own brands. These include SoulCal, Fabric and Crafted. It declined to give any details about future plans for the business. New deal: Mike Ashley, whose biggest brand is Sports Direct, has a track record of investing in or buying stores and stock from ailing businesses . Republic, which employed 2,500 staff in 123 stores, collapsed earlier this month and administrators closed five shops in Scotland making 97 employees redundant and cast off 49 workers in Ireland from two stores. Reclusive billionaire Mike Ashley was a keen squash player whose injury sent him into retail, leading him to create one of Britain's most successful companies. Ranked as the 15th richest person in Britain with a £1.5bn fortune, he rarely gives interviews and is only seen publicly when watching Newcastle United, the football club he owns. At 24 he married Swedish born economist Linda, who he had three children with. They divorced in 2003, agreeing a £50m deal, one of the biggest settlements in British history. He left school at 16, became a squash coach after a bad injury ended his career, launched a sports and ski shop in Maidenhead in the 1980s and within a decade he had more than 100 UK stores. Now his Sports Direct brand has 400 stores, but he also owns brands like Dunlop Slazenger, Karrimor, Kangol, Lonsdale, and a stake in Umbro. Ashley also has a large stake in Blacks Leisure, the owner of Millets and is believed to own parts of JJB Sports and JD Sports. Having exposure to all these brands and shops is how he has made so much money, with experts saying his aggressive management style means 'he likes to park his tanks on peoples' lawns'. The private equity backed firm had been chaired by former Asda boss Andy Bond until a week before it failed. The sizable stakes of founders Tim Whitworth and Carl Brewins are thought to have been lost. Whitworth started-out as a Saturday boy in 1985 at what was then known as Just Jeans. The small retailer changed its name to Best Jeanswear in 1990 and became Republic in 1998. In 2005 private equity firm Change Capital, which counts former Marks & Spencer chairman Luc Vandevelde and chief executive Roger Holmes on its board, took a stake to help grow the chain. In 2011 TPG snapped it up for £300million, appointing former TK Maxx boss Paul Sweetenham as chief executive while Whitworth gave up day-to-day control. In January accountant KPMG was brought in to try to rescue the chain after sales fell off a cliff during the Christmas period. Its young customers have been hit hard by the downturn but the firm, which is predominantly based in the north of England, has also been slow to join rivals with a meaningful website. It came as the true scale of the devastation wreaked on the British High Street was laid bare yesterday as it was revealed that the number of store closures skyrocketed last year. A total of 7,300 High Street shops closed down in 2012, a net loss of 1,800 - compared with just 174 the year before. While most attention was focussed on the . troubles of a few high-profile firms, the real damage was done by . profitable businesses seeking to cut costs by trimming the number of . stores. A new report on Britain's 500 largest town centres by PwC and the Local Data Company showed that an average of 20 stores closed every day. Success: Sports Direct's share price is up a pound in six months - but down slightly today - as they continue to hoover up failing businesses and turn them round . Crisis: High Street vacancies have remained strikingly high since the start of the recession . Desolate: Britain's High Streets had 1,800 fewer stores at the end of last year as businesses shut down outlets . The squeeze on High Street chains is of course closely linked to the double-dip recession, but they are also under pressure from the relentless rise of online shopping. Last year saw well-known businesses such as Comet and JJB Sports cease operations, but even healthy firms closed branches in an attempt to keep costs down. However, there was a surprising increase in the number of independent shops, with 600 more appearing over the course of the year to take advantage of large chains' struggles.", "By . Reuters Reporter . PUBLISHED: . 16:49 EST, 25 May 2012 . | . UPDATED: . 17:22 EST, 25 May 2012 . Citigroup Inc's Automated Trading Desk had trading losses of about $20million from Facebook Inc's botched initial public offering on Nasdaq OMX Group Inc's U.S. exchange, a source with knowledge of the situation said on Friday. The unit's losses were in addition to claims by market makers Knight Capital Group Inc and Citadel Securities, which each had losses of $30 million to $35 million. UBS AG, the other large market maker involved in the IPO of the social networking company on May 18, has not disclosed any losses. Tumbling: Citigroup lost around $20m during Facebook's botched IPO, a source says . That sinking feeling: UBS lost around $30m in Facebook's IPO . Nasdaq asked firms to detail estimates of losses by Monday night. After that, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority will evaluate the filings and put out a report on the matter in about four weeks, two sources said. A technical glitch delayed Facebook's market debut by 30 minutes and many client orders were delayed, giving some investors and traders significant losses as the stock price dropped. The exchange operator is facing lawsuits from investors and threats of legal action from brokers. UBS AG had trading losses of around $30 million stemming from Facebook Inc's botched initial public offering on Nasdaq OMX Group Inc's U.S. exchange, a source with knowledge of the situation said, also on Friday. UBS was one of four main market makers involved in Facebook's IPO on May 18. Its losses come on top of claims by Citigroup's market making unit of $20 million, and Knight Capital Group Inc and Citadel Securities of $30 million to $35 million each in losses. Claims by four of Wall Street's main market makers against Nasdaq over Facebook's botched IPO are likely to exceed $100million, as they and other traders continue to deal with thousands of problems with customer orders. A technical glitch delayed the social networking company's market debut by 30 minutes on Friday and many client orders were delayed, giving some investors and traders significant losses as the stock price dropped. The exchange operator is facing lawsuits from investors and threats of legal action from brokers. Faceplant: Nasdaq may lose the Facebook listing entirely after having just obtained it . Four of the top market makers in the Facebook IPO - Knight Capital, Citadel Securities, UBS AG and Citi's Automated Trading Desk - collectively have probably lost more than $100million from problems arising from the deal, said a senior executive at one of the firms. Knight and Citadel are each claiming losses of $30million to $35million, potentially overwhelming a $13 million fund the exchange set up to deal with potential claims. Nasdaq also has to contend with the outside prospect that it could lose the Facebook listing entirely after having just obtained it. Facebook shares ended regular trading on Thursday up 3.2 per cent at $33.03, about $5 short of their offering price. Mishap: A technical glitch at Nasdaq delayed Facebook's market debut by 30 minutes on Friday and many client orders were delayed, giving some investors and traders significant losses as the stock price dropped . Zucked: Mark Zuckerberg saved $174 million by cashing out tens of millions of shares of Facebook stock early Friday when the price was above $38 a share . Action on the stock, however, has essentially become secondary to the fallout from the IPO - its price, its size, its execution and questions about selective disclosure of its financial prospects. Regulators including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin are now looking into how the IPO was handled. The U.S. Senate Banking Committee is also reviewing the matter. Under exchange rules, Nasdaq's liability regarding client losses from certain trading issues is limited to $3 million a month. Market makers will be arguing that Nasdaq was so grossly negligent that its actions during the IPO opening override the limits, said a source with knowledge of Knight's situation. Other firms said they did not have similar problems to those of Knight, raising questions about the scope of the losses. 'The problems were where people were trying to cancel orders; we didn't have that,' said Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak & Co in New York. 'Because we didn't have a problem doesn't mean there weren't problems.' E*Trade Financial Corp said its market making operations realized losses of 'well under a million dollars.' Charles Schwab Corp had a 'small number' of the 'tens of thousands of clients' who traded Facebook whose issues still have not been resolved, a spokesman said. 'Each one requires some analysis to resolve, which can be time consuming.' Shares of Nasdaq fell 1 cent to $21.80 on Thursday. As of Thursday's close the stock was down 5.2 per cent from its last close before the Facebook debacle. Over the same period NYSE Euronext is down just 0.1 per cent. The slide in the shares is adding to the pressure on Nasdaq Chief Executive Robert Greifeld, who defended the exchange's performance at its annual meeting last Tuesday. Here is a list of the early investors in Facebook who made a bundle by cashing in portions of their stock Friday before share prices tumbled. Value is estimated at $38 a share. Also included is how much money each saved by getting out Friday, before shares sunk to $31.Mark Zuckerberg . Shares sold: 30.2 million . Value: $1.13 billion . Saved: $174 millionAccel Partners, venture capital investorYear invested in Facebook: 2005 for $12.7 millionShares sold: 49 millionValue: $1.86 billionSaved: $341 millionPeter Thiel, PayPal co-founderYear invested in Facebook: 2004 for $500,000Shares sold: 16.8 millionValue: $640 millionSaved: $119 millionDST Global Ltd, investment firm based in London and founded by Russian oligarch . Year invested in Facebook: 2009 and late 2010 for $200 million . Shares sold: 45.7 million . Value: $1.74 billion . Saved: $323 millionGoldman Sachs, investment bank . Year invested in Facebook: 2011 for $450 million . Shares sold: 28.7 million . Value: $1.09 billion . Saved: $200 million . Elevation Partners, private equity firm with Bono as spokesmanShares sold: 4.6 million . Value: $176 million . Saved: $3.3 millionGreylock Partners, venture capital investor . Year invested in Facebook: 2006 for $27.5 million . Shares sold: 7.6 million . Value: $289 million . Saved: 53.4 million .", "Water companies were yesterday ordered to slash bills – but will still end up charging households more because of inflation. Regulator Ofwat told suppliers to reduce average customer bills by 5 per cent by 2020, a £20 drop from £396 to £376. In a new five-year plan, they must also invest £44billion to help stem water leaks by 370million litres a day and curb the hours homes are left without water because of repair works. Water companies were today ordered to cut bills by an average of 5 per cent by 2020 - but only after inflation . But customers are set to end up paying more because firms can increase bills annually in line with RPI (Retail Price Index) inflation – currently 2.3 per cent. Many homes will see bills of more than £400 for the first time next year. By 2020, assuming the same inflation rate, they could be £420. It will be a particular blow for older customers on a limited income since state benefits and many occupational pensions only rise in line with CPI (Consumer Price Index) inflation which is a much lower 1.3 per cent. In a bid to support the worst off, Ofwat is to ensure companies offer social tariffs to an extra million households. These deals offer discounts of up to 25 per cent off regular water bills. A key factor behind Ofwat’s demand for lower bills has been the cheaper cost of borrowing for water companies to fund their infrastructure projects. Cathryn Ross, Ofwat chief executive, said: ‘With bills held down by 5 per cent and service driven up over the next five years, customers will get more and pay less.' Jonson Cox, chairman of Ofwat, said: ‘We are bringing down bills so customers can expect value for money, while investors can earn a fair return. ‘Companies will need to stretch themselves to deliver much more with the same level of funding as in previous years.’ Jonson Cox, chairman of Ofwat, said: 'We are bringing down bills so customers can expect value for money' Northumbrian customers however will see the smallest change in their bills, dropping 1 per cent to £382 . Tony Smith, chief executive of the Consumer Council for Water, said he was broadly pleased that customers could expect decreases in bills without compromising services. However, he warned the range of deals pegging prices to inflation could still result in bills increasing for many customers. He said: ‘It’s been the best process for the customer than any price review since privatisation.’ However, he added: ‘Ofwat has been generous to the sector over several previous reviews.’", "(CNN) -- On a day when a report showed English Premier League clubs attract nearly EUR 150m ($193m) through shirt sponsorship deals, Newcastle United announced one of the biggest -- and most controversial -- in their history. The club has signed a four-year contract with 'digital finance company' Wonga, a pay-day firm one MP claims is nothing more than a \"legal loan shark.\" Named as the number one company in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 list in 2011, Wonga lends money with an annual interest rate of 4,124%. The company, which is named after a slang term for money in Britain, declined to comment when contacted by CNN. \"We are completely transparent about the total cost of repayment and we make money when our customers repay us quickly, not by continually extending a growing line of credit,\" says Wonga's website. \"Like all companies we make the odd mistake, but we are serious about our commitment to responsible lending and try to put customers at the heart of what we do.\" As well as sponsoring Newcastle's shirts, Wonga has also bought the naming rights to the Magpies' stadium, reverting it back to its original St James' Park name. The club's owner Mike Ashley sparked a huge wave of protest from fans when he discarded 119 years of history by calling the ground the Sports Direct Arena, after his sports goods firm, back in 2011. Several key figures have criticized Ashley for striking the deal, saying it is irresponsible for such a big institution in a traditionally deprived area to carry the name of a firm that preys on vulnerable people. The partnership -- said to be worth $38m over four years -- underlines how increasingly important shirt deals are to top clubs, with a study by Sport+Markt showing they had pushed through the EUR 500m ($643m) barrier in Europe for the first time in 2012. Sport+Markt's report also reveals the most common shirt sponsor of Premier League clubs are firms from the betting and lottery sector, products of which are featured on the strips of six teams. British sports business expert Simon Chadwick told CNN one of the most important goals for sponsors is getting as many people as possible to see their brand name. The Premier League, with its estimated 4.7 billion viewers a year, is the perfect vehicle, he said. \"Such is the global prominence of the Premier League and the clubs within it, that shirt sponsors predictably and inevitably secure the 'eyeballs' they seek by engaging in sponsorship deals. \"In particular, there is a preponderance of gambling companies, largely because of the convergence of consumer interest in both football and gambling. \"In the case of Newcastle, there would appear to be an alignment of club and company expectations. \"For the club, the deal is an immediate source of revenue and also a smart way of returning United's stadium back to its St James' Park name; for the sponsor, given the socio-demographic and economic conditions of certain parts of the north-east, it is one way of targeting actual and potential customers.\" Barcelona currently holds the record for the most lucrative shirt sponsorship deal -- the Qatar Foundation pays the Spanish giants $38 million a year to have their logo emblazoned on the famous red and blue strip. English clubs Manchester United and Liverpool both attract $32 million a year in shirt deals, from AON and Standard Chartered respectively, while Barca's Spanish rivals Real Madrid receive $29m from betting firm Bwin. Newcastle's commercial income trails way behind those clubs despite their windfall from Wonga but according to Labour's Newcastle Central Member of Parliament Chi Onwurah, it is the wrong message to have on their shirts. \"Some of the richest young men in Newcastle to wear shirts calling on the poorest to go to a legal loan shark,\" she said on micro-blogging site Twitter. Her Labour colleague, Catherine McKinnell, agreed and called on the government to cap the interest rate companies like Wonga could charge. \"Pay-day lenders prey on the most vulnerable people in society, namely those on low incomes or unemployed,\" she said on her official website. \"I know of many cases where constituents have turned to pay-day lenders in desperation and find themselves trapped in a cycle of debt at excessive interest rates of over 4,000% per annum. \"During this double-dip recession, Wonga have seen their profits soar as many households struggle to make their income stretch to cover the rising costs of living. \"I am disappointed that the board has chosen to associate our club, brand and city with practices which too often penalise struggling families. \"I worry that by associating the club with such a company, it could normalize their practice and plunge many more families into the cycle of debt. Many will see this deal as money from misery.\" Over the last two years Stella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow -- who dubbed pay-day loan companies as \"legal loan sharks\" -- has led a campaign against Wonga, including its sponsorship of the Blackpool and Hearts football clubs. Creasy want the government to impose a legal cap on lending rates as happens in most other European countries.", "Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) -- Violence killed hundreds of Iraqi civilians in August, authorities said Wednesday, a day after President Barack Obama marked the end of the U.S. combat mission in the country. The month's toll included 295 civilians killed and 508 wounded, the Ministry of Interior said. Fifty-four Iraqi soldiers were killed and 150 more wounded in the same month. In July, the number of people killed in the nation's violence was the highest since May 2008. Nearly 400 civilians were killed in that month. The month of September started off with at least three attacks, authorities said. In one, a police officer who works for the Interior Ministry was killed when a bomb attached to his civilian car exploded Wednesday morning in northwestern Baghdad. In a separate attack in Tikrit on the same day, three police officers were wounded when a roadside bomb struck a police patrol. And one more officer was wounded when a roadside bomb exploded outside his house in Falluja, authorities said. The officer was heading to work when the bomb went off. The attacks came a day after Obama officially ended the U.S. combat role in the nation, saying \"It is time to turn the page.\" While the U.S. will support Iraqi officials, it will refocus its energies on its economy and the war in Afghanistan, the president said Tuesday evening. \"The United States has paid a huge price to put the future of Iraq in the hands of its people,\" Obama said in an address from the Oval Office. \"Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it is time to turn the page.\" The U.S. combat mission in Iraq ends more than seven years after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Roughly 50,000 U.S. troops will remain in Iraq until the end of 2011 to train, assist and advise Iraqi troops. If Iraq requests an extension and the U.S. agrees, some troops could remain beyond that. Obama praised American troops for their sacrifices in Iraq and said the country is in position to shape its own future. \"We have persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people -- a belief that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization,\" he said. Though attacks continue across Iraq and leaders are struggling to form a coalition government, Obama said violence is at its near lowest level since the war began. Overall, violence in Iraq has dropped drastically over the past two years compared with the height of the sectarian war in 2006 and 2007. Before the speech, some Republicans urged Obama to acknowledge that the 2007 U.S. troop surge in Iraq ordered by then-President George W. Bush had worked. Obama, then a U.S. senator and candidate for president, had opposed it.", "By . Mark Prigg . Netflix boss Reed Hastings has hit out at ISPs charging the firm because of the amount of traffic it generates. In February, Netflix struck a deal to pay Comcast for faster online delivery of its movies and TV shows through a practice known as interconnection, after customers complained about slow service. Hastings called interconnection fees an 'arbitrary tax' that the company would pay in certain cases to protect its customers' experience. Netflix boss Reed Hastings called interconnection fees an 'arbitrary tax' that the company would pay in certain cases to protect its customers' experience and said ISPs must give the firm free access . 'Instead, they must provide sufficient access to their network without charge,' Hastings wrote on the Netflix blog. He said free interconnection was key to ensuring 'net neutrality,' which requires that internet providers treat data from different content companies equally. He accused firms of bullying. 'Some big ISPs are extracting a toll because they can - they effectively control access to millions of consumers and are willing to sacrifice the interests of their own customers to press Netflix and others to pay,' he wrote in the blog post. 'Though they have the scale and power to do this, they should realize it is in their long term interest to back strong net neutrality. House of Cards with Kevin Spacey as Francis Underwood and Robin Wright as Clair Underwood. A Netflix original series, it has propelled the streaming service to expanding hugely. 'While in the short term Netflix will in cases reluctantly pay large ISPs to ensure a high quality member experience, we will continue to fight for the Internet the world needs and deserves.' Comcast is seeking approval from U.S. regulators for its proposed $45.2 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable Inc. Treatment of internet traffic is one issue expected to receive scrutiny during the government's review. Hastings said Comcast 'has been an industry leader in supporting weak net neutrality, and we hope they'll support strong net neutrality as well.' Comcast, in a statement from executive vice president David Cohen, said no other company had a 'stronger commitment to openness of the Internet.' The company is the only broadband provider currently bound by the government's net neutrality, or 'Open Internet,' rules. An appeals court struck down the rules in January, but Comcast committed to following them under an agreement with the government when it purchased NBC Universal. Cohen said those rules were not meant to cover interconnection arrangements. He added that providers like Netflix had always paid for interconnection and had 'ample options' to ensure that customers enjoyed optimal performance at a fair price.", "More than three years after his death, legendary Apple CEO Steve Jobs held an Oakland courtroom transfixed today as attorneys played a video of his testimony in a class-action lawsuit that accuses Apple of inflating prices by locking music lovers into using Apple's iPod players. Looking gaunt and pale, Jobs spoke softly during the deposition he gave six months before his death in October 2011. Despite this, he gave a firm defense of Apple's software, which blocked music from services that competed with Apple's iTunes store. 'We were very scared': Video testimony from Steve Jobs recorded months before his death was today shown in court as Apple is accused of abusing its monopoly position in the digital music player market. Earlier this week, lawyers claimed it had deliberately deleted rivals' song from iPods from 2007 to 2009. But, the tech giant has challenged the suit after presenting evidence suggesting the plaintiffs' models of iPod may be invalid . 'We were very scared' of the prospect that hackers could break Apple's security system, Jobs said, because that might jeopardize Apple's contracts with music recording companies that didn't want their songs to be pirated. 'We would get nasty emails from the labels,' he added. Jobs was known for having a short temper. But he seemed unruffled when an attorney for the plaintiffs read part of an email in which the Apple CEO demanded that a record company executive publicly apologize for praising rival RealNetworks for producing software that would make songs from the RealNetworks store play on Apple's iPods. Dressed in his trademark black turtleneck and blue jeans, Jobs appeared impatient at times and swiveled in his chair during the session, which was recorded at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California. He said he didn't remember why he was upset with the recording executive. But he acknowledged that he had proposed language for an Apple press release that condemned RealNetworks as a 'hacker.' 'We are stunned that Real has adopted the tactics and ethics of a hacker to break into the iPod, and we are investigating the implications of their actions' under federal law, the release said. Apple used anti-piracy software that ensured only songs from its own iTunes store could be played on its iPod devices. Apple CEO Steve Jobs stands next to a projection of an iPod Nano at an Apple announcement in San Francisco. Dressed in his trademark black turtleneck and blue jeans, Jobs appeared impatient at times and swivelled in his chair during the interview session shown in court, which was recorded at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California. Apple is accused of abusing its monopoly position in the digital music player market, and only earlier this week lawyers claimed the firm deliberately deleted rivals' song from iPods. The case went to trial in California this week, after being filed a decade ago. Plaintiffs are claiming that Apple's restrictive software froze out competitors and allowed Apple to sell iPods at inflated prices. They are seeking $350 million (£224m) in damages, which could be tripled if the jury finds Apple broke federal anti-trust law. Apple stopped using the particular software in question in 2009, which means the lawsuit only covers iPod models bought between September 2006 and March 2009. On Wednesday, the prosecution told the court that Apple deleted songs from iPods that had been bought from rival music stores. Each time an Apple user with non-iTunes music tried to sync their devices, between 2007 and 2009, the tech firm urged them to restore the players to factory settings. And the lawyers claimed this was a deliberate move to wipe the rival files, and cause the users' music libraries to 'blow up.' But Apple insisted the move was a legitimate security measure. Now, Apple has said new evidence shows the two women named as plaintiffs may not have bought iPod models covered by the lawsuit. Attorneys for a group of consumers and iPod resellers contend say that froze rival device-makers out of the market, allowing Apple to sell iPods at inflated prices. The plaintiffs are seeking $350 million in damages, which could be tripled if the jury agrees Apple violated antitrust rules. Jurors saw the video on the fourth day of trial in a case that has been rocked by an unusual development. Apple attorneys late Thursday said neither of the women named as plaintiffs purchased iPods equipped with the restrictive software during the timeframe covered by the lawsuit, which is September 2006 to March 2009. Apple lawyer William Isaacson formally asked the judge on Friday to dismiss the case because the two women can't claim to have suffered the harm alleged in the suit. The motion came after plaintiff Marianna Rosen testified Wednesday and, in response to questions, showed an iPod that she said she bought in 2008. Isaacson said Apple checked the serial number later in the day and found it was actually purchased in July 2009. Attorneys who brought the suit had already conceded that iPods purchased by the other plaintiff, Melanie Wilson, weren't covered by the suit. They agreed Friday to drop Wilson from the case, but plaintiffs' attorney Bonny Sweeney said Rosen is still eligible to proceed because she has receipts showing she bought two other iPods in September 2008. When Isaacson countered that Apple's records show those two iPods were purchased by Rosen's husband's law firm, Sweeney said Rosen was authorized to use the firm's credit card for her own purchases. The judge asked Sweeney to submit a formal response to Isaacson's arguments over the weekend, but Rogers didn't say when she'll make a decision. Claimants say Apple's (co-founder Steve Job is pictured) restrictive software froze out competitors. Apple stopped using the software in 2009, which means the lawsuit only covers models bought until March 2009. But serial numbers show plaintiff Marianna Rosen's iPod was bought in July 2009 . Apple insists its move was a legitimate security measure. Security director Augustin Farrugia said in court that his company was protecting users from hackers and malware by removing MP3s downloaded from outside of iTunes. Now, Apple has said new evidence shows the two women named as plaintiffs may not have bought iPod models covered by the lawsuit. Plaintiffs are claiming Apple's restrictive software froze out competitors and allowed Apple to sell iPods at inflated prices. They are seeking $350 million (£224m) in damages, which could be tripled if the jury finds Apple broke federal anti-trust law. Apple stopped using the particular software in question in 2009, which means the lawsuit only covers iPod models bought between September 2006 and March 2009. This means the colourful iPod Nano, released in September 2009, and later generations of the devices are not covered." ]

[ "The 35-year-old woman who slept openly with her brother in the filthy bush camp where 30 members of an incest clan were discovered two years ago has been blocked by police from having any contact with two of her young children. Disturbing new details have emerged about the incest cult in which Martha Colt slept with brother Charlie in a 'marital' bed inside a tent on the squalid farm, where open buckets of faeces and urine lay about and where their children - brothers and sisters - had sex with each other. Police successfully took out a two year Apprehended Violence Order (AVO) in Parramatta Local Court on Monday against Ms Colt having any contact with the youngest of her five children, Ruth, 10, and Nadia, 8. Three of the four mothers from whom police and welfare authorities have taken a total of twelve children into care. Seven of the children were fathered by the women's brother, their father or their nephew . Dark tale: It was inside this shed (pictured) where Martha Colt slept openly with her brother Charlie. Charlie has fathered four of Martha's children, who suffered cognitive and developmental delays . Genetic nightmare: Martha Col's family can be sen on the left of the diagram, which shows that four of her children, Albert, Jed, Nadia and Ruth were fathered by a close relative, and Karl by a near relative. It can now be revealed that Charlie, Martha's brother, is the father of her children . Magistrate Margaret McGlynn told the court that although it was important for the Colt children to continue with the court-appointed pseudonyms, 'it is important the public be made aware of situations of this kind in which these children unfortunately found themselves ... children whose birth parents being siblings and many of their relatives being of incestuous relationships of some kind'. Ms McGlynn also cited the allegations of sexual activity between the children. Details included Nadia, who was just six years old when the family commune was uncovered, having sex with her brothers, having sticks inserted into her by her maternal uncle Charlie - who is actually her father - and both her father and mother taking photographs of her vagina. Martha has five children - the two girls, Nadia and Ruth, and three boys, Karl, 13, Jed, 15 and Albert, 16. Betty Colt, 48, and her eldest of her 13 children, Raylene, 31, who also had a child removed from her care during the police raid on the squalid bush block where 28 adults lived communally among open buckets of faeces and urine . Betty and Raylene (pictured) outside Parramatta Court, where magistrate heard their objections in June against being DNA tested to determine thee interrelations between the extended Colt family . It was on this bush block (pictured) outside a quiet country town where the Colt family lived in squalor and children were allowed to run rampant and sexually abuse each other . Following a police raid of the farm, during which officers and welfare workers were horrified at the filthy conditions and the state of the children, all five were removed from Martha Colt's care. They were unable to speak intelligibly, did not understand basic hygiene, had gone to school for the very first time just two weeks earlier and were engaged in sexual activity with each other. Ruth, then aged nine years old, was 'drastically underweight', 'was unable to bathe herself, did not know how to use a toilet or what toilet paper was'. Ruth required urgent dental attention, 'her speech was fragmented and stunted, her features were dysmorphic, she could not read or write'. Betty Colt (pictured) will learn her fate in November, whenMagistrate Mary Ryan, will sentence her in Moss Vale Local Court on recruiting her son, Bobby, 16, to kidnap his younger brother from foster care . Nadia, then aged just six years old, was 'neglected and malnourished, unable to bathe' her hygiene skills were 'primitive'. She 'didn't know how to use a toilet, what toilet paper was, had not seen a toothbrush before. Her teeth were decayed. She had speech delay ... was delayed educationally'. Of the 12 Colt children from the whole Colt clan who were later proven by genetic testing to have 'homozygosity', or identical gene patterns in both parents, seven were found to have closely related parents. Four of those seven children were Martha's. After the twelve children were removed from the farm and taken into care, the remaining members of the Colt family fled. Interviewed by caseworkers, Martha's children told horrific tales of sexual abuse by brothers, uncles and fathers. Nadia told her foster carers that her mother and father took photos of her vagina, that her brothers had licked her vagina and that her maternal uncle Charlie inserted sticks into her. She said her mother Martha slept with Charlie in a bed each night, and that her father's name was Charlie. She said she had watched her mother having sex with Charlie in the tent. The family lived in two dirty caravans and tents inside the large shed, which was the domain of Martha, Charlie and their children. In a clearing on the property were tents, including one called 'the black tent' where most of the sexual offences occurred. Ruth told caseworkers that Albert, then 15 years old, had put his penis 'in her bottom' and that it 'makes her hurt'. Nadia told police child care officers that her brothers had touched her private parts with theirs. Two year ban: The solicitor representing Martha Colt leaves Parramatta Court after NSW Police successfully brought a two-year Apprehended Violence Order against the 35-year-old on behalf  of the youngest of her five children, four of whom were fathered by her brother Charlie . Bother Nadia and Ruth disclosed that while their brother lined up to take turns 'hurting their bottoms' their parents Martha and Charlie had been' watching and laughing'. The living area of the farm 'smelt of urine and faces' and was also populated by about 20 dogs. Since the two young girls were taken into care, they have gained weight, improved in their speech and hygiene and are 'attending the local primary school which they love'. According to court documents, when Martha visited the two girls she was heard to tell them not to speak to 'outsiders' and 'if thy were asked about their family to say \"it's none of your business\".' Magistrate McGlynn said it was necessary Nadia and Ruth Colt's identities be protected as they made friends at school and remained free from being judged. 'They not only have the obvious emotional scars, but physical ones as well ... being in new schools, having to make friends and to meet the approval of parents of those children.' 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[ "The second son of Betty Colt, a member of the infamous 'Colt' incest family, said his mother gave him a phone to hide in the back garden of his foster home in an attempt to kidnap him and his brother, a court heard today. Bobby Colt (a pseudonym prescribed by the Children's Court), 16, appeared via audiovisual link in Moss Vale local court on Wednesday on the second day of a hearing into allegations that Betty tried to recruit him to conspire in the kidnapping. The pair were removed from her care after authorities found them living in squalor and exhibiting telltale signs of incest in the winter of 2012. Betty Colt, a member of the infamous 'Colt' incest family, arrives at Moss Vale local court with her lawyer . The court heard that Betty had given him her number by scrawling it in magazines that she passed over as gifts. 'It was in the books, in car magazines,' he said. He also reaffirmed his 15-year-old brother Billy Colt's testimony that Betty, who had five of her 13 children removed from her, smuggled them a mobile phone and a charger at a contact meeting to arrange for an early morning abduction. Bobby described how he concealed the phone in the back garden so he could continue planning the runaway with his mother. He said he hid it 'out in the back in the bush...in a waterproof bag. So it doesn't get taken. 'I knew I had to stay (in care) until I was 18.' He also said he discussed the 'plan', as it is being referred to in court, with his brother behind a closed door 'so nobody can hear us...I didn't want to get catched.' Asked if the plan was his mother's, Bobby said: 'yes'. According to Children's Court documents tendered in Moss Vale Local Court on Wednesday, Bobby Colt's parents are 'closely related'. When he was found by authorities, 'his speech was not understandable...he had fungal infections...he needed urgent dental work.' He was seen leaving the court this morning with his carer and puffing on a cigarette before being reunited with his brother Billy. Betty Colt did not give evidence in the hearing and her LegalAid lawyer Phil Carey told court the defence case would be put forward by way of written submissions. Betty is accused of hatching a plan to kidnap her sons from foster carers . Final submissions must be filed by the police by 5 August and the defence will have a further week to prepare their case. An urgent transcript of this week's proceedings was ordered by Magistrate Mary Ryan. Bail for Betty Colt was continued, meaning she has to report to a NSW police station three times a week. She was also ordered to notify, in writing, detective sergeant Kirsty Hales and detective inspector Peter Yeomans of the state's child abuse squad of any plans to relocate her address. The case was adjourned to 18 August for Magistrate Ryan to hand down her decision. In Moss Vale local court on Tuesday, magistrate Mary Ryan heard that Billy said his mother Betty secretly opened up a line of communication that allowed her to plan the 'runaway', in an interview conducted with Billy Colt late last year and tendered in evidence by police. 'She hid the charger in my jacket,' Billy told the police in the interview. '(Bobby) had the phone in his jacket, she hid it, she told him what it was...she planned a runaway with Bobby. 'Mum put the phone number on my iPod...under sticky tape. '(She said) this is my number, give it to Bobby.' The court heard allegations she snuck a mobile phone and charger as well as a copy of her telephone number to her sons during monitored visits, with instructions for their 'escape plan' He told police the iPod - a Christmas present - had country music downloaded into it. The evidence took on a chilling note as Billy described to police how his brother told him about the plan behind closed doors and with 'soft voices' to avoid detection. '(Bobby) said don't tell anyone because we might get catched.' The alleged plan - which police claim to have foiled - was for Betty to pick up her children between 2am and 4am one morning in a four wheel drive parked 'halfway down the road' from their foster family. She was then going to take them to another location where they would be whisked away by their cousin. Appearing via audiovisual link on Tuesday after the police interview was played to the court, Billy said he didn't want to be part of the plan because he knew it would land him in trouble with police. '(Betty) said get up in time and come with me, mum was suppose to pick us up. 'I don't want to get in trouble, we wasn't allowed to leave...Mum said she just wants her kid back.' Under cross examination by Betty Colt's lawyer, Billy was asked 'who started the talk about going away.' He replied: 'mum'. The adults of family discovered living in squalor in regional NSW in July 2012, are now under investigation for child abuse . Under the Crimes Act, Betty Colt faces up to 10 years behind bars if she is found guilty of recruiting a child to commit a crime. In other proceedings last Friday, detectives took DNA swabs from Betty and her daughter Raylene Colt, as police gather evidence they hope will lead to charging a number of the family members with incest and other offences. Warrants to arrest five other Colts were also issued, with most of the clan declining to turn up to court last week. Investigators are yet to execute those warrants as it is understood the Colts are on the run across the country. Detectives believe they have spread to at least South Australia and Western Australia. A strike force made up of members of the NSW child abuse squad - spearheaded by detective inspector Peter Yeomans and detective sergeant Kirsty Hales - is pursuing the case that has been revealed as one of the most shocking acts of abuse in the country's history. If Betty Colt is found guilty, her criminal conviction will be the first to arise from the investigation that has already rescued generations of inbred, illiterate and malnourished children from the reclusive family which lived in the picturesque hills of outback NSW. In court Billy was asked why he was removed from the Colts. 'I think because we were living in motor homes,' he replied. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.", "By . Snejana Farberov . and Lydia Warren . Josh Powell's two young sons suffered sexual abuse at the hands of their father before he killed them with a hatchet and blew up their Washington state home in 2012, according to a new tell-all book. Gregg Olsen and Rebecca Morris, the authors of 'If I Can’t Have You: Susan Powell, Her Mysterious Disappearance, and the Murder of Her Children,' claim that they uncovered evidence proving that John and Susan Powell’s children, 7-year-old Charlie and 5-year-old Braden, were molested while living with their father and paternal grandfather. The boys’ maternal grandparents, Chuck and Judy Cox, first noticed that something was amiss with their grandkids when Charlie and Braden moved into their Utah home in 2011, two years after their mother's disappearance. Inappropriate behavior: Chuck and Judy Cox, (pictured) noticed that their grandsons, Charlie (left) and Braden (right), refused to sleep clothed, telling them their father, Josh Powell, used to sleep naked with them . The book, based on interviews with the couple’s family and friends, claims that one night, the siblings refused to put on their pajamas while getting ready for bed, according to Radar Online. 'Who told you it’s okay to be naked?' Mr Cox asked the boys, to which they allegedly replied, 'Our daddy!' After talking to Charlie, the grandfather learned that he and his brother slept naked in bed with John Powell, who also slept in the nude. One of the brothers later drew a picture for Chuck Cox showing what appears to be a child next to an adult, accompanied by the chilling words, 'Don’t play with me!' The book, which is out in stores today, . suggests that there is also a possibility that Braden was molested by Josh's father, Steve, who was later charged . with voyeurism for taking pictures of young girls who lived next door . to him. When the boys were taken from the custody of their father, Braden was diagnosed with a fungal skin . infection; one way to contract this infection is through sexual contact, the authors said. Charlie and Braden's maternal grandparents also noted that the kids started getting violent with one another. Where is she? Susan Powell, pictured with her sons Braden and Charlie, vanished in 2009 and in the months ahead of her disappearance, her husband might have been poisoning her, friends have said . One night when the two were taking a bath together, Mr Cox walked in on Charlie holding his brother's head underwater. The man later recalled that a few more seconds and the toddler likely would have suffocated. Olson . and Morris' book contains other disturbing allegations surrounding the . Powell family drama, including claims that the father starved Charlie to . the point of malnutrition and possibly poisoned his wife, Susan, before . she vanished in 2009. While . 29-year-old Susan Powell's body has never been found, her husband was . long suspected of having a role in her disappearance. Then in February . 2012, he attacked his sons with a hatchet and blew them - and himself - . up in his Washington state home. Speaking to authors Olsen and Morris for their book, 'If I Can't Have You', the couple's friends have given a terrifying insight into the Powell household. They claim that Josh Powell, who was unemployed, controlled the family's finances - ordering his broker wife only to buy the cheapest groceries and refusing to feed the children three meals a day. 'Susan had to research what was on sale at what store,' Michele Oreno told the authors. 'Then she had to come home and put it into the computer, what she spent on every item. Troubled: Her husband, Josh Powell, pictured, also withheld food from his young sons, friends said . Tragic: He killed himself and his sons in 2012 by striking them with a hatchet and blowing up the house . '[Josh] was . really ticked off because the week before she had spent two cents more . on a can of peas than he found at another store... It got so he wouldn’t . give her money for food or anything.' Susan even called friends to ask if she could sneak hot dogs from them because the boys were so hungry, friends said. Then, when Charlie Powell was a year old, a doctor diagnosed him with malnutrition, the book said. 'He gets one meal a day at day care. That's all he needs,' Josh told Susan, according to friend Rachel Marini. 'You’re not wasting my food on him because he’s just going to poop it out!' Friends added that they started to suspect him of poisoning his wife in October 2009, two months before she vanished. She began to feel nauseous so wondered if she was pregnant before miscarrying, friends said. 'He made a . lot of organic products for her to drink, a lot of thick yogurt stuff . and fermented drinks with kefir,' friend Amber Hardman explained. What did he know? Powell, pictured after his wife vanished, reportedly ordered his wife around in their home . Theories: The new insights were shared by friends in a book out Tuesday, left. It also suggests that one of the sons may have been sexually assaulted by Josh's father Steve, pictured in court, right . Susan's body was never found, although the search still continues. Josh has claimed that his wife was at home when he took his sons, Charlie and Braden, on a winter camping trip in Utah's West Desert. In February 2012, 36-year-old Josh Powell took his two sons into his home from a state supervisor, attacked them with a hatchet and then blew up the family home, killing all three. Police documents from May 2012 reveal that Utah officials believe that Josh killed his wife and that his brother Michael helped dispose of her body. Michael killed himself in February 2013.", "Sarah Tetley, 26, from Melton Mowbray, awoke to her husband Charlie Tetley, now 34, molesting her. She reported him to the police and they confiscated his computer, where they found 300 films of Charlie raping and abusing his wife as she slept . A woman has spoken of her horror at discovering her husband had been secretly raping her while she slept and filming the attacks. Sarah Tetley, from Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, fought through panic attacks and depression to see her now-ex partner Charlie Tetley put behind bars after the terrifying assaults which took place in the bedroom they shared. The 26-year-old is now sharing her story in the hope that it will help other victims of abuse. Sarah thought that she had the fairy-tale marriage when she met Charlie Tetley in a pub when she was 18. Although he was eight years her senior, the couple instantly hit it off and began a relationship. In 2009, they completed their family when Sarah fell pregnant with their daughter, who is now four years old. But gradually, Charlie’s behaviour became more and more controlling and he would tell Sarah where she could be and how to behave with their child. Despite some reservations about his personality, Sarah agreed when her boyfriend proposed, thinking that marriage might iron out the problems in their relationship. So the couple married in 2011 at a local church in front of all of their family and friends. Instead of strengthening their bond, Charlie, now 34 and working in his father's double glazing business, became more distant after the wedding. He refused to let his wife use his computer and would regularly shut himself away in their bedroom in the evening. Scroll down for video . Sarah feared her husband was having an affair behind her back, but the truth was far worse – he had been raping her while she slept at night and recording the assaults. She made the discovery one morning when she woke up to find Charlie attacking her. As well as raping his wife, Charlie would also film himself molesting her with various household objects. She told This Morning: ‘At the time I thought, I'll just pretend I'm still asleep and see what's going on. ‘He stopped pretty quickly and I left the bedroom and went downstairs and sat up watching some rubbish on telly.’ On March 28, 2014, Charlie attended Leicester Crown Court and pleaded guilty to five counts of rape, attempted rape, eight counts of assault by penetration, three of sexual assault and ten of making indecent images of children. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison . After her husband left for work, she fled to her neighbour’s house and told them what was going on. The neighbour convinced Sarah to report her story to the police and officers came over immediately to take more details. Because of the type of the assault, the police confiscated Charlie’s laptop, video recorder and Xbox. While helping officers with their search, Sarah discovered seven external hard drives stashed under a piece of furniture in their bedroom and also handed those over to be examined. After accessing the hard drives and computer, Leicestershire police found shocking images of hardcore pornography. She went with the officers to make an official statement at the local station and the following day they arrested Charlie and charged him with charged with three counts of rape and two counts of assault by penetration. She told The Sun: ‘I was told they had found a bunch of videos showing Charlie raping and abusing me. ‘The officer said they were quite disturbing and that I needed to come to the station for an examination and drug testing because of the nature of the assaults and that I appeared to be unconscious in the videos.’ Sarah had her hair, blood and urine samples tested, but both her blood and urine tests came back from the lab negative and her hair sample was inconclusive. Then a few months later, Sarah was called back to the police station and asked to watch a few of the 300 recordings that Charlie had amassed over the years of him molesting her. The officers asked her to look over the footage ahead of the court case against her husband. She told This Morning that she was horrified by what she saw in the footage. Sarah has decided to speak out in the hope that her story will help other victims of abuse to come forward . She said: ‘A couple of the videos I watched you couldn't hear me be breathing and I didn't really appear to be moving at all. I did look like I was dead in some of them. ‘A lot of the videos weren’t just of him but of household objects and things he would decide to do with those, it was quite disturbing.’ One of the things that shocked her the most was that she had no idea that the abuse had been going on. She told Philp Schofield on the ITV programme she would occasionally wake up with a dead arm but there was nothing that had ever raised her suspicions until the morning that she woke up to find Charlie molesting her. Although the videos, which dated from January 2011 to December 2012, were sickening to watch, they were what the police needed to prove that Charlie was guilty of raping his wife. On March 28, 2014, Charlie attended Leicester Crown Court and pleaded guilty to five counts of rape, attempted rape, eight counts of assault by penetration, three of sexual assault and ten of making indecent images of children. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Since arrest, Sarah has suffered from panic attacks and depression. But over the last few months, she has tried to come to terms with the abuse and move on with her life. She has divorced Charlie and is now in a loving relationship with the neighbour who supported her after the attack and encouraged her to call the police. She has decided to speak out in the hope that her story will help other victims of abuse to come forward. She told This Morning: ‘If in any way you're being abused you should tell someone - even if it's just mentally - whatever kind of abuse it is. ‘And especially if people are secretive. It might be nothing but it might also be something quite big.’ To watch Sarah on This Morning, go to itv.com/thismorning .", "Dressed in her figure-hugging black suit with miniskirt, peep toe black high heels and smiling behind her black wraparound sunglasses, incest matriarch Betty Colt arrived at court with a naughty grin and a 'hello gentleman' for the waiting photographers. Moments earlier the woman whose family is believed to be the most depraved example of inter-family relationships in Australian history, had stepped from a sleek dark grey late model Ford Territory four-wheel drive. Ms Colt was wearing the latest of several stylish outfits, all funded by welfare, to a series of court appearances which ended on Monday, when Magistrate Mary Ryan jailed her for twelve months. Newstart smart: Police officers take Betty Colt iaway in handcuffs following her sentencing at Moss Vale Court in the NSW Southern Highlands. As with every court appearance Ms Colt, who wore a figure-hugging black suit and blue flowered top with peep toe black high heels, has been smartly dressed . Dainty: Despite being handcuffed and loaded off to a Sydney women's prison, Betty Colt manages to maintain her composure and modesty in the back of the NSW Police paddy wagon. She has now sapped her smart black suit for a set of prison greens, with an alternative choice of prison issue maroon or white t-shirts . Conviction: Betty Colt arrived at the Moss Vale Court in the NSW Southern Highland for her conviction dressed in a black pantsuit with a bright yellow shirt, accompanied by daughter Raylene, who was also smartly dressed in a black suit . This goes with that: Betty Colt at Moss Vale court (left) dressed in a black college-style suit with white piping at Moss Vale Court for charges of inciting her son to kidnap his brother, and (right) in a grey suit and fluffy white top with smart grey boots for an appearance in Parramatta Local Court over police demands for family members to give DNA samples . Trim figure: Betty Colt in black court shoes, a yellow patterned top and pantsuits arrives for a court apperance in the NSW Southern Highlands. Police phone transcripts reveal she complained about dwindling welfare payments after five of her 13 children were removed because of incest and neglect . Convicted of inciting her 16-year-old son Bobby to commit a crime, the unemployed mother of 13 children is currently confined to prison greens for at a minimum non-parole period of nine months. Betty Colt - a court appointed pseudonym to protect the identities of children - doesn't look like a woman discovered living with 38 inter-related adults and children in incestuous relationships and in the filth and squalor of a bush block with only tents and caravans and no running water or electricity. At each of her court appearances this at Parramatta and at Moss Vale in the NSW Southern Highlands, Ms Colt has turned up dressed smartly in a succession of crisp grey or black suits, with her glossy hair neatly blow dried or swept up and pinned in place with a pretty hair clip. Mother and daughter: Betty Colt (right) arriving at court this week with her equally well-dressed daughter, Raylene, who wore a yellow, black and white knit skirt with matching yellow top and black jacket. Betty is unemployed and lives on the government Newstart allowance . Complicated: The Colt family tree which shows that matriarch, Betty Colt, has 13 children, five of whom are the product  of a sexual relationship with her father or a brother. Her younger sister, Martha, has five surviving children, all of whom were fathered by her brother Charlie or another relative . Filth and squalor: Police and welfare officers were shocked and appalled with the scenes of filth, squalor and neglect they found children in on the rural property owned by the Colt family. In contrast to the dirty bare feet and low hygeine standards of her children, Betty Colt, has shown to be well-groomed and smartly dressed and drives a late model four-wheel drive car funded by the Australian Government's Newstart allowance . For the first hearing in which she faced conviction, she wore a black  yellow and white flowered top and skipped across the street in her heels. For the next hearing, when she was convicted, she wore a bright yellow shirt and black pantsuit which showed off her trim figure. At her sentencing, Ms Colt chose a sky blue top patterned with pink, grey and white flowers. And it's all done on social security payments. Her lawyer, Phil Carey, revealed that Ms Colt was funded only by a Newstart allowance. While previously she was funded with government payments for each of her 13 children aged under 18 years, court documents reveal that following the removal of five of her children by authorities, Ms Colt found she was struggling financially. A NSW Children's Court judge, Peter Johnstone, revealed that in July 2012, officers from the NSW Child Abuse Squad and the Family and Community Services Department swooped on the squalid rural property where the Colt family lived. The raid had been prompted by a remark, overheard in the schoolyard, by one of the young family members that his sister was having a baby and that the family didn't know which brother had fathered the child. The police and welfare officers were shocked and appalled about what the found on the scrub land block in the hills surrounding a picturesque farming community nestled in a valley southwest of Sydney. Sisters in grey: Betty and sister Rhonda sit on a  bench outside Parrmatta Local Court after family members appeared to respond to Child Abuse Squad demands they give buccal swabs of their saliva for DNA testingso that authorities could determine the complex inter-family relationships between 38 Colt adults and children . Betty Colt's sister and brother Martha and Charlie slept nightly in a 'marital' bed inside a tent on the squalid farm, where open buckets of faeces and urine lay about and where their children - brothers and sisters - had sex with each other. The children had facial deformities, could not speak intelligibly, did not know what a toothbrush or toilet paper were. Unlike well-groomed Betty, the children had filthy, bare feet, did not know how to wash their hair or bathe and slept in dirty beds among cigarette butts and rotting food. From smiles to tears: Betty Colt was all smiles when she arrived at court on Monday for her sentencing, but she wept after being given 12 months and was then bundled into a van and off to prison . Authorities removed 12 inbred, illiterate and malnourished children from the camp, including five of Betty's children, and placed them in care. The charges which led to her incarceration relate to the fact Ms Colt could not cope without her children, in particular her teenage sons Billy, 15, and Bobby, 16, the latter of whom Magistrate Ryan said Ms Colt and a 'overbearing and claustrophobic' relationship. Court files reveal a transcript of unrelenting text messages and phone calls between Betty Colt and Bobby and give an insight into the cloying influence she wreaked upon her son. Magistrate Ryan said Ms Colt's failed bid to kidnap her son from care and return him to the circumstances of neglect and rampant sexual abuse at the hands of relatives from which they were taken into care. She was sentenced at Moss Vale Court this week for devising a plan to get her both teenage sons, out of state care. Ms Colt's welfare payments had started to dwindle after five of her children were removed amid allegations of inter-generational incest and abuse. When she was sentenced in Moss Vale Local Court on Monday, she was on Newstart allowance, the court heard. In the one of the phone calls, she mentions that Centrelink was trying to stop her money. Police prosecutors said the matriarch wanted to take the boys to South Australia where they could work as fruit pickers and give the income to her, which Betty's lawyer denied in court. In phone conversations between Colt and Bobby heard by police, Colt defended police claims she didn't provide for her son. 'They think I didn't educate you enough and I couldn't afford the dentist,' she told  Bobby. 'That's only minor.'", "By . Associated Press . and Lydia Warren . and Snejana Farberov . Investigators found child pornography on Josh Powell's computer at least 17 months before he killed his children and himself, according to FBI documents. The Salt Lake Tribune reported on Saturday that the documents show the FBI was investigating the disappearance of his wife, Susan Powell, as well as possession of child pornography. Anne Bremner, an attorney for Susan Powell's parents, said the family was never told the FBI was investigating Josh Powell for child pornography. If the state of Washington's Department of Social and Health Services had known about the suspected child pornography, it 'never would have let him have those kids,' she said. Police discovered child pornography on Josh Powell's (pictured here in 2010) computer at least 17 months before he killed his children and himself, says FBI documents . When a state worker delivered 7-year-old Charlie and 5-year-old Braden to Josh Powell's rented home in Graham, Washington, on Feb. 5, 2012, Josh Powell locked out the worker and ignited a fire that killed him and his sons. Susan Powell, who was last seen at her West Valley City, Utah, home on Dec. 6, 2009, has never been found. Josh Powell had been previously linked to child pornography, the Tribune reported. At hearings in the state of Washington to determine custody of his children, then-Assistant Washington Attorney General John M. Long said Powell was under investigation for child pornography after cartoon images of incest between mothers and children were found on his computer in late 2009 or early 2010. Josh Powell's two young sons suffered sexual abuse at the hands of their father before he killed them with a hatchet and blew up their Washington state home in 2012, according to a new tell-all book. Gregg Olsen and Rebecca Morris, the authors of 'If I Can’t Have You: Susan Powell, Her Mysterious Disappearance, and the Murder of Her Children,' claim that they uncovered evidence proving that John and Susan Powell’s children, 7-year-old Charlie and 5-year-old Braden, were molested while living with their father and paternal grandfather. The boys’ maternal grandparents, Chuck and Judy Cox, first noticed that something was amiss with their grandkids when Charlie and Braden moved into their Utah home in 2011, two years after their mother's disappearance. Inappropriate behavior: Chuck and Judy Cox, (pictured) noticed that their grandsons, Charlie (left) and Braden (right), refused to sleep clothed, telling them their father, Josh Powell, used to sleep naked with them . The book, based on interviews with the couple’s family and friends, claims that one night, the siblings refused to put on their pajamas while getting ready for bed, according to Radar Online. 'Who told you it’s okay to be naked?' Mr Cox asked the boys, to which they allegedly replied, 'Our daddy!' After talking to Charlie, the grandfather learned that he and his brother slept naked in bed with John Powell, who also slept in the nude. One of the brothers later drew a picture for Chuck Cox showing what appears to be a child next to an adult, accompanied by the chilling words, 'Don’t play with me!' The book, which is out in stores today, . suggests that there is also a possibility that Braden was molested by Josh's father, Steve, who was later charged . with voyeurism for taking pictures of young girls who lived next door . to him. When the boys were taken from the custody of their father, Braden was diagnosed with a fungal skin . infection; one way to contract this infection is through sexual contact, the authors said. Charlie and Braden's maternal grandparents also noted that the kids started getting violent with one another. Where is she? Susan Powell, pictured with her sons Braden and Charlie, vanished in 2009 and in the months ahead of her disappearance, her husband might have been poisoning her, friends have said . One night when the two were taking a bath together, Mr Cox walked in on Charlie holding his brother's head underwater. The man later recalled that a few more seconds and the toddler likely would have suffocated. Olson . and Morris' book contains other disturbing allegations surrounding the . Powell family drama, including claims that the father starved Charlie to . the point of malnutrition and possibly poisoned his wife, Susan, before . she vanished in 2009. While . 29-year-old Susan Powell's body has never been found, her husband was . long suspected of having a role in her disappearance. Then in February . 2012, he attacked his sons with a hatchet and blew them - and himself - . up in his Washington state home. Speaking to authors Olsen and Morris for their book, 'If I Can't Have You', the couple's friends have given a terrifying insight into the Powell household. They claim that Josh Powell, who was unemployed, controlled the family's finances - ordering his broker wife only to buy the cheapest groceries and refusing to feed the children three meals a day. 'Susan had to research what was on sale at what store,' Michele Oreno told the authors. 'Then she had to come home and put it into the computer, what she spent on every item. Troubled: Her husband, Josh Powell, pictured, also withheld food from his young sons, friends said . Tragic: He killed himself and his sons in 2012 by striking them with a hatchet and blowing up the house . '[Josh] was . really ticked off because the week before she had spent two cents more . on a can of peas than he found at another store... It got so he wouldn’t . give her money for food or anything.' Susan even called friends to ask if she could sneak hot dogs from them because the boys were so hungry, friends said. Then, when Charlie Powell was a year old, a doctor diagnosed him with malnutrition, the book said. 'He gets one meal a day at day care. That's all he needs,' Josh told Susan, according to friend Rachel Marini. 'You’re not wasting my food on him because he’s just going to poop it out!' Friends added that they started to suspect him of poisoning his wife in October 2009, two months before she vanished. She began to feel nauseous so wondered if she was pregnant before miscarrying, friends said. 'He made a . lot of organic products for her to drink, a lot of thick yogurt stuff . and fermented drinks with kefir,' friend Amber Hardman explained. What did he know? Powell, pictured after his wife vanished, reportedly ordered his wife around in their home . Theories: The new insights were shared by friends in a book out Tuesday, left. It also suggests that one of the sons may have been sexually assaulted by Josh's father Steve, pictured in court, right . Susan's body was never found, although the search still continues. Josh has claimed that his wife was at home when he took his sons, Charlie and Braden, on a winter camping trip in Utah's West Desert. In February 2012, 36-year-old Josh Powell took his two sons into his home from a state supervisor, attacked them with a hatchet and then blew up the family home, killing all three. Police documents from May 2012 reveal that Utah officials believe that Josh killed his wife and that his brother Michael helped dispose of her body. Michael killed himself in February 2013.", "Newmarket trainer Phil McEntee flies out to California this morning hoping filly Living The Life can make sure he lives the American dream. Europe, buoyed by last year’s success, launches one of its strongest ever numerical challenges for the Breeders’ Cup which gets under way at Santa Anita racecourse tonight. If Living The Life can land Saturday's $1million Filly & Mare Sprint, her success will be credited to US trainer Gary Mandella. But the four-year-old’s success will have its foundations firmly rooted in British All-Weather racing. Living The Life exercises in preparation for the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint, which has $1m prize money . The filly was acquired by Phil McEntee for Hank Nothhaft and is trained by Gary Mandella . She looked a decent but relatively modest performer when acquired for US owner Hank Nothhaft by McEntee to inject some European blood into his North America operation. But before she shipped out to the States she emphatically lifted the £91,000 first prize in the Fillies’ & Mares’ Championships Conditions Stakes at the inaugural All-Weather Finals Day staged on Good Friday at Lingfield. McEntee, whose brother Carl is Nothhaft’s racing manager, said: ‘After we got her she started improving and after her second start for me I told Hank we should qualify her for this race.’ Since being sent across the Atlantic, Living The Life has won both her races, including a Group Two race at Presque Isle Downs. Both of those races were on synthetic surfaces similar to those she raced on in Britain. Tomorrow’s race will be her first on traditional US Dirt but McEntee is hopeful she can overcome that obstacle. McEntee added: ‘She has been at Santa Anita for the last seven weeks. Gary is very pleased with her. She has done a lot of work on the Dirt with her jockey Rafael Bejarano riding her and the vibes are positive. ‘The Filly & Mare Sprint is a funny race. It is over seven furlongs and all Living The Life’s wins in Britain have been over that distance. There are others in it who are six-furlong horses stepping up or milers dropping back.’ Living The Life’s is 10-1 shot and McEntee is hoping the galloping advert will bring him fresh US clients. McEntee revealed they are very positive about Living The Life's condition, saying she has been training well . Europe will be hoping for a bright start to the Breeders’ Cup on Friday night. The challenge for the Juvenile Turf is headed by Charlie Hills-trained Autumn Stakes winner Commemorative but Hugo Palmer has had to withdraw his Solario Stakes winner Aktabantay because the colt has a sore foot. Palmer said: ‘He worked and moved really well this morning and I was growing in confidence about his chances. Unfortunately, that confidence did not last long as he was found to have a sore foot when he returned back to the barn and I had to make the decision to scratch him.’ Aktabantay’s absence has created a slot in the line-up for Brian Meehan-trained Faithful Creek, who had been on stand-by as first reserve. He will be ridden by Kieren Fallon. Aidan O’Brien’s Qualify has the form to go close in the Juvenile Fillies’ Turf but from wide stall will need an inspired Ryan Moore ride to succeed. Richard Hannon’s Osaila (Frankie Dettori) is better placed in stall two. The organisers of the All Weather Championships could not wish for a better advert than Living the Life. It was day one of the second year of the programme at Lingfield yesterday when Charlie Appleby’s Tearless (Adam Kirby) landed the Listed Fleur De Lys Fillies’ Stakes, a Fast Track Qualifier to Good Friday Finals day. Innovations this year are qualifying races in Dubai, France and Ireland and a new three-year-old sprint category. Trainer Roger Varian landed his fifth Group One race of the season when Vert De Grece landed the Criterium International at Saint-Cloud under jockey Umberto Rispoli.", "By . Ryan Lipman . PUBLISHED: . 20:04 EST, 10 March 2014 . | . UPDATED: . 07:02 EST, 11 March 2014 . Hair of the dog has been long touted as a cure for blistering hangovers, but for one very lucky puppy the headache was well worth it after a two-day vodka binge saved his life. Maltese terrier Charlie was just hours from certain death after licking coolant, a very sweet product often used in radiator and brake fluids, off a garage floor near Melbourne, Australia. But thanks to a quick-thinking vet at Animal Accident and Emergency hospital, it was recognised that the puppy had ethylene glycol poisoning. If untreated, the poisoning can cause kidney failure and death within a day. Scroll down for video . Life saving: After it was confirmed Charlie the Maltese terrier had ethylene glycol poisoning, vodka was used to to counteract the effects and save his life . The solution was to get the dog drunk over 48 hours using a bottle of vodka for successive doses to counteract the poising. As part of the life saving procedure, 700ml of vodka was fed intravenously into Charlie through a tube in his nose through to his stomach. The alcohol is able to change the chemical reaction, stop kidney failure and ultimately death. The Herald Sun reported Charlie's owner Jacinta Roseware said she was surprised by the effects the procedure had on her pet. 'He was definitely drunk,' she said. 'He was stumbling around, I’d go to pat him and he’d push me away like a normal drunk person, he was vomiting a little, whining like a drunk.' Lucky! After the two-day procedure Charlie made a full recovery to return to full health . Love: Charlie pictured with his owner Jacinta Roseware after the ordeal, which nearly cost the puppy his life . 'I thought it was hilarious ... It was distressing but funny at the same time.' But just as it does in humans, Ms Roseware suspects the puppy struggled with an almighty hangover the following day. 'He just slept and slept and slept,' she said. 'I tried to take him for a walk ... but he just sat down after 50 metres ... I had to pick him up and carry him home.' Hangover: Ms Roseware said Charlie was not his usual self while dealing with the effects of a massive hangover . In an Animal Accident and Emergency blog, a post confirmed Charlie was feeling the effects of being drunk during treatment in the hospital's intensive care unit. 'In fact for the whole weekend, Charlie had a huge party with us in the Pet ICU,' the post said. 'The vodka sedated Charlie and while undergoing therapy, we needed to monitor Charlie.' The hospital treats two to three cases of ethylene glycol a year, with vodka the easiest form of treatment. Happy ending: The animal hospital where Charlie was treated said they treat up to three ethylene glycol poisoning a year .", "A half-brother to 2010 King George winner Harbinger, sired by Galileo, topped the Tattersalls Book One sale when sold to a bid of 2.6million guineas (£2.73m) from Coolmore Stud supremo John Magnier on Thursday, . More than 79m guineas (£82.95m), a new record, was spent over the three-day auction in Newmarket, 17m-plus guineas by Sheik Mohammed's bloodstock adviser John Ferguson. A half-brother to 2010 King George winner Harbinger, sired by Galileo, topped the Tattersalls Book One sale . After an extremely slow start, when he was even available for the minimum bid of 5,000 guineas, the Ashbrittle Stud-consigned youngster eventually reached an incredible 2.6million guineas when the hammer went down to Magnier after a battle with John Warren. 'When the bidding opened at 5,000 guineas, I just wanted the ground to open up,' said Ginny Whales, who led up and had looked after the colt at Ashbrittle. 'When it stuck again at 60,000, I thought the boss was bound to sack me - how could we have got it so wrong! I am just delighted and amazed at the price.' The colt is reported to be the world's most expensive yearling sold this year. Lot 245, a Dubawi colt sells for 1.6m guineas during the Tattersalls sales in Newmarket on Thursday . John Ferguson, bloodstock adviser to Sheikh Mohammed, had made three six-figure signings on Wednesday and he beat Al Shaqab Racing to Lot 398. 'He came to us in July and was always a stunning, straightforward colt, always easy to deal with and always oozed class,' said Charlie Vigors of consigners Hillwood Stud. 'It is easily our biggest sale and it is a fantastic feeling.' The day started off briskly when James Delahooke spent 1.25million on a Galileo three-quarters sister to Derby winner Pour Moi. 'She was my pick of the sale,' Delahooke told Tattersalls' website. 'I tried very hard to buy a filly by Bernardini filly earlier this summer, but was beaten by John Ferguson. 'This is the nicest filly I have seen since - she ticks all the boxes, she is gorgeous. She is for Bobby Flay and will probably race in Europe.'", "By . Daily Mail Reporter . PUBLISHED: . 13:32 EST, 8 November 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 20:41 EST, 8 November 2013 . Brooke Mueller's brother Scott has been awarded temporary guardianship of Charlie Sheen's twin sons Bob and Max. The news came after Denise Richards felt compelled to give up her guardianship of the four-year-old boys due to their 'violent behaviour' towards her daughters and pet dogs. According to TMZ, the Department of Children And Family Services signed off in court on Scott becoming a guardian and he will take charge of the children on Friday night. They are also now investigating allegations that someone hurt Bob in regards to a deep cut on his back. Keeping it in the family: Brooke Mueller's brother Scott has been awarded temporary guardianship of Charlie Sheen's twins . But in another twist to the increasingly complex family saga, Scott and the children will reportedly be 'moving in' with Brooke. Sources connected with the case told TMZ that the judge who granted the guardianship felt it was important for Bob and Max to stay in the same school. And with Scott residing in a 'far away' beachside community, 'the judge ruled he could move in with Brooke,' which would effectively give her custody. However, as the website reports, the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services has not yet given Brooke full custody rights, feeling the children should be 'reintroduced gradually,' following her drug problems. Blame game: Brooke is allegedly pointing the finger at Denise Richards for a cut on Bob's back . Brooke had apparently been set to regain full custody of the boys by Christmas. But now, Scott is allegedly set to be moving in to the house once purchased for Brooke by Sheen in his own gated community. TMZ is also reporting that DCFS have opened an investigation into allegations over Bob's injury, which allegedly happened on Denise Richards' watch and Brooke is blaming the Drop Dead Gorgeous star for the cut, that was deep enough to scab over. Social workers went to Bob's school and determined it had been there for more than a week, which means it could have happened while Bob was under Brooke's care, reported TMZ. DCFS then interviewed Denise, who said the cut had been there for more than a week. Taking charge: Brooke's brother Scott Mueller has been awarded temporary guardianship of twins Bob and Max . Scott has also requested '$55,000 in child support' from Sheen claim Radar. 'Scott . has formally notified Charlie Sheen’s lawyer he wants $55,000 in child . support because he has been appointed Bob and Max‘s temporary guardian,' a source close to the situation told the website. 'He . expects to be paid, immediately, even though Charlie already pays for . all of the boys expenses including their pre-school, doctors visits, . etc. During the time that Denise Richards was their guardian, she didn’t . ask Charlie for one dime in child support, she actually turned it . down.' The website reports that Brooke's . child support payments were recently cut in half due to her not being . 'their primary caregiver.' However, she will again be awarded the full $55,000 when she takes on full custody. Still angry: Charlie Sheen leaving court on Wednesday after he was ordered to stay 200 yards away from Brooke . According to TMZ, this is what Charlie has been telling friends about his troubled ex and her family: . 'This pig circus overflowing with buffoons, sycophants and heretics cannot be trusted to safely raise a colony of ferrets.' 'Brooke will fail and her brother [who lives by the beach] will be selling his ass under a pier and the evil nanny will die from ugly.' 'When, not if, this psychotic and desperately irresponsible sham goes sideways, DCFS will burn to the ground, topped off with the smoldering robe of the judge.' Denise, . 42, has been watching the boys as a favour to her ex-husband Charlie, 48 . - who she divorced in 2006 - after Brooke, 36, went into rehab for the . 21st time earlier this year. But this week the former Bond girl wrote to the Los Angeles County . Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) to inform them that . she can no longer look after the boys because of their violent . outbursts, according to TMZ. In a letter, the actress detailed how the twins . tried to strangle her own daughters Sam, nine; Lola, eight; and Eloise, two. She also . complained the twins relieved themselves in their maid's bathtub and . also tortured her dogs. On Wednesday, a judge put a restraining order on Charlie, asking him to not . go within 200 yards of his ex-wife Brooke, from whom he split in 2011. He . replied with a 'thank you'. Getaway: Denise Richards was seen arriving and leaving Charlie's home in her Mercedes on Thursday . Heading home: Denise was on her own as she left her ex-husband's Beverly Hills home . What's going on here?: This image is said to show Brooke Mueller arriving at Charlie's home after the meeting . According to RadarOnline, . Brooke would regain full custody of the boys by Christmas, after . impressing the Los Angeles County Department of Child and Family . Services with her commitment to getting sober and turning her life . around. A source told the . website: 'Brooke will be awarded custody of the boys by Christmas, as . long as she doesn’t relapse. She has been sober for several months. She . hasn’t had one dirty test. Harmony: Brooke and Charlie in 2009 on the red carpet at the Emmys . 'She . has done everything that has been asked of her by DCFS, so at this . point, there is absolutely no reason for Brooke not to get her boys . back.' On Monday, Brooke attempted to have . her lawyers remove Denise as guardian of the boys but that wasn't accepted. There have been conflicting reports . regarding the state of relations between the two women, with Brooke . accused of  'lashing out' at Richards during an emergency meeting over . the . custody of her twins on Thursday, it was claimed. Concerned . about Max and Bob, the . Los Angeles Department of Children & Family Services were reported to have brought her and the actor's second wife together to discuss the twins' future. But . Brooke is said to have . found the pressure of the meeting too much, becoming 'extremely . combative' and having a 'temper tantrum' directed at Richards during the . meeting, according to RadarOnline. A . source revealed to the site: 'Brooke was extremely combative and lashed . out at Denise. It came out of nowhere and was extremely inappropriate. It was probably the first time DCFS saw cracks in Brooke’s previously . cool demeanour. 'Brooke was having a temper tantrum because she felt Denise was making her look like a bad mother.' Another source had told Radar: 'The . meeting has been called in hopes of convincing Denise to keep the boys . for at least another three weeks until Brooke is scheduled to get them . back.' However, TMZ reported a different version of events - claiming that Brooke and Denise were 'cordial' with each other and are close to calling a truce. Whatever . happened inside the meeting, Brooke looked in good spirits and was seen . smiling as she left the face-to-face in a chauffeured . black Cadillac Escalade on Thursday. Keeping a schedule: Denise taking her daughters Sam, aged nine, and Lola, aged eight, to school on Wednesday . Denise . was apparently seen arriving and leaving Sheen's home in a car on . Thursday while Brooke was also spotted driving up to the house, it has . been claimed. This comes after Charlie posted a photo of a cake decorated with a grenade, which he said was made for the troubled socialite. The news of Scott Mueller being awarded custody comes just days after photographs emerged of Bob with severe bruising to his head. The shocking images show injuries on Bob's face, which it has been alleged in a document submitted to an LA court were sustained while the boy was in the care of his mother Brooke or his grandmother Moira Fiore. In one zoomed-in image, . reportedly taken by Denise, Bob returned from a weekend with Mueller and . Fiore on July 26, with a noticeable raw skin sore near the red . mark. When things were calmer: Charlie's ex wives in Malibu in 2012 with their children . The images have now been presented to the LA Department of Children and Family Services by Sheen's legal team. Sore: Bob's pictures, have allegedly been presented to LA Department of Children and Family Services by Sheen's legal team . Sources told . TMZ Charlie believed it was a burn, although Brooke insisted he had it . before he arrived at her home. An enraged Charlie said: 'These crimes against my children will be exposed. These . war criminals will be hanged at dusk to a cheering and jeering crowd, . gathered together in love in support of all children who are mercilessly . discarded like garbage by CPS. Which by the way stands for 'CAN'T . PROTECT S****.' He even quoted . his actor father Martin Sheen's famous film Apocalypse Now to describe the current . situation, whilst violating his gag order. Charlie allegedly told TMZ: 'I am beyond their timid lying morality, therefore I am beyond caring. 'What . my family and I are forced to deal with in the last four years, lives . outside the pale of any acceptable conduct or decency. 'I am battling an . amorphous enemy that needs to be swiftly disempowered.' Charlie also branded Brooke a ‘chubby weirdo’ following her failed . attempt to secure a restraining order against him in court on Monday. He . wrote on Twitter: ‘Oh, by the way, nice try this morning Brooke. You . are a chubby weirdo who will lose at every turn trying to get between me . and my boys (sic).’ According to TMZ, the petition claims Charlie said: ‘There will be a reckoning. There will be a whirlwind. That they will all reap while desperate begging for my forgiveness. You've all been warned. ‘I will exercise every resource at my . disposal. I will, I will, I will, I will empty my entire war chest and . if I can't get it done, I know a guy who can.’ She's changed: Brooke in February before her 21st visit to rehab (left) and sober in September (right)", "Washington (CNN) -- Police arrested Indianapolis Colts safety Joe Lefeged early Saturday after allegedly finding his semiautomatic pistol poking out from under the passenger seat of the white Camaro he'd been in, police said. The Chevrolet sports car got police's attention shortly after midnight because it was being driven erratically, Metropolitan Police Department spokesman Araz Alali told CNN. According to charging papers filed in D.C. Superior Court, police spotted one of its passengers standing up in the backseat of the convertible. On the street, plainclothes officers repeatedly asked the Camaro's driver to put the car in the park. Instead, according to the charging papers, he put his foot on the gas and sped away. Four officers eventually found the Camaro, its still unidentified driver having fled on foot. They also saw one man, later identified as Lefeged, running in one direction and the man who'd been standing up in the Camaro, later identified as 23-year-old Aaron Timothy Wilson, going another way. Both men were arrested, about four miles east of the Capitol, without incident, according to Alali. Lefeged's public defender, Martina King, gave a different take, saying her client was sitting in the Camaro's passenger seat, not on foot, when he was arrested. Police at the scene searching the vehicle found a clear bottle in the center console that smelled of alcohol and a black H&K .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol \"in plain view sticking out from underneath the front passenger seat.\" Investigators determined that Lefeged paid $900 for the gun, which he took possession of in late May, according to the charging papers. King, the public defender, contended the gun in question is registered to Lefeged and, since it was under his seat, was out of his reach. But Judge Anne O'Regan Keary disagreed, saying that the firearm was in Lefeged's reach if it was under his seat. Keary ruled that there was probable cause to continue detaining him at least until his next hearing Tuesday morning. According to Alali, Lefeged and Wilson were both arrested on suspicion of carrying a firearm without a license, having an unregistered firearm, having unregistered ammunition, presence of a firearm in a motor vehicle and possession of an open container of alcohol. For the time being, at least, Lefeged is facing only two charges: presence of a firearm in a motor vehicle and possession of an unregistered firearm. The 25-year-old Colts defensive back did not enter a plea during his initial court appearance in D.C. Superior Court on Saturday. Washington has some of the strictest gun-control measures in the country. According to the district's law, \"no person shall carry within the District of Columbia either openly or concealed on or about their person, a pistol, or any deadly or dangerous weapon capable of being so concealed.\" That said, a firearm is permitted in the district if it is held in the registrant's home or workplace, is being used for \"lawful recreational purposes\" or \"is being transported for a lawful purpose.\" Firearms registered elsewhere still must be registered in the District of Columbia. The Colts issued a statement Saturday after Lefeged's arrest, saying little more than they were \"aware of the reports\" and will not comment further until they get additional information. Lefeged has played in every game of his two-year professional football career, including four starts last season for the Colts. His arrest comes a few days after another NFL standout, former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, was charged with murder and several gun-related offenses in the death of 27-year-old Odin Lloyd. CNN's Larry Lazo and Vito Maggiolo contributed to this report.", "Gerard Phillip Caleo, the general manager of the Hard Rock Cafe at Phuket resort in Thailand, has appeared in a Sydney court charged with the stabbing murder of his sister-in-law Rita Caleo in  1990, when he was just 18 years old. Ms Caleo was stabbed to death in the ensuite bathroom of her Double Bay home, in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs, in the early hours of August 10, 1990, while her four-year-old son and infant daughter were sleeping in an adjacent bedroom. The children's nanny found the body of Ms Caleo, who was well known in business circles in Sydney, after being woken by noises. Scroll down for video . Stabbed while her children slept: Rita Caleo (above) was a successful businesswomen and married mother-of-two when she was brutally stabbed to death in her home ,in Sydney's exclusive Double Bay, as her two young children slept nearby. She was murdered just ten months after her brother, wealthy doctor, Michael Chye was show dead in his Mercedes Benz . Arrested: Gerard Caleo, 42, is accompanied by NSW Police through Sydney Airport after they arrested him when he flew in on August 15 from Malaysia. Caleo appeared in a Sydney court on Tuesday charged with the murder 24 years ago of his sister-in-law when he was an 18-year-old . Still a mystery: Rita Caleo was murdered just ten months after the gangland-style killing of her brother, Dr Michael Chye (pictured) despite an inquest and extensive investigations, police had no luck until the breakthrough in August, when they made an arrest for the Rota Caleo murder . The 39-year-old was murdered ten months after her millionaire brother, Dr Michael Chye,was gunned down on October 16, 1989 as he sat in his Mercedes Benz in the garage of his Woollahra home, another affluent suburb in Sydney's east. Gerard Caleo, 42, appeared in Central Local Court in Sydney charged with the murder of Ms Caleo, whose husband, Mark Caleo, was working at his Italian restaurants in Sydney at the time of the murder. NSW Homicide Squad detectives arrested Gerard Caleo on August 15 this year, after he flew into Sydney Airport from Kuala Lumpur. Flown in: Gerard Caleo flies in to Sydney Airport on August 15, when he is arrested (pictured) and taken into custody over the murder of his sister-in-law Rita Caleo, who was stabbed to death at her Sydney home while her children slept in the next door bedroom in August 1990 . Top job: Gerard Caleo was the general manager of Hard Rock Cafe in Phuket (pictured), a popular venue located at Patong Beach in the Thai resort which fostered the local music scene. Caleo is the brother of onetime Sydney restaurateur, Mark Caleo, whose Malaysian-born wife Gerard is now accused of murdering . Caleo was charged with solicitation to commit murder, accessory before the fact to murder and accessory after the fact to murder, and remanded in custody. Detectives investigating the murders during the 1990s had several leads on who might want to kill the victims, who were the children of a senior Malaysian police officer and whose deaths attracted considerable media coverage there and in Australia. Dr Chye's 1991 inquest heard that he had given evidence to the Hong Kong Independent Commission Against Corruption about a multi- million dollar bank fraud. Cold cases: The mystery of the two murders ten months apart of wealthy Sydney doctor Michael Chye (above, left) and his sister, Rita, has frustrated detectives for more than two decades, but now Rita's brother-in-law Gerard Caleo (pictured, right) has been arrested and charged with her stabbing death . The inquest was also told about a property dispute between Dr Chye, his sister and her husband over a $3.6 million house in southern Sydney. Ms Caleo's inquest was told that in the months leading up to her death, Ms Caleo had feared she might be killed and had given her solicitor a sealed envelope, on which she had written, 'to be opened only if my death is unnatural'. Following her murder, police read a note in which she listed the names of two people she said had organised the execution-style murder of her brother. Slotted: Handcuffed and under arrest, former Hard Rock Cafe general manager, Gerard Caleo, is put into a police van and taken into custody after jetting into Sydney Airport from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia . However, the NSW coroner, Kevin Waller, said that the evidence presented by the letter failed to establish a prima facie case against any known person. The NSW Police Force’s Unsolved Homicide squad began re-examining the murders in 2008. Gerard Caleo appeared in court on Tuesday charged with murder and was remanded in custody. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.", "By . Ashley Collman and Meghan Keneally . PUBLISHED: . 14:35 EST, 18 November 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 12:51 EST, 19 November 2013 . The married couple found dead at their Massachusetts home along with their twin boys have been named as Scott Jones and Mei Kum Jones, both 43, and relatives have said that they were in the middle of a 'nasty divorce'. The couple, who lived on a quiet street in Arlington with their sons, Colt and Cameron- who would have celebrated their first birthday on November 26th- were discovered on Monday afternoon and police sources said they appear to have been killed with 'some kind of cutting tool.' The Arlington Chief of Police added that there is no risk to the public safety and that police aren't looking for a suspect. They were called to the scene by another tenant in the building who requested a well-being check. It has now been revealed that police had previously been called to the home on two different occasions before the twins were born last year. Mei Kum Jones and her twin sons Colt and Cameron (pictured) were found dead at home along with her husband and the boys father Scott Jones today in Arlington, Massachusetts . In the summer of 2010, they were called to the Arlington home after Scott Jones threatened to kill himself. The Boston Herald reports that the reason for the second call has not been revealed. The Middlesex District Attorney told The Boston Globe that the deaths were 'very troubling, very tragic situation,' but they would not reveal any further details about the crime scene except to say that the family died violently. Neighbors described Mrs Jones as attentive to her children while Mr Jones has been portrayed as obsessed with home improvement projects, as some people saw him pull up flowers that he had just planted before replacing them all over again. 'There were signs of trouble,' said Clare MacFarlane, whose mother is the Jones' next door neighbor. 'He’s just busy — busy, busy, busy, busy. Always fixing something, doing something, digging. He was always working on the house. 'I’m horrified. I’m horrified. Those poor babies.' Investigation: Police dress in booties to enter the crime scene where the bodies of two adults and two young children were found this afternoon in Arlington, Massachusetts . Unidentified: The district attorney still hasn't identified the bodies, as they wait to contact the deceased's next of kin . No suspect: In a press conference this afternoon, the chief of police said that they are currently not looking for a suspect in the case and that neighbors need not worry about public safety . She also told The Herald that Mr Jones had a son and daughter, ages 10 and 12 respectively, from an earlier marriage. Mrs Jones' own brother old local station WBZ-TV that the couple was in the process of splitting up. 'I think he just moved out a couple of days ago, and I think she's going through the motion of the divorce,' Ben Li said. 'Arlington victim's brother tells me his sister was great person, loving mom. He is horrified at what's happened,' Kate Merrill tweeted. She had been previously married for four years from 2000 to 2004 and her ex husband, who has not been named, spoke to The Globe about how he was shocked at the news. 'She was a very sweet, wonderful person. I can't imagine anyone wanting to do her any harm,' the man told the paper. Mrs Jones worked at a travel and education not-for-profit organization called Road Scholar and graduated from Bentley University which is near Arlington. Tragedy in the suburbs: The bodies were found in Arlington, Massachusetts, a suburb about twenty minutes northwest of Boston . 'Mei was a valued member of our team, and her loss is deeply felt by all of us,' Road Scholar said in a statement. 'As we grieve together, we can only imagine the impossible loss Mei’s family must bear, and our deepest sympathies are with them.' The bodies were found at 45 Newland Road in Arlington, off Summer Street near Peirce Elementary School. Neighbors said that they didn't hear any gunshots last night. A neighbor told WHDH that a couple lived in the bottom apartment where the bodies were found, and that they had twin boys under a year old. The neighbor said that the woman had purchased the condo about five years ago before getting married to her husband three years ago. The tenants of the upper apartments were seen speaking with police outside the house before putting their own small child in their Subaru and driving off. The woman was clearly upset and being consoled by her husband. In the same building: Tenants of the other condo in the building where four bodies were found leave their home this afternoon . So close: According to other neighbors on the street, the couple pictured lived on the upper floor of the building while another couple lived on the bottom floor where the four bodies were found . Out of there: The couple were seen packing up their belongings and speaking with police before leaving the crime scene . Neighbor John Belli was out raking leaves when his daughter came running home, afraid something had happened to him. The police had blocked off traffic on the street four or five houses up from his. He told Boston.com that there was a marked car at the end of one street and an unmarked car at the other and that helicopters were flying above. Mr Belli has lived on the street for 47 years and describes the neighborhood as nice, quiet and kid-friendly. 'I used to leave the doors open, but not anymore,' Mr Belli said. Amy . Iannelli, a 74-year-old retired cleaning lady lives just a few houses . away from the crime scene and doesn't remember police being called to . the house before. 'I am heartsick to think that kids...' she started. 'It's heartbreaking.' 'It's a great neighborhood,' she added. Four bodies: Two adults and two children were found dead today in an Arlington, Massachusetts home . Under investigation: The four deaths are currently under investigation. None of the bodies have been publicly identified .", "Trainer Roger Varian insists he has not lost faith in Belardo after the 2014 Dewhurst Stakes winner beat only one home in Saturday’s Greenham Stakes. But Varian’s determination to keep the son of Lope De Vega away from the fast ground he encountered at Newbury means the colt looks more likely to head to the French 2,000 Guineas rather than the British equivalent at Newmarket on May 2. Andrea Atzeni riding Belardo to win The Dubai Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket racecourse . Varian, who has an interesting Derby trial contender in Newbury maiden winner Intilaaq, said: ‘James (Doyle) looked after him and we will protect him from fast ground in future. His work in the build-up to the race had been excellent.’ Varian had plenty of practise of planning such a programme last year when keeping his currently sidelined St Leger winner Kingston Hill away from quick ground. Atzeni riding Kingston Hill to win The Ladbrokes St Leger Stakes at Doncaster racecourse . A trip to France for Belardo could mean a re-match with Greenham Stakes winner Muhaarar. Trainer Charlie Hills said the French Guineas was an option for his colt. Clive Cox is ‘pretty certain’ Dewhurst Stakes runner-up Kodi Bear will miss the 2,000 Guineas after picking up an injury. But Richard Hannon says Tiggy Wiggy is likely to take her place in the 1,000 Guineas on May 3 despite her disappointing third to Ralph Beckett’s Redstart in the Fred Darling Stakes, an effort that prompted some bookies to remove her from ante-post lists. Hannon ‘s Greenham Stakes second and third, Estidhkaar and Ivawood, also remain on course for the 2,000 Guineas where they could meet his Craven Stakes winner Kool Kompany. Hannon also has Craven Stakes third Moheet in the Guineas. Frankie Dettori will have to choose whether to ride him or John Quinn’s The Wow Signal. Both are owned by Sheik Joaan Al Thani. Tiggy Wiggy ridden by Richard Hughes wins the Pinsent Masons Lowther Stakes at York racecourse . The Wow Signal ridden by Frankie Dettori breaks away to win the Coventry Stakes at Ascot Racecourse . Hughes riding Ivawood in the Middle Park Stakes during The Future Champions Day at Newmarket .", "It was far from a typical wedding and even farther from what Kristi Warriner envisioned her big day would be like. But according to the Texas bride and mom, it was even better. They married in the neonatal intensive care unit so their son, which was born 15 weeks early, could be the ring-bearer. Warriner and her fiance, Justin Nelson, lost one of their twins when she went into labor 15 weeks early at Fort Worth hospital on September 2, according to The Star-Telegram. Their surviving son, J.J., was 'touch and go' for weeks, weighing less than two pounds at birth. Best day: Kristi Warriner and Justin Nelson look at their son, J.J. after they were married in the Cook Children's Medical Center NICU in Fort Worth on Tuesday . Happily married: The couple, along with eight-year-old daughter Carissa and little J.J., celebrate after the ceremony, which was planned with the help of hospital staff . But J.J. now weighs 6 pounds, 8 ounces and appears to be improving each day. Knowing the couple wanted to wed but had been too busy caring for their preemie son for the last two months, the staff Cook Children’s staff helped arrange the couple a wedding ceremony at the hospital. Local businesses donated the bride’s wedding gown and flowers. One of family’s friends lent the outfit for tiny ring-bearer J.J. to wear. 'It’s not what you dream of as a little girl - it’s even better,' Mrs Nelson told The Star-Telegram after the nuptials. 'I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect wedding.' Of great importance to the bride and groom was representing the son they lost at the ceremony, who they named Colt. In Colt's place was a Dallas Cowboys teddy bear that they sat next to J.J. Little fighter: J.J. Nelson is getting stronger each day. His parents put this teddy bear in next to him as a representation of J.J.'s twin brother, who they named Colt but who died in premature labor . 'We thank God every day for J.J. getting better and stronger,' Mrs Nelson said. 'Our biggest mission with all this was to help others know they are not alone. 'I hope we’ve touched somebody’s life and let them know there is hope after tragedy.' The family and doctors at Cook Children's hope J.J. will be allowed home around Christmas.", "An eight-year-old girl from Australia is well on her way to building a successful business empire after it was revealed that her playful videos, featuring her easy-to-follow confectionery recipes, are bringing in around $127,000 a month in ad revenue alone. The mini-Martha Stewart, who is known simply as Charli, has turned her popular channel, CharlisCraftyKitchen into YouTube's largest food channel in less than three years - beating household names such as celebrity chef Jamie Oliver to claim the prestigious – and lucrative – title. According to data compiled by online video advertising company Outrigger Media, Charli's channel earned the young entrepreneur an estimated $127,777 (AUD $163,893) in March alone – and that is after YouTube's share of the profits. Scroll down for video . Mini-Martha: Charli, an eight-year-old from Australia (pictured), makes an estimated $127,000 (AUD $162,472) per month from the ad revenue generated from her popular YouTube channel CharlisCraftyKitchen . In comparison, Mr Oliver only earned an estimated $32,261 (AUD $41,347) in ad revenue from his channel's 6.9 million views last month. Meanwhile, Charli and her five-year-old sister Ashlee, who serves as the channel's 'chief taste tester', are raking in an average of 29 million views per month for their crafty how-to videos. CharlisCraftyKitchen, which features child friendly tutorials for making everything from Minnie Mouse pops out of Oreos to princess teacup cookies, also has more than 320,000 subscribers who eagerly await their weekly posts. The tutorials even have their own short opening credits featuring Charli and Ashlee's cartoon likenesses, with one of the girl's singing: 'Welcome to Charli's Crafty Kitchen where you can eat what you make'. Big numbers: Charli and her five-year-old sister Ashlee's how to video on making Frozen-inspired ice pops has earned 57 million views since it was posted last July . Being silly: The sisters made a mess while eating their 'shark' Jello cups . Many of clips are inspired by the holidays, with a demonstration on how to make a Kit Kat Christmas cake receiving more than two million views since it was posted in December. One particular video featuring a simple recipe for 'rainbow' donuts has been watched more than 6.5 million times after it was shared in 2014. But that's nothing. A video which sees the dynamic duo creating Jello 'tip' ice pops inspired-by the hit Disney film Frozen has amassed an incredible 57 million views since it was posted last June. Charli earned another million views after she advertised the clip on her Facebook page yesterday, writing: '56 million YouTube views must mean these ‪#‎Frozen inspired popsicles are REALLY tasty! [sic]' Disney kids: Charli and Ashlee used icing and M&M's to make Cinderella brownie jar treats . 'My [two]-year-old loves watching this video and we make them all the time. They are a huge hit in our household. Thank you,' one mom commented, while another joked: 'My five-year-old might account for a few hundred of [the views].' Charli started CharlisCraftyKitchen in 2012 when she was only six-years-old according to her channel's description, which notes that she 'has always been passionate about her craft and being in front of a camera'. But Chali isn't the only kid making big money off of beloved YouTube videos. Mark and Rhea, the parents behind the popular YouTube channel Hulyan Maya, are expected to earn $1.5 million dollars from ad revenue in 2015 alone from their videos of their three children playing with toys. Looks good: Charli can be seen putting the final touches on a Minnie Mouse pop made out an Oreo cookie . Made with love: The girls end every video by trying their delicious treats .", "The jihadist brothers behind the Charlie Hebdo massacre, Cherif and Said Kouachi, experienced the trauma of finding their mother’s body after she’d committed suicide when they were 10 and 12 years old, according to a children’s worker. In the 1990s volunteer Evelyne worked with deprived children in the area of Paris that the brothers lived in and often involved them in activities. She said she adored both boys. On one occasion she took them to Eurodisney and described how Cherif, the younger of the two, was spell-bound by Mickey Mouse. Scroll down for video . The jihadist brothers behind the Charlie Hebdo massacre, Cherif and Said Kouachi (left and right), experienced the trauma of finding their mother’s body after she’d committed suicide when they were 10 and 12 . She revealed that Said was more reserved and prone to crying. Cherif was naughtier and occasionally ‘turbulent’, she told eco website Reporterre, according to The Independent. And Said tended to take his lead, despite being older. Despite Cherif’s troublesome side, Evelyne grew enormously fond of him. She said: ‘I adored that child. You only had to sweet talk him and take him in your arms and he would calm down. I found him quite touching – under the spell of Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters, like all children.’ The brothers, who were inseparable, found their mother, who was pregnant at the time with a sixth child, dead in their flat when they came home from school for lunch one day. Evelyne added: ‘A few months after the trip to Eurodisney Cherif came back from school, accompanied, as ever, by his older brother. They found their mother lying dead in the centre of the flat. Dead from what cause? She had taken too many pills. Most people assumed it was suicide.’ The two brothers were filmed by eyewitnesses in a Paris street after they'd slaughtered several members of the Charlie Hebdo editorial team in cold blood . Both brothers behind the Charlie Hebdo massacre have been buried in unmarked graves. Cherif Kouachi was interred just before midnight in a cemetery in Gennevilliers, a suburb in north west Paris, a day after his older brother Said was buried in the northeastern city of Reims. Cherif's family, including his widow, kept away from the funeral and the grave was left anonymous to avoid it becoming a 'pilgrimage site' for Islamists. The mayor of Gennevilliers, where the younger Kouachi brother lived had not wanted the funeral to go ahead, but said he had no legal means to block it. Chérif Kouachi’s widow had asked for both brothers to be buried in the cemetery at Gennevilliers, but the local mayor Patrice Leclerc blocked the request since Saïd, the older brother, was not a resident of the area. He added: 'I don't want a grave that serves to attract fanatics. I don't want a place that promotes hate. 'He was buried last night, in the most discrete, anonymous way possible.' But speaking on BFMTV, Mr Robinet said he was forced to allow the burial by the government, which enforced a French law that grants a right to be buried in the town of last residence. There are no current plans to bury Amedy Coulibaly, who killed five people - including four hostages at a kosher market in Paris - before he was killed by police on January 9. Two years later, in 1994, the brothers were sent to an orphanage in Correze with a their younger brother and older sister. While there Cherif developed into a promising footballer and Said was remembered as being ‘civilised and respectful’, according to a former classmate, ‘Cedric’. He told website Modiapart and Swiss newspaper Le Matin: ‘The Kouachi brothers were \"respected\", because they could \"handle themselves\".Cherif was very good with his fists but, above all, he was a bit of a lad. He was a fan of [the comedian and actor] Djamel Debbouze and football... He was funny and regarded himself as a good looker. He was a fantastic dancer at 15 and played football as easily as he breathed. He could have made a career of it.’ But he added that the school was very violent, with some teachers plainly scared of the children. He remains convinced that the Charlie Hebdo massacre, which saw several members of the magazine murdered, along with two policeman – and the brothers die in a shootout with police at the ages of 32 and 34 - would never have happened if they’d be supported more. ‘They must have been brainwashed,’ he said. The brothers are thought to have been trained by Al Qaeda in Yemen - and carried out the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine to 'avenge the Prophet'. The magazine was famous for poking fun at Islam, along with other religions. Cherif Kouachi was buried in an unmarked grave in Gennevilliers, a suburb in north-west Paris, on Saturday night, a day after his older brother, Said, was buried in the northeastern city of Reims. Cherif's family, including his widow, kept away from the funeral and the grave was left anonymous to avoid it becoming a 'pilgrimage site' for Islamists. The mayor of Gennevilliers, where the younger Kouachi brother lived had not wanted the funeral to go ahead, but said he had no legal means to block it.", "A maid in the United Arab Emirates who attempted to kill her employer's three children by scolding them with boiling water and attacking them with a cleaver while they slept has been jailed for life. The 25-year-old Ethiopian maid, referred to as Y.S., claimed she attacked the children, two girls and a boy aged 15, 14 and 10, because they and their mother had made threats against her own life. 'The four of them, the mother and the children, threatened to kill me,' she told the Dubai Criminal Court through a translator from the Ethiopian embassy. 'When I later asked them to let me go home, they refused and again threatened to kill me,' she said. A maid in Dubai (pictured) who attempted to kill her employer's three children by burning them with boiling water and attacking them with a cleaver while they slept has been jailed for life . Prosecutors said the maid admitted the attack was an act of revenge for being mistreated and forced to go hungry, reports The National. She said her employer, a 42-year-old teacher, repeatedly accused her of stealing and refused to send her back to Ethiopia, claiming that her passport was missing. The eldest sister said the incident happened the same day her mother had to go away for medical treatment. She said: 'My sister and I were sleeping on one bed while our brother was sleeping on a mattress. 'Around 7am I felt some boiling water splashing on my face... I woke up shocked and saw the defendant. 'She held a boiler and a cleaver in her hands. She stabbed me repeatedly in my face, and then she attacked my sister and then my brother. We escaped and locked ourselves inside the washroom, then called the police.' The Ethiopian maid was charged with a triple murder attempt, double suicide attempt and theft. She was also ordered to pay Dh21,000 (£3,600) in compensation to the mother. File picture . After the attack the maid went to the mother’s room to take money and her passport, which was hidden in a drawer. A policeman described breaking down the door and discovering the children. He said: 'They were bleeding from everywhere and badly burnt.' The children were taken to hospital and police said they found the maid sitting on the floor of the flat’s balcony. She is then alleged to have tried to slit her own throat before surrendering to police when they raised their guns. She was charged with a triple murder attempt, double suicide attempt and theft. She was also ordered to pay Dh21,000 (£3,600) in compensation to the mother.", "This hotel room with a picture of the Eiffel Tower hanging above the bed is where the world's most wanted woman stayed for two nights before making her way to Syria with suspected ISIS handlers. Hayat Boumeddiene arrived in the Turkish city of Istanbul just days before 17 innocent people were massacred in Paris. The 26-year-old is believed to have helped mastermind the plot, which saw her husband Amedy Coulibaly shoot dead a policewoman and execute four hostages at a Jewish-owned deli. Scroll down for video . For two nights Boumeddiene, who has been described as armed and dangerous, slept in room 102 – where a picture of the Eiffel Tower hangs above the bed . No-frills: The jihadi widow checked into Bade Otel in Kadikoy, on the Asian side of the city, on January 2 after flying into Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen airport . The basic room comes with a shabby bathroom, a TV, a double and single bed. Mehdi Sabri Belhoucin, a 32-year-old on the intelligent services’ watch list who travelled with her, slept in the room next door . Coulibaly, 32, was in the same terror cell as the Kouachi brothers - Cherif, 32, and Said, 34 - who killed 12 at the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices. Police are now on the hunt for Boumeddiene who is believed to have joined Islamic State fighters in Syria. Last night it was revealed that Turkish authorities were questioning a number of people who helped smuggle Boumeddiene across the border. The jihadi widow checked into the no-frills Bade Otel in Kadikoy, on the Asian side of the city, on January 2 after flying into Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen airport. 'Armed and dangerous': Hayat Boumeddiene . For two nights Boumeddiene, who has been described as armed and dangerous, slept in room 102 – where a picture of the Eiffel Tower hangs above the bed. The basic room comes with a shabby bathroom, a TV, a double and single bed. Mehdi Sabri Belhoucin, a 32-year-old on the intelligent services’ watch list who travelled with her, slept in the room next door at the €38 a night hotel. The pair reportedly only left the run-down hotel to buy a mobile phone and a sim card, and to visit a local restaurant. One worker, who did not want to be identified, said: ‘She hardly left the room. They only left twice. ‘When they checked in they both handed over their passports which were photocopied. ‘The police took those and the CCTV hard drive. We can't say any more about it.’ The CCTV might also help police trace the whereabouts of four suspected ISIS handlers she met up with during her travels across Turkey. CCTV: Hayat Boumeddiene (right) presenting her passport at Sabiha Gokcen airport in Istanbul on January 2 . Couple: Hayat Boumeddiene (left) with her husband Amedy Coulibaly (right), who shot dead a policewoman and executed four hostages at a Jewish-owned deli . Boumeddiene is said to have met two Turkish nationals in Istanbul, and another two in the southern city of Sanliurfa where she took a domestic flight to on January 4. Turkish media have reported that her whereabouts from January 5 to January 7 are unclear, but her phone signal was picked up in Akcakale, a town on the Syrian border, on January 8. Her last phone signal inside Turkey was picked up in this town on the same day that Coulibaly murdered a policewoman in the south of Paris. It is believed that she then crossed into Syria’s Raqqa province, to the ISIS-controlled town of Tel Abyad, by illegal means. The last recorded call from her Turkish mobile phone was picked up here on January 10 – the day after her partner was killed when the French security services stormed a kosher supermarket where he was holding 19 hostages. Analysing her mobile phone data the Turkish authorities have learned she made 18 calls from Turkey to France. It is believed her handlers have been identified but it is unclear if they have been arrested. The Turkish authorities have criticised France for their lack of cooperation. They claim they provided Paris with information relating to Boumeddiene’s whereabouts – but the French authorities thought she was inside the kosher store with Coulibaly.", "The Charlie Hebdo journalist spared death for being a woman has told how she stared into the gunman's 'soft, troubled' eyes so he wouldn't spot a male colleague crouched under a desk. Sigolène Vinson spoke vividly of her ordeal at the hands of the the Kouachi brothers, giving the fullest account yet of the Paris massacre which claimed 12 lives. The 40-year-old legal affairs commentator was in an editorial meeting, chatting to colleagues as they made coffee, when they heard a 'pop pop' sound she took to be a firecracker last Wednesday. Horror: Sigolène Vinson (left), who was spared during the slaughter in the offices of Charlie Hebdo (right), has spoken vividly of her survival in the fullest account yet of the Paris massacre which killed 12 people . Mascot: As Charlie Hebdo's 'house' dog, Lila the Cocker Spaniel was in the office when the killings began. Ms Vinson told Le Monde she could remember the pattering of Lila's paws as she moved between the bodies . The noise was Said and Cherif Kouachi's first round of gunfire, which hit the magazine's webmaster Simon Fieschi in the shoulder and left him in a coma. Dressed like guerillas or special forces, with full face masks and body armour, the brothers burst into the newsroom shouting 'Allahu akbar' and murdered her colleagues one by one. When one of the brothers came to Ms Vinson, he spared her life because she was a woman. Amid the horror, she was fixed by his 'soft, black' eyes. And she did her utmost to hold the killer's gaze so he would not assassinate her colleague Jean-Luc, the magazine's layout artist. 'I looked at him,' she told Le Monde. 'He had these big, black eyes, and a very soft gaze. I felt a moment of trouble in him, like he was looking for my name. 'My brain was working fine. I thought quickly. I understood that he had not seen Jean-Luc, who was in his office. Killers: Cherif (left) and Said Kouachi spared the life of Sigolène Vinson, but told her to read the Koran . Triumphant: One of the brothers was caught on video chanting: 'We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad' 'He said: \"Don't be afraid. calm down. I'm not going to kill you. You are a woman. We don't kill women. '\"But think about what you are doing. What you are doing is bad. I am sparing you, and because I am sparing you, you will read the Koran.\" 'I gave him a sign of the head - to make a connection, to make contact. 'I don't want to break eye contact because Jean-Luc is under the table, and he hasn't seen him, and I've understood that if they don't kill the women, they will kill the men.' Jean-Luc survived the attack. The terrorists' claims that they never kill women was simply untrue. While the Kouachi brothers were on the run, a policewoman was shot dead in an attack linked to the pair. And in the office itself, they killed Elsa Cayat, a 54-year-old Jewish psychoanalyst and author who specialised in issues of gender and sexuality, and wrote a fortnightly column for Charlie Hebdo. In the wide-ranging interview with Le Monde, Ms Vinson said it felt 'unfair' that the gunman had told her not to be afraid, seconds after pointing his weapon at her head. And she told how the magazine's mascot, Lila the Cocker Spaniel, pattered her paws between her owners' bodies as the carnage unfolded. Murdered: The victims in 2000. Circled top (left to right) are Philippe Honore, Georges Wolinski, Bernard Maris and Jean Cabut. Below them are editor Stephane Charbonnier (left) and cartoonist Bernard 'Tignous' Verlhac . The scene was a 'vision of horror', she said. When the gunmen left, the first thing Ms Vinson saw in the newsroom was her colleague Philippe Lancon. He survived, but he had been shot in the right cheek. The flesh was torn. She told him not to talk, but felt unable to help him or approach him. She was immobilised by shock. Near him were two colleagues, clearly dead. Ms Vinson called the fire department, and the operator asked how many bodies she could see. 'They're all dead. They're all dead. They're all dead,' she replied. The brothers had left, killing a Muslim policeman in cold blood as they did, and led police on a two-day manhunt before they were killed in a siege near the city's Charles de Gaulle Airport. Emotional: Charlie Hebdo's new editor Gerard Biard (left), and journalist Patrick Pelloux (right) yesterday comforting cartoonist Luz (centre), who avoided the attack because he was half an hour late for work . 'We are cartoonists and we like drawing little characters, just as we were as children': Charlie Hebdo caricaturist Renald 'Luz' Luzier reacts during a press conference about the newspaper's next edition . As Ms Vinson tended to the victims, the cartoonist Luz arrived late with a cake. It was his birthday. Because he survived, it fell to him to create a cover for the first edition of the magazine since the shooting. Due for release today, its 3million copies feature an image of the Prophet Muhammad holding a sign which says 'Je Suis Charlie' and declares: 'All is forgiven'. Breaking down in tears at a press conference yesterday, he said: 'We are cartoonists and we like drawing little characters, just as we were as children. 'The terrorists, they were kids, they drew just like we did, just like all children do. 'At one point, they lost their sense of humour. At one point, they lost the soul of their child which allowed them to look at the world with a certain distance.'", "Caught out: Charlie Fisher with Becky Connery this year . The three girlfriends of a cheating supermarket worker decided to humiliate him in public after realising he had slept with all of them within 24 hours. Becky Connery, Lizzie Leeland-Cunningham and a third girl, who does not wish to be named, confronted Charlie Fisher, 20, when they discovered he had been triple-timing them for months. The Mail reported earlier this week how they ambushed him at Luton Airport, shouting ‘cheat’ and ‘liar’, when he returned from a holiday in Germany. But Miss Connery, 17, a student from Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, yesterday revealed how the trio hatched the plan after realising the extent of his deceit. She told MailOnline: ‘We are pretty sure that he slept with us all in one day, which is disgusting. I spoke to Lizzie and the other girl and we realised that Charlie had had sex with me one morning, then with Lizzie that afternoon, then the other one at her house the day after.’ ‘I don’t know why we did it. He was boring, and we all agreed he wasn’t great in bed.’ Mr Fisher, from Hatfield, was rumbled when A-level pupil Miss Connery, who was at his house the night before he went on holiday, picked up his phone and saw a message from a girl saying ‘I will meet you later’. It made her suspicious because, she said, he had asked her to go home early that night because he had to finish his packing. Scroll down for video . She explained: ‘He said, “She’s just a friend”, but the next day after he flew to Germany I found her on Twitter and messaged her. ‘We arranged to meet in a pub, and it turned out that she, like me, had had her suspicions. I’d been seeing him since March and she had been seeing him since January.’ They then met the other girl after contacting her on Facebook. ‘It turned out that she thought she was Charlie’s girlfriend, too. We couldn’t believe it,’ Miss Connery said. Becky Connery, 17, Lizzie Leeland-Cunningham, 19, and the third girl, 20, (L-R) all had relationships with him . Mr Fisher, pictured with Becky earlier this year, juggled excuses and pet names to avoid being rumbled . Miss Leeland-Cunningham, 19, a bar supervisor from Watford, said: ‘When I met him in April Charlie seemed so perfect, he really did. ‘But when we all looked back, we could see how he’d done it. When he left my house he’d never let me walk him down to his car, saying he wanted to listen to his music on his headphones. He’d meet another girl at the end of my road.’ But their moment of revenge was sweet. Miss Connery said: ‘He came round the corner and just froze. He didn’t know what to say. His face just dropped. It hit the floor.’ As the girls chanted ‘Liar, liar’, and asked him to explain himself, Mr Fisher fled with his grandmother, who he had persuaded to collect him. Miss Leeland-Cunningham said: ‘Charlie carried on walking past us because he had no other way of getting out. ‘We looked at each other and thought, ‘‘what?” so we followed him saying, “Do you not have anything to say for yourself?” ‘He couldn’t believe it, and didn’t know what to say.’ However, the story does have a happy ending. The three women are now friends. Mr Fisher, who has not replied to MailOnline's attempts to contact him, is no longer seeing any of the girls and,despite initial attempts to win them back, has not been in touch.", "Almost 40 years ago, the 20th century's most influential sub-culture was born. Today, hip hop is a way of life that dominates fashion, music, art, dance and advertizing. It is a far cry from the humble beginnings of experimental rap, graffiti, and break-dancing in the run-down areas of 1970s New York City, which sparked a revolution. Watching from the sidelines were photographers Janette Beckman, Joe Conzo and Martha Cooper. And now, their glimpses inside the seminal years between 1977 and 1990 will be put on show at the Museum Of The City Of New York. Revolutionary: This image of The Almight Kay Gee, of the Cold Crush Brothers in 1981, is one of 80 documenting the start of hip hop . Fashion, dance and music: JDL of Cold Crush enraptures a crowd at Skatin Palace in 1981 . Iconic: New York City's experimental artists, including JDL and Grandmaster Caz pictured at Club Negril in 1981, led the movement . Breaking: Martha Cooper captures the High Times Crew break-dancing outside Washington Heights police station in 1980 . Little Crazy Legs strikes an impromptu pose during a shoot for Wild Style at Riverside Park, Manhattan, in 1983 . The series charts early performances of the Cool Crush Brothers in the early 1980s, and impromptu breakdances on the streets of Manhattan. In one shot DJ Kool Herc, who is widely credited with creating hip hop by fusing the violent Bronx culture with early disco, stares down the barrel of the lens from behind tinted, wide-rimmed sunglasses. Other key figures are seen posing for their first photo shoots, including the members of Boogie Down Productions, a hip hop group from the Bronx which masterminded a fusion of dancehall and reggae. Big Daddy Kane, one of the most revered rappers in history who found fame with the Juice Crew in 1986, exhibits the archetypal haircut for hip hop fans during his hey day of 1988. Afrika Bambaataa, who pioneered electro funk, poses for London-born photographer Janette Beckman in front of a graffiti-strewn brick wall in 1983, in a nod to the street roots of the movement. And Queen Latifah, who made waves by rapping about domestic violence in 1990, also makes an appearance. Later photos show the colorful album covers produced for girl band Salt N Pepa and Busta Rhymes. The exhibition will run from April 1 to September 15. Mainstream: The movement bore global acts such as Salt N Pepa, pictured in 1987, as it came to dominate the music industry . Rapper KRS-One and DJ Scott La Rock, pictured in 1987, rose to fame with Boogie Down Productions . Cold Crush's Tony Tone poses up alongside Kool Herc, a DJ widely credited with inventing hip hop, in 1979 . Charlie Chase of the Cold Crush Brothers at Norman Thomas High School in 1981 . Big Daddy Kane, pictured in 1988, found fame with the Juice Crew in 1986. He is known as one of the most highly-skilled rappers to date . Afrika Bambaataa, who pioneered electro funk, poses for London-born photographer Janette Beckman in front of a graffiti-strewn brick wall in 1983, in a nod to the street roots of the movement . Busta Rhymes, a member of the rap group Leaders Of The New School, is pictured in a promotional shot in 1990 . Queen Latifah cemented her place in the annals of hip hop history by rapping about women's issues and domestic violence . Long Island became a satellite hub for hip hop, from which EPMD (photographed in 1989) was borne . Chuck D and Flava Flav, of Public Enemy, exhibit typical styles of the time in 1987 . Filmmaker Charlie Ahearn, who made the hip hop movie Wild Style, is pictured on set in 1982 . LL Cool J, with Cut Creator, E Love and B-Rock in Manhattan in 1987 .", "Republicans danced Tuesday night to the tune of a new U.S. Senate majority, but governor's mansions will also be redder in 2015 than they were this year. Stunning upsets in Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts – three of America's more liberal-dominated states – left political consultants and commentators shaking their heads. The strong GOP showing – they won at least six races in states with Democratic governors – will be seen as a repudiation of Barack Obama, who said in October that while he wouldn't be on the ballot, his policies would be. It also will cast doubt on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's ability to galvanize Democratic voters in states she would need to win in order to claim the presidency in 2016. Clinton stumped for Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown in October, carefully controlling events by limiting reporters' access while playing to half-empty auditoriums. Brown lost big to political newcomer Larry Hogan, known in real estate but not in Annapolis, in a 6-point upset that also brought first lady Michelle Obama out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to buck up Brown as his campaign flagged. SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEOS . THE THRILL OF VICTORY: Maryland Gov.-elect Larry Hogan, a Republican, acknowledges supporters after winning the state's gubernatorial race . THE AGONY OF DEFEAT: Democratic gubernatorial candidate Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown (left) lost a bruising race despite help from the Obamas and the Clintons . DIDN'T HELP: Anthony Brown (right) was already Maryland's lieutenant governor, and Michelle Obama wanted him to get the top job . Maryland's incumbent governor, Martin O'Malley, is also a potential 2016 presidential candidate. His stock fell Tuesday, too, as Democrats saw him surrendering the keys to the governor's mansion to a Republican. That sleeper race was one of Tuesday's biggest shockers. Brown led in nine of the last 10 opinion polls covering the race, slipping behind just days before the election – and then only in a poll commissioned by Hogan's campaign. In June, Hogan faced a seemingly insurmountable 18-point deficit. Five months later, he thanked New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, for helping him seal the deal. Christie, he told wildly cheering supporters, 'was so excited that we had the biggest upset in the entire country, that he wanted to fly his helicopter down here to be with us tonight.' He framed his victory as the 'largest mandate for change in Maryland in 63 years.' 'Tonight countless Democrats crossed over,' he said, 'and affirmed the wisdom of John F. Kennedy who said, \"Sometimes party loyalty demands too much\".' Massachusetts Republican Charlie Baker (left) won his race despite the state's liberal-bastion status . TWO-TIME LOSER: Democrat Martha Coakley (right) crashed and burned for the second time in four years, earning her the nickname 'Croakley' In Massachusetts, state Attorney General Martha Coakley crashed and burned at the hands of former state cabinet member Charlie Baker, who won in every county except those in the western part of the state plus Boston and the elite playground islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. Coakley earned the sobriquet 'Martha Croakley' after losing a special election in 2010 that was called to fill a U.S. Senate seat after the death of Ted Kennedy. That seat had been in Democrats' hands for ages, but then-unknown Republican Scott Brown trounced her. Brown appeared to have failed in a bid to return to the Senate in a New Hampshire race on Tuesday, in a race he lost by less than one-half of one percent. He has not, however, conceded the race. That's one thing he and Coakley have in common: On Tuesday night, trailing by one and one-half percentage points, she sent her supporters home and said she wouldn't admit she had lost. Baker trailed all summer in the polls but held a consistent if narrow lead through October. Christie, the pugnacious Garden State loudmouth who may fancy himself a presidential contender in just a few short months, also stumped for Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who squeaked by Democratic former Gov. Charlie Crist by about 1 per cent of the votes cast. President Obama, too, had a hard night at the polls as Americans saw evidence that his 39 per cent approval rating has rendered his coattails too short to grasp. LAMEST DUCK: Wisconsin Democrat Mary Burke failed to end the rule of Gov. Scott Walker, even though she got some raer in-person help from President Barack Obama . He personally campaigned for Democratic challenger Mary Burke in Wisconsin, only to see her fall to incumbent Gov. Scott Walker by a 7-point margin – in a state where every Democratic incumbent in the U.S House won another two-year term. During  an October 28 rally, cameras caught people leaving in droves as the president spoke. In Obama's adopted home state of Illinois, incumbent Gov. Pat Quinn lost by 5 points to Bruce Rauner. He, too, hadn't conceded the race by the time Rauner delivered his victory speech. 'There are a lot of votes still to be counted,' Quinn said. 'I don’t believe in throwing in the towel when there are that many votes still to be counted.' But Rauner was romping, crediting his outreach to black pastors – a constituency that helped Obama launch his political career – with delivering crucial margins in nearly every county statewide. 'Are you ready for a new direction? Are you ready to bring back Illinois?' he asked a capacity crowd at his victory party. 'This election is about bringing back our great state. This is a victory for our taxpayers who need to have a lower tax burden. This is a victory for our workers who deserve to have a booming economy.' 'This victory is for our students, our children, who deserve the best schools in America. And this is a victory for our citizens who deserve a government without corruption.' The win changes the political landscape in Illinois with an injection of Republicanism for the first time in a dozen years. WINNER: Texas Attorney General and Republican Governor-elect Greg Abbott cruised to victory . NOT HER NIGHT: An emotional Wendy Davis (right) wiped away her tears after she lost her bid to become governor of Texas, as her daughter Dru (left) looked on . In Connecticut, Vermont and Colorado, incumbent Democratic governors held on in races that were too close to call. Democrats' only bight spot all night came in Pennsylvania, as Republican Gov. Tom Corbett lost his job to Democrat Tom Wolf. Another closely watched race turned into a Republican landslide as Greg Abbott, the paraplegic state Attorney General, trounced state Sen. Wendy Davis by 20 points. Davis is a freshly minted feminist icon known for filibustering an anti-abortion bill in pink sneakers. Abbott had pulled away in recent days, enlarging a 6-point lead to an 18-point spread in the last two weeks – since Davis ran a controversial TV ad making a wheelchair the center of attention. He won big on Tuesday, despite reports that his name never appeared on touch-screen voting machines in at least one polling place. In her concession speech, Davis told her supporters to be disappointed, but not discouraged. Accusations surfaced Tuesday afternoon that in the Lone Star State's third-most populous county, Abbott's name isn't on at least one touch-screen ballot machine. Instead, an Instagram photo of a Bexar County machine shows, the Republican slot is taken by David Dewhurst, the 2012 failed GOP candidate for lieutenant governor. An alert Bexar County, Texas voter snapped this picture of a voting machine that omitted the name of GOP gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott, substituting 2012 failed lieutenant governor hopeful David Dewhurst instead . Gov. Walker has attracted scorn and tens of millions of dollars in attack ads from angry labor unions, but still could not be stopped . BIG SURROGATE: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (front) stumped last week for Maryland Republican gubernatorial hopeful Larry Hogan in a race that's now too close to call . Logan Churchwell, communications director at the conservative True the Vote organization, told MailOnline that his group had confirmed Bexar County has received 'additional complaints' and that 'they are currently investigating how widespread the matter is.' 'I think it's a photoshopped deal but we are checking,' Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacque Callanen told the San Antonio Express-News. The image, which shows clunky block-like sections of the video template out of place, could reflect a ham-fisted Photoshop attempt, a Republican campaign consultant in Washington told MailOnline. 'Or,' he said, 'it could be that the voting machine's software is messed up. If it's pulling in candidates from two years ago, who knows what else is wrong in those computers?' The campaign operative insisted, though, that Abbott would win Tuesday. 'Not even the Democratic Party could buy enough votes or stuff enough ballot boxes to save Wendy Davis at this point,' he said. WOAI reporter Jocelyn Tovar posted the Instagram photo after she interviewed the woman who snapped it. It's unclear how that voter could have edited the image so fast, and without leaving the polling place. 'I don't have time for that,' the woman told her. Tovar posted a second photo on Twitter, showing the same kind of digital goof.", "By . David Mccormack . Liza Minnelli was originally due to star in the Pine Brothers Softish Throat Drops commercial that aired during the Golden Globes featuring Martha Stewart - but the Cabaret star canceled on the day of the shoot after making a host of diva demands and suffering an apparent ‘nervous breakdown’ according to brand’s boss. The 67-year-old star, and daughter of Judy Garland, was all set to film the throat lozenges commercial back in September, but unexpectedly cancelled at the last minute claiming it was ‘too much pressure’. Liza’s decision to cancel was all the more frustrating for the ad makers as they’d bent over backwards to accommodate her lengthy list of demands which reportedly included a $400 coffee service, black Egyptian cotton towels and two cartons of cigarettes, plus a team to do her make-up and hair at the Waldorf Towers in New York City. Scroll down for video . Martha Stewart stepped in to make a cool $1 million for a 30 second ad for Pine Brothers Softish Throat Drops after Liza Minnelli dropped out . ‘Producers begged Liza to leave her apartment, which was only a few blocks away, and come to the shoot. She refused, saying this was 'too much pressure,' a source told the New York Post. Pine Brothers boss Rider McDowell told Business Insider he turned to Martha ‘after our first actress had a nervous breakdown the morning of the shoot.’ The 72-year-old TV personality who rarely advertises products that don’t have her name attached was quick to step in and she on set within the hour. ‘Like a real pro. She was done in make-up within 10 minutes, and filmed the ad in 30. She probably earned $1 million in 40 minutes,’ said the source. Video: Watch Martha's old-fashioned soft-focus lozenge commercial . Movie star Liza Minnelli dropped out of filming a lozenge commercial at the last minute last September claiming it was 'too much pressure' The old-fashioned soft-focus ad has been running since October on daytime TV, but a high profile spot during Sunday awards show on NBC has prompted renewed interest in it. In the commercial, Martha walks into a room, introduces herself only by her first name and then starts to talk about the lozenge brand. With no soundtrack and a very basic looking overlay of the product, the whole thing feels distinctly cheap. It drew a flurry of criticism on social media on Sunday night with comments including that it looked like a ransom video and questioning if the entire budget had been spent on Martha. ‘While Liza had some initial conversations... they couldn’t agree on a script. So it didn’t get past that stage and all decided to part ways. Therefore [this] is a bit harsh. And untrue. Dallas Buyers Club star Jared Leto posted this photo of him with Liza last week after she hosted a lunch for him and co-star Matthew McConaughey . 'While she may be showbiz royalty, she’s surprisingly easy. The most we ever ask to have on hand is a Coca-Cola. And if we’re being especially demanding, then some red Gatorade, too,’ said Scott Gorenstein. A spokesperson for Pine Brothers said, ‘We prefer not to comment and remain big fans of Ms. Minnelli.’ Oscar-winner Minnelli, who has battled various addictions throughout her life, wasn't at Sunday's awards show but was in fine form just days before when she hosted a luncheon for Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto, the stars of Dallas Buyers Club. ‘Honey, if you don't win the Oscar, I'll give you mine!’ she told McConaughey. Both actors won their respective categories at the Golden Globes on Sunday. The old-fashioned soft-focus ad drew a flurry of criticism on social media with comments including that it looked like a ransom video and questioning if the entire budget had been spent on Martha .", "Shocked classmates of the alleged Charlie Hebdo getaway driver have leapt to his defence - claiming he was in school with them at the time of the deadly attack. Mourad Hamyd was arrested on Wednesday night after handing himself in at a local police station, after rumours he was involved in the Charlie Hebdo massacre began to circulate on social media. But friends of the 18-year-old suspected terrorist say there is no way he could have been involved, as he was sitting in class at the Lycee Monge when the attack took place. The school is in Charleville-Mezières, around 130 miles from the scene of the murders in Paris. Twitter user Vicomte Crew (@babydroma) claims her classmate was in school on Wednesday, using the hashtag #MouradHamydInnocent . Classmates immediately took to Twitter saying a terrible mistake had been made, using the hashtag #MouradHamydInnocent. A user under the hand @babydroma insisted that Mourad was in her philosophy class, and added: ‘Please, he was in [school] all morning, he’s in my class.’ Another Twitter user - @AnyceDz, who is thought to have launched the hashtag - appeared on television to defend his classmate. He is reported to have said he got the bus in with Hamyd at 8am, and spent the 10am break with him, then took the bus with him just before midday. A Facebook group has also been set up in support of Hamyd – called ‘Hamyd Mourad est innocent’ – has more than 500 members who believe the teen is in no way connected to the massacre. But the school has not confirmed whether or not Hamyd was in class that day. Headteacher Miguel Rubio declined to comment and told MailOnline: ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you any more because there is an inquiry and so we must wait until the inquiry is closed to speak.’ A map showing the location of the Charlie Hebdo offices - and the town of Charleville-Mazires, on the border of Belgium, 144 miles away . Hamyd, who is still in custody, is believed to be the brother-in-law of one of the suspected terrorists currently on the run from police. According to public records, Hamyd’s sister Izzana - understood to be a nursery school teacher - is married to suspect Cherif Kouachi. Cherif, 32, and his brother Said, 34, are both the subject of a massive manhunt, after allegedly storming the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and killing 12 people. He and his family live on the 13th floor of an apartment block on the outskirts of Charleville-Mezieres, in a neighbourhood known for drug trafficking and vandalism. When MailOnline contacted the family to ask for comment on Hamyd, an angry woman shouted in response: ‘No, no we are not doing interviews.’ @AnyceDz tweeted Hamyd was 'the last person on earth who would support terrorism' However, neighbours in the Ronde Couture estate insisted they were a quiet family who were always friendly. One said: ‘They are a nice family, never a problem. Mourad is a nice boy, he was always polite and very friendly.’ Neighbours who spoke to local newspaper L'Ardennais, described Mourad as a young man 'without history'. They added he was a quiet teenager who was a 'moderate, who had never been about extremists'. Other pupils at the Lycée Monge said he 'would not hurt a fly' and added that the allegations he was involved in the massacre had ruined his name forever. This Twitter user says he is 'a good guy' whose name is being smeared for no reason . And Hamyd's friends say he was ‘a good guy’ and that there was ‘no way’ he was a radicalised Islamist. He is said to have been a popular and well-liked pupil at the school. A male teenager told MailOnline: ‘Mourad was a good guy, a nice kid. ‘We can’t believe what has happened. I think it is crazy to say he was involved with this horrible incident. There is no way he was part of this.’ Another friend, who only gave his name as Edea, added: 'Mourad is innocent, definitely. He is a good guy, a nice guy. We all like him.' Sabine, a teenager who knew Hamyd, openly laughed at the suggestion he was in any way involved with the horrific incident. She said: 'This is stupid. Anyone who knows Mourad knows that he has nothing to do with this. No way, no way. 'He is just a normal boy who likes normal stuff, he is not a terrorist.' People at the local mosque are also not convinced he could be a terrorist. At the Amcca mosque in Charleville-Mezieres, an elderly man who knows the Hamyd family also insisted Mourad was innocent. The man - who refused to give his name - said: 'They are a good family and Mourad is a good boy. Very tranquil and no problem. 'He prayed here before but not recently. I have not seen him recently. He has good character. 'There is no trouble with him at all, he has never had trouble with the police. 'I believe that he is innocent of these claims. This is not something that he is involved with.'", "Manchester United star Ryan Giggs has apologised to his brother for the eight-year affair he had with his wife. His apology came nearly four years after bedding her for the last time. Ryan, 41, phoned Rhodri, 38, and the two brothers are now reconciling in an attempt to rebuild their relationship. Celebrity Big Brother star: Natasha Giggs had an eight-year affair with football legend Ryan Giggs . Reconciliation: Rhodri (left) and brother Ryan (right) have ended their four-year feud over the affair . A source told the Sun newspaper that 'Ryan rang Rhodri out of the blue a few weeks ago. Rhodri moved on a long time ago but was adamant Ryan had to make the first move as he was the one who had done wrong.' On Easter Sunday the two brothers were spotted out together with friends at the Neighbourhood bar in Manchester. A clubber said: 'They were sitting in the VIP area and looked like they were enjoying each other's company again.' Happy families: Ryan with wife Stacey Cooke on the red carpet in 2011 before the affair revelations . High Court injunction battle: Ryan Giggs spent £150,000 trying to silence Big Brother star Imogen Thomas from revealing details of their affair . Rhodri with his wife Natasha before he knew about her eight-year affair with his brother Ryan . The affair was first revealed in June 2011 when Rhodri's wife Natasha admitted an eight-year affair with the former star winger. Natasha also said she had aborted Ryan's baby just weeks before she got married to Rhodri in Las Vegas. She decided to go public in 2011 after Ryan Giggs' controversial attempt to place a gagging order on Big Brother star Imogen Thomas after their six-month affair ended. Ryan Giggs' attempt at silencing Imogen Thomas backfired when a Twitter campaign resulted in an MP naming him in parliament . He spent £150,000 getting a High Court injunction against her. However, his attempt to silence her fell apart after a sustained Twitter campaign that resulted in an MP naming him in parliament. In January 2012, Natasha went on to Celebrity Big Brother, where she openly talked about the affair to her fellow housemates. Ryan lives with wife Stacey and their two children in a £4m mansion. He is currently part of Manchester United manager Louis Van Gaal’s backroom staff with his side third in the Barclays Premier League. Natasha originally left Rhodri but the two later unsuccessfully tried to reconcile, and they divorced in 2013. Natasha, 32, had a son last year with a new partner. Rhodri is now married to Ashleigh Turner, 24, and they have a baby son. Much happier times: Ryan (left) with his brother Rhodri (right) as young children before their fallout . Ryan Giggs (left) now works as the Manchester United assistant manager to Louis van Gaal (right) Yesterday he was banned from driving for six months, after being caught driving his Mercedes with no insurance in Ardwick near Manchester. Manchester Magistrates Court also ordered him to pay £215 in fines and costs. He told the court he would lose his job as a HGV driver for an agency if he lost his licence. 'I’ve been awaiting the outcome of this. It’s been difficult. They only allow certain people to drive for them. I will lose my job if I lost my licence,' he said. 'It’s not exceptional hardship but I would obviously have to find something else.'", "A Florida woman has been charged with murder after she allegedly stabbed-to-death her 7-year-old grandson because she was 'fed up' with babysitting. Martha White, 63, was charged with first-degree murder Wednesday. According to The Tallahassee Democrat, . White interrupted her grandson Mason Rhinehart and his 8-year-old . brother as they played video games Tuesday morning, and told them she . had a surprise for them. She then allegedly took Mason into the Killearn Lakes Plantation home's bathroom and locked the door. Charged: Mason Rhinehart, 7, and his 8-year-old brother were playing video games in their Killearn Lakes Plantation home Tuesday morning when their grandmother, Martha White, pictured, allegedly murdered the younger child . Tragic: White allegedly stabbed to death Mason Rhinehart, pictured, Tuesday morning . Mason's brother told police he heard him start to cry inside the locked bathroom and beg his grandmother for mercy. 'I don't want to die, please don't kill me,' the boy allegedly said. His brother said he tried to get in the bathroom to help his younger sibling but couldn't so he called his father and hid. He told police he saw White leave the . home with a bottle of wine but not before telling him she 'had a . surprise for him too,' court documents said. Murder: Martha White, 63, was charged with first-degree murder Wednesday . Parents: White was caring for her grandchildren while their parents, pictured together right, were at work . Leon County Sheriff's Office spokesman . Lt. James McQuaig said Mason's brother was not injured in the incident. McQuaig told The Democrat that it was too early in . the investigation to determine a motive. Mason was allegedly stabbed multiple times while White was babysitting him and his older brother. The Democrat reported that deputies found White covered in blood. Scene: According to The Tallahassee Democrat, White interrupted her grandson Mason Rhinehart and his 8-year-old brother as they played video games Tuesday morning, and told them she had a surprise for them . Home: The Democrat reported that deputies found White covered in blood a half-mile from the home, pictured . Bloody: White, pictured, was covered in blood at the dead end of Valley Creek Drive about a half mile away from the boys parents' home in the 7700 block of Bass Ridge Trail . She was in her car at the dead end of Valley Creek Drive about a half mile away from the boys parents' home in the 7700 block of Bass Ridge Trail. She also had with her a bottle of wine and a xanax, court documents said. Tallahassee station WCTV showed a handcuffed White being taken away in an ambulance. Mason was heading into the second grade at Killearn Lakes Elementary School.", "By . Marcus Townend . Flying two-year-old Tiggy Wiggy could attempt to become the first two-year-old to win the Prix De L’Abbaye since Sigy in 1978. Trainer Richard Hannon is keen for the sizzling six-length winner of Saturday’s Weatherby’s Super Sprint at Newbury to take on older sprinters. But that looks more likely to happen at Longchamp’s Arc meeting in October than in the Nunthorpe Stakes at York next month. Breaking clear: Richard Hughes riding Tiggy Wiggy storms ahead at Newbury on Saturday . Champion: Tiggy Wiggy wins the Weatherbys super sprint in the Paddock Day at Newbury . Tiggy Wiggy’s York target now looks like being the Lowther Stakes. Hannon . said: ‘She will probably go for the Lowther and then maybe the Abbaye. If we are going to pitch her into that sort of stuff it will be better . at the end of the year. She could get soft ground there which she will . love.’ Hannon’s Kool . Kompany (Richard Hughes) was a half-length win of yesterday’s Group Two . Prix Robert Papin at Maisons-Laffitte from Charlie Hills-trained Strath . Burn. A shot at the Group One Phoenix Stakes at the Curragh next month could be next for Kool Kompany. The . colt named after the Manchester City defender Vincent Kompany has won . five of his six races, only tasting defeat the Coventry Stakes at Royal . Ascot. John Gosden’s Derby sixth Western Hymn (William Buick) also landed the Group Two Prix Eugene Adam. Early stages: First Class Mail, who wears the Sportsmail colours, could make his third start this week . Gosden, . whose Oaks winner Taghrooda is now 7-4 joint favourite alongside . Telescope for Saturday’s King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes, . could supplement King Edward VII Stakes winner Eagle Top to the Ascot . race today. Gosden’s St . James’s Palace Stakes winner Kingman is not certain to take on Toronado . in the Sussex Stakes a week on Wednesday – he has the Prix Jacques Le . Marois as an alternative - but definitely heading to Glorious Goodwood . is Godolphin’s 2012 St Leger winner Encke. The colt, trained by Charlie Appleby, will run in the Coutts Glorious Stakes. It will be his first outing since becoming embroiled in last season’s Mahmoud Al Zarooni Anabolic Steroid scandal. Appleby . said: ‘Encke is showing all the right signs but the race will tell us . whether he holds the same enthusiasm and ability he displayed as a . three-year-old.’ First Class Mail, . who carries the colours of the Daily Mail, could have his third career . start at Newmarket on Friday. The chestnut colt finished fifth at . Brighton on Thursday on his second run.", "By . Martha De Lacey . Jill Greenberg is bored with the 'controversy' rumbling around her photographs. The portrait artist's beautifully stylised and highly emotive images of very young, damp-cheeked children sobbing up close to her camera lens drew accusations of 'child abuse' when they were first seen in 2006. But the New York-based mother-of-two, who has now released a collection of the photos as a stunning hardback art book with D.A.P. and Madrid-based TF Editores, says she had no intention of creating such a stir with her images, and was shocked to have actually received hate mail as a result of them. The Truth: Jill Greenberg's photos depict crying children but were intended to reflect her dissatisfaction with Bush-era politics in 2006 . The Rapture Index: Jill Greenberg used her daughter, her daughter's friends and some child models in the photos . Speaking to MailOnline, Greenberg said: 'Children at that age cry as a form of communication since they can't use their words, its not evidence of pain.' 'Making children cry for a photographer can be considered mean,' she continued in Slate Magazine. speaking to Jordan G Teicher. 'But I . would say that making children laugh and show off their jeans for an . apparel ad is just as exploitative and less natural. Toddlers' natural . state, like 30 per cent of the time, is crying.' To get the children welling up, Greenberg and the infants' mothers would offer the tots sweets and chocolate or something just as tantalising, such as a mobile phone, then stop short of handing them over, prompting a tantrum. In a statement about the collection on her website, Greenberg says: 'Nothing is more pure than the anguish of a child. Pictures of children crying capture raw emotion: sputtering rage and profound loss. 'In many ways we’ve become desensitized to disturbing image. But the honesty of a child's feelings is undeniable and it draws you in to the photograph. Perhaps because kids experience the kind of powerful emotions that we, as adults, have suppressed in ourselves.' Greenberg said: 'Children at that age cry as a form of communication since they can't use their words, its not evidence of pain' In a statement about the collection, Greenberg said: 'Nothing is more pure than the anguish of a child. Pictures of children crying capture raw emotion: sputtering rage and profound loss' Continuing, she wrote: 'The children I photographed were not harmed in any way. And, as a mother, I am quite aware of how easily toddlers can cry. Storms of grief sweep across their features without warning; a joyful smile can dissolve into a grimace of despair. 'The first little boy I shot, Liam, suddenly became hysterically upset. It reminded me of helplessness and anger I feel about our current political and social situation. 'It made me think of my outrage at our false reasons for going to war in Iraq and the scandalous way in which the conflict was sold to the American people. I thought of George W. Bush, then just sworn into his second term in office, and I decided to call the image \"Four More Years\". Shock: 'The first little boy I shot, Liam, suddenly became hysterically upset. It reminded me of helplessness and anger I feel about our current political and social situation' She said: 'As a parent I have to reckon with the knowledge that our children will suffer for the mistakes our government is making. Their pain is a precursor of that is to come' 'As any new parent will tell you, the future suddenly becomes a very serious concern. As ecstatic as I was at the birth of my daughter, I felt selfish bringing her, and later my son into our screwed-up world. I seemed to become a mother at exactly the moment things went awry. 'Of course, human beings have always been greedy, violent and dishonest. But the rise of the Christian right as a political force in this country has made the situation dire. The most dangerous fundamentalists aren’t just waging war in Iraq; they're attacking evolution, blocking medical research and ignoring the environment. 'It's as if they believe the apocalyptic End Time is near, therefore protecting the earth and the future of all our children is futile. As a parent I have to reckon with the knowledge that our children will suffer for the mistakes our government is making. Their pain is a precursor of that is to come.' Trillions: 'As any new parent will tell you, the future suddenly becomes a very serious concern. As ecstatic as I was at the birth of my daughter, I felt selfish bringing her, and later my son into our screwed-up world' Speaking to Slate magazine, she said: 'Making children cry for a photographer can be considered mean... but a toddler's natural state, like 30 per cent of the time, is crying' Faith? 'The children I photographed were not harmed in any way. And, as a mother, I am quite aware of how easily toddlers can cry' Jill Greenberg isn't the only parent to have snapped children at their most teary moments. The father behind hit Tumblr photo blog Reasons My Son Is Crying has been exploring the 'universal culture of toddler' using photos of his two sons - and the children of people from around the world - sobbing. Greg Pembroke, from Rochester, New York, began taking mid-tantrum photos . of his infant sons Charlie, 22 months, and William, three-and-a-half, . and captioning the images with the (mostly unreasonable) reasons for the . boys' tears. The . hilarious tags range from 'I broke his cheese in half' and 'I wiped the . dirt off his pear', to 'we asked him to stop hitting his brother with a . plastic wand' and 'his milk was in the wrong cup'. We let him play on the grass - submitted by Trish, Sydney, Australia . I sneezed - submitted by Sofia, Stockholm, . Sweden, left; and he wasn't allowed to scald himself with hot tea - . submitted by Tomoe, Tokyo, Japan, right . Pembroke - who writes commercials for . radio stations and is married to Charity, a physical therapist - . initially began his light-hearted hobby by posting images and captions . on his personal Facebook page. But when friends began telling him they wanted to share his jokes with their own friends, they encouraged him to launch a blog. Within five days his Tumblr page had . gone viral, and was being featured in news outlets, websites and . magazines all over the world. The family were invited to talk on Good . Morning America. We would not let him drive this Porsche - submitted by Chris . We took away his baby powder - submitted by . Jessica T, Texas, USA, left; and her mother didn't pick her up quickly . enough - submitted by Cherry, Shunde, China, right . Speaking to MailOnline, Pembroke . said: 'It's so interesting. I started it for a bit of fun, and it got . big completely by accident. The first photo we did was the cheese one. I . broke it in half after he asked me to, and when he got upset I thought . his reaction was so hilariously unreasonable. It went from there. 'The . best bit is that I've been getting emails from all over the world from . people saying they find it so relatable. It doesn't matter where in the . world you are, the universal culture of toddler is the same.' He continued: 'Some . of the funniest contributions I've had are one from Australia with a . picture . of a little boy crying his face off because his mother unwrapped a . chocolate biscuit. Then there's a little girl in China whose mum didn't . pick her up quickly enouigh, and a girl in South Korea who is literally . crying over . spilled milk.' I broke his cheese in half . I asked him to thank his brother for sharing Buzz Lightyear, left, and I closed the refrigerator door, right . Pembroke is now publishing global . contributions to his site, and has launched a contest to find the . funniest reason for a child crying, with the best one winning a digital . camera, donated to him by Sony. He said: 'I have gotten so many great pictures that I wanted to find a way to recognize some of them.' Greg and his wife will pick the 10 best submissions and put them to a vote on Tumblr. Submissions can be entered until 15 May. We gave him delicious pudding .", "The wife of an Al Qaeda recruiter who mentored the Charlie Hebdo murderers is appealing against her own terror conviction on human rights grounds, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. In a case that has already cost UK taxpayers tens of thousands of pounds, Sylvie Beghal, 45, who lives on benefits in Leicester, is seeking to overturn her conviction for refusing to co-operate with British police who were investigating her husband. Djamel Beghal, 50, a former disciple of the hate clerics Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada, is known to have met with at least two of the gunmen who terrorised Paris last week – and hosted on-the-run suspect Hayat Boumeddiene for ‘crossbow practice’ while he was under house arrest in France. Sylvie Beghal, 45, is seeking to overturn her conviction for refusing to co-operate with British police who were investigating her husband Djamel Beghal, 50, a former disciple of the hate clerics Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada . French citizen Mrs Beghal and the couple’s four children still live in Leicester where she is awaiting judgment on her case after taking her appeal all the way to the Supreme Court. Three years ago she was arrested and charged after being stopped at a British airport, where she refused to answer questions about her husband, who is in prison in France facing charges of leading a terrorist organisation. She pleaded guilty to at least one charge related to terror laws but later appealed against the conviction on human rights grounds. Her case, being supported by pressure group Cage and the Muslim Council of Britain, is understood to have been brought using legal aid as it proceeded through the High Court, Appeal Court and Supreme Court. Beghal, a French citizen born in Algeria, lived in Britain during the late 1990s where he was a regular at Finsbury Park Mosque and came under the influence of Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada. But he later moved with his family to Afghanistan – allegedly because he was inspired by Qatada – was arrested as a suspected terrorist just weeks before the 9/11 attacks and subsequently convicted in France for his links to Al Qaeda in 2005. Charlie Hebdo murderers Said Kouachi and his brother Cherif met Djamel Beghal under house arrest . After serving half of a ten-year sentence, the French government were attempting to deport him to Algeria when he was rearrested in 2010 on fresh charges. But he came under fresh scrutiny last week as it emerged that Cherif Kouachi, one of the gunmen in the Charlie Hebdo attack; Amedy Coulibaly, who was killed after taking hostages in a grocery store; and his girlfriend Boumeddiene, who is still on the run, had all visited him in Murat, central France, while he was under house arrest. When questioned later by police, Boumeddiene, photographed posing with weapons in a burqa, said she and her husband had visited the convicted terrorist for ‘crossbow practice’. Officers also photographed Beghal playing football with Kouachi in 2010. In Britain, Mrs Beghal’s case is seen as a key test of the legitimacy of Schedule 7 powers under the Terrorism Act 2000, which allow police to stop, examine and search passengers at ports, airports and international rail terminals. Beghal, a French citizen born in Algeria, lived in Britain during the late 1990s where he was a regular at Finsbury Park Mosque (pictured) and came under the influence of Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada . Beghal was jailed for 10 years for terrorism offences and is banned from the UK -  but his wife remains here . On January 4, 2011, following a visit to her husband in France, Mrs Beghal returned to Britain with three of her children, arriving at East Midlands Airport, at 8.05pm and was detained by officers from Leicestershire police under the Schedule 7 powers. She was told she was not under arrest and the police did not suspect her of being a terrorist but they needed to speak to her ‘to establish if she may be a person concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism’. She was asked about her relationship with her husband, how she had paid for her flight to Paris and whether anyone else had paid for it but refused to answer. Beghal and Cherif Kouachi, one of the brothers responsible for the Charlie Hebdo massacre, were on such good terms that intelligence officers saw them playing football together with two other terrorists . She was charged with assaulting a police officer, wilfully obstructing a search under Schedule 7, and wilfully failing to comply with a duty under Schedule 7. The prosecution offered no evidence on the first two charges when she pleaded guilty to the last charge. In a Court of Appeal judgment seen by The Mail on Sunday, Lord Justice Gross said ‘inhibiting’ the travel of terrorists served ‘a manifestly rational purpose’ and ‘the ability to question widely’ was necessary. ‘Given that Mrs Beghal was returning to the UK following a visit to her husband, imprisoned in France for terrorism offences, the obvious inference is that she was not stopped on a random basis,’ he said. Last night, Lord Carlile, the former counter-terrorism adviser to the Government, said: ‘Schedule 7 powers are absolutely essential. It would be extremely damaging to the national interest if they ceased to exist.’ Mrs Berghal lives with her four children in a smart house next to a park in Leicester. She issued a statement via Cage, saying: ‘Once again my husband is punished for something he didn’t do. We just want to be left alone and live a peaceful life.’ Beghal, pictured in 2000, was banned from the UK on grounds of national security in 2009 .", "By . Rebecca Evans . and Andy Dolan . A teenage drug dealer who sold a batch of ecstasy that killed a 15-year-old schoolgirl has been spared prison after a judge despaired at ‘the folly of youth’. Alex Williams, 17, sold an ‘exceptionally’ pure version of the drug to a friend of GCSE pupil Martha Fernback. Martha died within hours of taking it. Williams pleaded guilty to supplying ecstasy, but instead of the ten-year jail term he might have received, he was given a three-month curfew and an 18-month youth rehabilitation order. Sentenced: Alex Williams (left), 17, was spared prison after he sold a fatal dose of MDMA to 15-year-old schoolgirl Martha Fernback (right) Tragedy: Martha Fernback collapsed and died shortly after taking the 'exceptionally' pure MDMA, sold to her by her friend Williams . A judge heard that Williams, an NVQ . student with a previous police warning for cannabis possession, was . ‘consumed by overwhelming guilt’. Martha’s . friend, who cannot be named for legal reasons, bought a gram of MDMA, . also known as ecstasy, for £40 on July 17 last year. Martha and her . friend split it between them. Williams made a £20 profit. The substance was deadly because it had a purity level of 91 per cent, compared with the average street level of 58. Oxford Crown Court heard that when he sold the drug, Williams, said: ‘This is new stuff so I’m not sure what it will be like.’ Despair: Sentencing, Judge Mary Jane Mowat expressed her 'incredulity at the folly of youth' who are prepared to take street drugs without knowing the dangers . Martha, . a middle-class Oxford schoolgirl, took her fatal dose three days later. After his arrest, police pleaded with Williams to tell them who, if . anyone else, he had sold it to so as to prevent more fatalities but he . refused to comment. Martha’s . mother, Anne-Marie Cockburn, said she could not remain angry with . Williams for the rest of her life and hoped to work with him to try to . change people’s minds about legalising and regulating drugs. Miss . Cockburn, who had raised Martha as a single parent since she was a . baby, said she does not believe ‘the war on drugs’ in the UK is working . and that a more realistic approach is needed. Sentencing . Williams on Monday, Judge Mary Jane Mowat said: ‘There is no escaping . the fact that, in part because of your actions, a 15-year-old girl lost . her life. ‘I have read a . [victim impact] statement from her mother and as the mother of an only . child myself in Oxford, every part of me resonates with the despair she . describes – and her incredulity at the folly of youth, and of those . willing to indulge in street drugs not knowing what is in them, where . they came from or what the potential dangers could be. ‘They always know better. Well, maybe this case will go some way towards persuading some children that they don’t.’ Yesterday . anti-drugs campaigner Mary Brett reacted with dismay at the sentence. ‘A sentence like that is no deterrent whatsoever, This  is dreadful. ‘The . policing of drugs is much too soft. It is ludicrous. You need to send a . signal that it is not acceptable to deal drugs – a short, sharp shock . is what is needed. In this case, a few weeks at least in prison would . have been warranted.’ Peter . Cuthbertson, director of the Centre for Crime Prevention victims’ charity, added: ‘The lenience of this sentence is out of all proportion . to the deadly consequences of the crime committed. It is concerning when . claims of guilt are taken at face value and traded in for soft . sentences.’ The court heard . that three days after she got the ecstasy Martha, from North Oxford, . took her share of the drug and went to a park in the city with friends. Tributes: Mourners lay floral tributes at the scene in Hinksey Park, Oxford, where Martha died . Prosecutor . David Povall said Martha had used it before. ‘Martha was saying the . drugs were amazing, “It feels like a dream, it’s better than the last . time that we did it.”’ Her . friends then noticed that Martha was sweating a lot. She said she was . going for a swim in a pond to cool down. ‘At that point, Martha . collapsed,’ said Mr Povall. ‘Her legs went from underneath her.’ Shortly after arriving at hospital Martha died after suffering a cardiac arrest. Alistair . Grainger, defending Williams, said: ‘There’s not a day goes by when he . isn’t thinking about what has happened and is consumed by the . overwhelming guilt which flows from the consequences of his actions.’ Williams, . who claims on Facebook to be a McDonald’s manager, lives with his . mother Alison, 47, and brother Leon, 20, in a £200,000 semi-detached . house in the Botley area of Oxford. Reaching out: Martha's mother Anne-Marie Cockburn, said she would meet Williams and work with him to try to change people's minds about legalising and regulating some drugs . In . addition to the curfew and rehabilitation order, he was ordered to . undergo drug treatment and to work for charity. Williams, dressed in . low-slung tracksuit trousers, declined to comment last night. Martha’s mother, a 42-year-old marketing consultant, called for a different approach to drugs. ‘Martha . was a middle-class girl in a north Oxford school and look what . happened,’ she added. ‘That shows what the current drug education and . legislation lead to. There has got to be another way, because the . current way is not working.’ Miss . Cockburn has written a book describing in raw, painful detail the . moment she watched her only child die and chronicling her grief since. Mother: Ms Cockburn said she felt the war on drugs in the UK was not working .", "By . Alison Moodie and Eleanor Gower . PUBLISHED: . 19:43 EST, 3 May 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 18:06 EST, 4 May 2013 . Glad for the help: Brooke Mueller is reportedly supportive of the decision to place her sons with actress Denise Richards . She's had a rough week, after her ex-husband Charlie Sheen accused her of abusing drugs and losing her custody of her children. But Brooke Mueller is actually on-board with the choice to have her sons placed another of his exes, actress Denise Richards. Despite the unusual situation, TMZ reports the 35-year-old is 'glad' the twin boys - Bob and Max - ended up with the Scary Movie actress and not Brooke's own mother. The four-year-old boys were taken out of the former reality star's custody on Thursday night after the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services felt her home was an 'unsafe environment' due to her suspected drug use. Sources told TMZ: 'Brooke feels Denise is a great parent and will give her boys everything they need while she seeks help. 'Brooke is grateful to Denise and knowing her boys are in good hands is allowing her to focus on herself and get better.' Charlie Sheen also echoed in his support of the custody shift, stating that he would 'fully cooperate and fully participate' in any future proceedings. 'Charlie supports the actions of the Department of Children and Family . Services,' a statement from his rep read. 'He knows Max and Bob are safe in a stable, loving . environment with Denise and the boys' sisters.' Prior to the Department visiting her home Brooke was allegedly 'placed on an Involuntary Psychiatric Hold' days before her twin sons were taken away from her. RadarOnline reports that the troubled ex-wife of Charlie Sheen spent several days at the UCLA Medical Center before child protective services took away Bob and Max. In denial: Brooke Mueller (R) is said to be refusing to enter rehab despite losing custody of her two sons to  Denise Richards (L) after her drug use 'jeopardises their safety', seen here last September in Malibu . Brooke was placed under section 5150 of the California Welfare Institutions Code - which Britney Spears went under back in 2008. The . 5150 allows for a qualified peace officer or clinician to involuntarily . confine someone after deeming they have a mental disorder that makes . them a danger to themselves and/or others. A source close to the Mueller family . told Radar: 'Brooke was taken to the medical center on Wednesday night, . after she was deemed to be a threat to herself and to others. 'She had been using drugs for days and was not in her right mind. It was a very sad, sad situation.' It is claimed that Brooke is still in hospital. Not safe: Social workers are said to have felt twins Bob and max, four, 'weren't safe in Brooke's care' However, Brooke is said to be is refusing to seek professional help for her drug addiction. But the 35-year-old is said to be in denial about the severity of her drug addiction, a source told RadarOnline. '[She] is completely in denial about how . bad her addiction is to crystal meth. Even after losing Bob and Max, . she is still refusing to go back to rehab.' And Brooke's mother Moira Fiore seems to be siding with her troubled daughter - even though the star did not want her children with her mother. 'Everything . is fine, everything is the way it is supposed to be right now, with . us,' she told RadarOnline.com. 'Brooke is fine, everybody will be fine.' Drug paraphernalia: Charlie Sheen posted photographs that they alleged showed drug used by Brooke during a vacation back in 2011 . Alleged drug use: The mother of two is reported to have struggled with substance abuse for the past few years . But the source told the website that Brooke is clearly in need of help, stating: 'The only chance Brooke has of even having visitation with the boys is if she is in a treatment program,' said the insider. Despite the sad situation, friends are hoping it is the shock Brooke needs to finally get clean and beat her cocaine addiction. A . source told RadarOnline.com: 'Brooke is in a very, very bad place right . now. She is absolutely despondent that she lost the boys. Maybe this . will finally make her realise that she needs to get help.' Good mum: Denise, pictured with her daughter Lola, has said that she will do anything for Brooke's children . Last year, Denise  - who has . daughters Sam, nine, and Lola, seven, with the actor, as well as adopted . Eloise, two - stepped in to look . after the twins while Brooke endured a stint in rehab and she insisted . she would do anything for the children. She . said: 'They're our family and they're Sam and Lola's brothers, and I . can't imagine growing up without my sister, so anytime she needs help, . I'm there for the boys.' '[Sam and Lola] are the best big sisters to [the boys] and they love them. 'I . know it doesn't seem normal, but it is our normal. They're little kids . and I love children, and like I said, it's our daughter's brothers, so I . can't say no.' Neither worked out: Charlie was married to Denise for four years (pictured in 2005 in LA) and for three years to Brooke, pictured in LA in 2011 .", "By . Daily Mail Reporter . PUBLISHED: . 12:38 EST, 23 December 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 20:38 EST, 23 December 2013 . Charlie Sheen has escalated his vicious tirades against ex-wife Denise Richards in a nasty tweet Monday that also incorporated his distaste for embattled Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson. Just two days before Christmas, Charlie, 48, tweeted a vile bestiality slur that suggested Denise, 42, should marry Robertson, who has been suspended from his A&E series over anti-gay remarks he made in a GQ profile. The tweet read: 'I came up with a PERFECT holiday idea! Denise and Phil Robertson should get married! then he can practice the Bestiality he hates! c :).' This was a followup to a series of text messages, reported by TMZ, that called Richards 'heartless' and 'ugly' and accused her of preventing him from seeing his daughters. Nasty accusations: Denise Richards, pictured in Los Angeles on Sunday, has been the subject of angry texts and tweets from her ex-husband Charlie Sheen . Two birds, one stone: Charlie Sheen managed to spew venom at both Denise and Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson in one tweet . One of Charlie's texts, which were obtained by TMZ, said 'lemme see if I got this straight; you won't even spring the girls for 30 mins, from the 10 mil house I gave you, (100 yds away) to come down and open the gifts their dad bought them before they leave??' He went on, saying: 'I hope your stocking is bronze-age coal stuffed along with an assortment of 8x10's of yours so you can see how despicable and heartlessly ugly you and your fermented soul continue to be.' Taking the high road: Denise responded to her ex husband on Monday and pleaded with him to stop his ranting for the sake of their children . Charlie also claims that Denise, mother to Charlie's daughters Sam, nine, and Lola, eight, as well as adopted daughter Eloise, two, had . the 'audacity' to ask him to borrow his private jet to go on the big . family trip he says he wasn't invited on. He claims went to Denise's home to . take gifts to his girls and to plead with her to change her mind, but . that Denise would not allow him to see the kids. Charlie concludes, 'This is the worst Xmas I've ever had.' Shopping trip: Denise took her girls to the Malibu Country Mart earlier this month . Denise took the high road with a series of Twitter responses later Monday, denying Charlies claims and pleading with him to stop. When a follower asked Denise why she would not let Charlie see the girls, Denise replied: 'Thats actually not true. I don't know why he feels the need to do this publicly. I don't keep him away from our kids.' She then sent Charlie two tweets disputing his claims and asking him to stop. In the first tweet she told him he was welcome to spend the holidays with her and the girls: '@charliesheen U done ranting? keep it classy dude.Our kids don't need to be privy to this,U are welcome 2 spend xmas w/us Hope u still come.' Then she pleaded with him to stop his attacks: '@charliesheen u were & are welcome 2 see them. I never asked 4 your plane. we love u. Please 4 our kids stop this....' Strike out: Charlie posted this shot on Instagram last week showing a chopped up baseball bat that he and Denise had received as a wedding gift in 2002 . Today's rants are just the latest salvos in Charlie's war on Denise. A little over a week ago, the . 48-year-old actor encapsulated his vengeful feelings toward his second . ex-wife in a shocking photo he posted to Instagram. It . showed a chopped up baseball bat that they had received as a wedding . gift in 2002. The inscription read: 'Congratulations Denise & . Charlie, June 15, 2002, Have a home run of a life.' In addition, he tweeted, 'The lie is over. I’m done being treated like a relative with a one-way ticket. #DuhNeese.' Last Tuesday TMZ reported the former . Two And A Half Men star wanted to hit the former Bond girl in the . pocketbook by significantly reducing her $55,000 a month child support . payments. Porn again: Charlie has embarked on a relationship with adult film star Brett Rossi . The Anger Management star is also looking to get more time with his young daughters. 'Charlie's going to court,' the site reported. 'Not . only does he want child support reduced, he wants the judge to . establish his iron-clad right to see his kids on specific holidays.' According to a report on RadarOnline, . Charlie and Denise's seemingly strained relationship is due to the . actor's new porn star girlfriend, Brett Rossi. According . to the report, the 24-year-old adult film star issued an ultimatum to . her new beau that he cut off ties with Richards if he wants to keep the . new relationship going. Brooke . Mueller, 36, who was married to Charlie from 2008 to 2011 and is mother to . Charlie's four-year-old twin boys, Max and Bob, lost custody of the kids . in May. RadarOnline reports that the children were taken away after . Brooke was place on psychiatric hold following a drug overdose. Taking a hike: Charlie's ex-wife Brooke Mueller is mother to his twin boys, Max and Bob . Denise was caring for the twins, but . was forced to give them up because of their alleged violent behavior . toward her daughters. In a distressing letter to child protective . services, she explained the harrowing situation. According . to Denise, her 'daughters have been strangled, kicked in the head and . stomach, scratched, bit, slapped, punched in the face and head, and spit . on' by the boys, as have the family dogs, reported Radar. The twins have since been placed in the care of Brooke's brother, Scott Mueller. Charlie is allowed to see the boys for two monitored visits per week, each lasting two hours. The . LADCFS have been considering placing the boys in foster care, away from . both parents, at which point Denise stepped in and said she would take . them again rather than let that happen. The custody case is still under review." ]

[ "Kenneth Tynan - Biography - IMDb Kenneth Tynan Jump to: Overview (4) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (2) | Trivia (6) | Personal Quotes (5) Overview (4) Ken Mini Bio (1) Kenneth Tynan was one of the most famous theatrical critics of the 20th Century. He earned his own permanent place in the history of the English theater when he became the first dramaturg of Laurence Olivier , when the great actor finally realized his dream and became the director of the new National Theatre. Tynan's tenure at the National proved controversial, and he was forced to resign after championing Rolf Hochuth's play \"Soldaten\" (\"Soldiers\"), which essentially accused Winston Churchill , the wartime Prime Minister, of complicity in the murder of Free Poland's head of state, General Sikorsky. (After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the opening of the secret files of Soviet intelligence agencies, it generally is assumed that Skiorsky was assassinated by the Soviets.) Born Kenneth Peacock Tynan in Birmingham, England on April 2, 1927, the illegitimate son of Sir Peter Peacock, the former mayor of Warrington, who was leading a double life with his mistress and assumed the name of Tynan. (His son did not find out the truth until his father's death in 1948). While at Oxford, he acted and produced play and won a reputation as a brilliant pubic speaker at the Oxford Union. He also edited and contributed to college magazines. In 1952, The London Evening Standard newspaper hired the 25-year old Tynan as a theater critic. He wasted no time in establishing a reputation for himself of recklessness, boldness, and iconoclasm. He moved over to The Observer in 1954, and it there that he played a key role in the revolution of the London theater that began in the 1955-1956 theater season, with the debut of John Osborne 's watershed play Look Back in Anger (1959). He also championed Franco-Irish absurdist Samuel Beckett 's masterpiece \"Waiting for Godot\". But it was Osbourne's play that, overnight, made the English theater that immediately preceded it old-fashioned and out-of- date, making such popular playwrights Terence Rattigan seem almost obsolete. From his pulpit at The Observer, Tynan espoused the theatrical realism of the group of playwrights that became known as The Angry Young Men (and whose works were derided by the proponents of a more genteel theater as \"kitchen sink drama\"). Laurence Olivier, keen to not let fashion slip by him and become a living relic himself, became a convert to The Angry Young Man school, partly through Tynan's criticism and partly through the praise of Arthur Miller , with whom he had seen \"Look Back in Anger\" at the theater. Olivier approached Osbourne, who wrote \"The Entertainer\" -- one of Olivier's greatest roles -- for the theatrical knight. In 1963, when Olivier was named artistic director at the state-subsidized National Theatre, he appointed Tynan dramaturg, or literary adviser. Tynan had recommended himself for the job. After the appointment, Tynan left The Observer for the National Theatre, where he established an international reputation for himself. He had been contributing pieces to The New Yorker since 1958, but during the '60s, he became one of the most influential people working in the English-language theater, welcomed on both sides of The Pond. In many ways, Tynan was at the right place at the right time. He wanted to overturn censorship and extend the boundaries of speech, and the 1960s were a propitious time for iconoclasts. He has the distinction of being the first person to use the \"f\"-word on English television, on a November 13, 1965, BBC broadcast of a live TV debate. The incident caused a public outcry and condemnation in Parliament. One biographer said that his use of the word was \"his masterpiece of calculated self-publicity\". The BBC had to issue a formal apology, and the fallout from the notoriety eventually hurt Tynan's career as he was banned from British TV. Tynan had gotten The Observer to publish an \"obscene\" word in 1960, and by 1969, he was prepared to branch out into pornography, in the spirit" ]

[ "The Entertainer in London starring Kenneth Branagh on stage through to 12 November 2016 - information and ticket details �? to �? Premium Seating also available (plus booking fees if applicable) The Entertainer A major revival of John Osborne's The Entertainer in London starring Kenneth Branagh as Archie Rice and directed by Rob Ashford. Archie Rice is a struggling comedian, a music-hall performer in an age when music halls had all but disappeared. Driven by dreams of stardom and a desperation to equal his father's success, Archie finds himself a man out of his time - a selfish, deceitful has-been, headlining a tacky revue in a rundown seaside town. Family tensions rise to a boil as he shamelessly cheats on his wife and tricks his dying father into financing one last revue. But throughout it all, Archie jigs and jabbers before his ever-diminishing audience and does whatever it takes to keep the show going. Set against the backdrop of post-war Britain, John Osborne's modern classic conjures the seedy glamour of the old music halls for an explosive examination of public masks and private torment. The cast features Kenneth Branagh as 'Archie Rice' with Gawn Grainger as 'Billy Rice', Greta Scacchi as 'Phoebe Rice', Jonah Hauer-King as 'Frank Rice', Sophie McShera as 'Jean Rice', Phil Dunster as 'Graham' and Crispin Letts as 'Brother Bill'. Please note casting subject to change without notice. Unfortunately, John Hurt, who was originally scheduled to co-star, had to withdraw prior to the first preview performance following medical advice. Directed by Rob Ashford with choreography by Chris Bailey, designs by Christopher Oram, lighting by Neil Austin, sound by Christopher Shutt and and music by Patrick Doyle. When this production opened here at the Garrick Theatre in August 2016, Paul Taylor in The i Newspaper thought that \"Kenneth Branagh rises to the occasion with a performance that is never less than thoroughly arresting, while Rob Ashford�s revival rounds off the company�s year-long residency at the Garrick with panache, \" adding that \"Branagh�s performance, which is a bit too fundamentally genial at the moment, is bound to deepen and darken during the run.\" Quentin Letts in The Daily Mail wrote that \"Sir Ken Branagh, so palpably healthy, wearing a natty haircut and spitting out his lines with artistry, has cast himself as ageing desperado Archie Rice... It is unconvincing, and not just because, in Archie's eyeliner and stage lipstick, Sir Ken looks worryingly like Eddie Izzard... The Entertainer tends to be hailed as a 'state of the nation play'. The trouble with state of the nation plays is that the state of the nation can change, sometimes for the better. Then the play feels glum and negative and a bit so-what-ish.\" Michael Billington in The Guardian commented that \"while Kenneth Branagh is never less than fascinating to watch and the play makes a fitting climax to his year-long tenure at the Garrick Theatre, there is something seriously amiss about Rob Ashford�s production... It remains a fine play. But Ashford captures neither the glorified tat of 1950s music hall nor the way Suez split families much as Brexit does today. He gives us a razzle-dazzle show but, for all Branagh�s skill, it is not quite the one Osborne intended.\" Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph held that \"Laurence Olivier's - to judge by the 1960 film - is the superior performance, blessed with a mercurial vitality and dangerous mischief that the benign Branagh can't match. Yet Sir Ken goes some considerable and impressive way to stamping his own authority and personality on the part... But Ashford's production could do with a more spirited tempo to compensate for the dialogue's dated, often schematic quality, while there's no getting around the abundant (to many ears today, offensive) prejudice.\" Ian Shuttleworth in The Financial Times highlighted that \"the central role of no-hope music-hall man Archie Rice was the cornerstone of Laurence Olivier's reinvention of himself for a new generation; Kenneth Branagh does not pull off the sa", "Gay & Lesbian Studies: Motion Picture Videos in the Media Resources Center, UC Berkeley Gay Men in the Movies Adventures of Felix (Drole de Felix) (France, 2000) Directors, Olivier Ducastel & Jacques Martineau. Cast: Sami Bouajila, Patachou, Ariane Ascaride, Pierre-Loup Rajot, Charly Sergue, Maurice Benichou. This French comedy-drama features Felix, an unemployed, gay Frenchman of Arab descent, who has a series of adventures during a trek through the French countryside. The film examines the familiar theme of a man's search for his identity. Felix is forced toconfront the anger he feels toward his father forabandoning him, and the fear and shame he feels, living as an outsider in a predominantly straight, Caucasian world. 95 min. DVD 1706 Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert . (Australia, 1994) Directed by Stephan Elliott. With a contract to perform a drag show way out in the Australian desert, Tick, Adam, and Ralph each has his own reason for wanting to leave the safety of Sydney. Christening their battered pink tour bus \"Priscilla,\" the trio heads for the outback and into crazy adventures in even crazier outfits. 102 min. DVD 2204 Barrios, Richard. \"Silent Existences.\" In: Screened out : playing gay in Hollywood from Edison to Stonewall / Richard Barrios. New York : Routledge, 2003. pp: 17-18 (Main (Gardner) Stacks; Moffitt; PFA PN1995.9.H55 B37 2003) All In The Family. Producer, Norman Lear; director, John Rich. Cast: Carroll O'Connor, Jean Stapleton, Rob Reiner, Sally Struthers. Three episodes from one of the first sit-coms to take on controversial social issues. Judging Books by Covers: Archie ridicules Mike and Gloria's intellectual friend Roger for being gay, but he is straight as an arrow. Archie later discovers that his macho drinking buddy is gay and proud of it. (Also contains two other espisodes: Gloria discovers women's lib, and Gloria poses in the nude.) 1971. ca.75 min. Video/C 6897 And the Band Played On (TV, 1993) Directed by Roger Spottiswoode. Cast: Matthew Modine, Alan Alda, Phil Collins, Richard Gere, Anjelica Huston, Steve Martin, Ian McKellan, Lily Tomlin, Glenne Headly, Swoosie Kurtz, Richard Masur, Saul Rubinek, Charles Martin Smith, B.D. Wong. Follows the struggle of a handful of strong-willed men and women who took on the fight to save lives in the face of a mysterious illness now called AIDS. Based on the book by Randy Shilts. 140 min. DVD X3661; vhs 999:969 Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database The Angelic Conversation (UK, 1985) Directed by Derek Jarman. Cast: Paul Reynolds, Phillip Williamson, Dave Baby, Timothy Burke, Simon Costin ... [et al.]. Fourteen of Shakespeare's sonnets are taken as a basis for a rapturous celebration of homoerotic love in both its spiritual and sensual dimensions. Emotive readings of Shakespeare sonnets by Judi Dench. 78 min. DVD X59 Derek Jarman bibliography Angels in America (TV, 2004) Directed by Mike Nichols. Cast: Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson, Mary-Louise Parker, Jeffrey Wright, Justine Kirk, Ben Shenkman, Patrick Wilson, Brian Markinson, James Cromwell. Set in 1985, this made for television drama revolves around two very different men with AIDS. Roy Cohn, personifies all the hypocrisy, delusion and callousness of the official response to the plague. Nothing shakes Roy's lack of empathy: even on his death bed, he's fighting with his gay nurse and taunting the woman he helped put to death, Ethel Rosenberg. The other patient is Prior Walter, who is visited by an angel and deserted by his self-pitying lover, Louis. Louis moves on to a relationship with Joe Pitt, a Mormon lawyer whose closeted homosexuality drives his wife to delusions and brings his mother to New York. 352 min. DVD 2964 Kenneth Anger bibliography [Anger, Kenneth] Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. 2 Scorpio rising (1964, 28 min.) -- Kustom kar kommandos (1965, 3 min.) -- Invocation of my demon brother (1969, 12 min.) -- Rabbit's moon (1979 version, 7 min.) -- Lucifer rising (1981, 29 min.) Scorpio rising: Bruce Byron, Johnny Sapienza, Frank Carif", "Christopher Fry, playwright: papers - Archives Hub Archives Hub https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gb71-thm/319 Scope and Content This material has been arranged chronologically according to the order that works were first performed or broadcast, except correspondence, which has been arranged alphabetically by surname of correspondent. The archive is organised into the following series: Scripts Correspondence Family and School papers This collection contains Christopher Fry's scripts for stage plays, film, radio and television drama as well as his correspondence, notes and diaries and material relating to the performance of his plays. Administrative / Biographical History Christopher Fry was born on 18 December 1907. He was originally named Arthur Hammond Harris and during his childhood adopted the surname Fry from his maternal grandmother. In his late twenties he became known as Christopher Fry. He went to Bedford Modern School , where he wrote his first play at eleven and his first verse drama at eighteen. He worked for a short period as an actor and teacher and then became director of a repertory theatre in Tunbridge Wells in 1934, directing the English premiere of George Bernard Shaw 's Village Wooing . He also worked as a composer lyricist . In 1938 Fry wrote The Boy with a Cart after being invited by a Sussex vicar to celebrate St Cuthman , who pushed his mother from Cornwall to Steyning in a wheelbarrow. In 1939 he wrote The Tower based on the history of Tewkesbury Abbey . Both these plays are said to be influenced by T.S. Eliot 's Murder in the Cathedral . During the war he spent four years as a non-combatant in the Pioneer Corps as well as being the director of the Oxford Repertory Players in 1940. In 1946 A Phoenix Too Frequent was staged at the Mercury Theatre in London and featured Paul Scofield . It was based on the story by Petronius about a widow who is persuaded not to lock herself away in her husband's tomb. In 1946 he also wrote an early version of The Firstborn telling the story of the struggle between Moses and the Pharaoh in Egypt . He then wrote Thor with Angels about the spread of Christianity for the Canterbury Festival in 1948. In 1946 Alec Clunes commissioned The Lady's Not For Burning for the Arts Theatre Club , which features a soldier who wants to be hanged and a suspected witch who does not want to be burned. First performed in 1948, it then had a long run in London 's West End with John Gielgud , Pamela Brown , Richard Burton and Claire Bloom . Seen by some as an important return to verse drama, others including Kenneth Tynan saw it as backward looking. In 1950 it transferred to New York 's Broadway with Burton. In 1950 Fry also wrote a translation of Jean Anouilh 's L'Invitation au chateau as Ring Round the Moon for Peter Brook . He also wrote Venus Observed for Laurence Olivier , in which an astronomer asks his son to choose his own stepmother from three former mistresses. In 1950 he wrote A Sleep of Prisoners for the Festival of Britain in 1951, which featured four prisoners of war who recreate Old Testament stories in their dreams. In 1953 he wrote the screenplay for The Beggar's Opera directed by Peter Brook and with Olivier in the lead role. In 1954 he wrote The Dark is Light Enough , the third part of his seasonal plays, starring Edith Evans , set as the Hungarians rise up against Austrian rule in the 19th century. In 1955 his translations of Anouilh's L'alouette as The Lark and Giraudoux's La guerre de Troi n'aura pas lieu as Tiger at the Gates were both performed in London 's West End. In the late 1950s Fry went to Rome to help re-write the screenplay for Ben Hur . He also wrote the screenplay for Barabbas (1962) and for The Bible (1966). He continued writing plays, although his type of verse drama had fallen out of favour since the rise of realistic prose drama in the 1950s. In 1961 he wrote Curtmantle about the conflict between Henry II and Thomas Becket and in 1970, the fourth season play, A Yard of Sun about family reunions after a war. He a", "The Ride Of The Valkyries by Richard Wagner Songfacts The Ride Of The Valkyries by Richard Wagner Songfacts Songfacts \"The Ride Of The Valkyries\" is the popular term for the prelude to Act III of Die Walküre, the second of the four operas by German composer Richard Wagner that comprise The Ring of the Nibelungs (German Der Ring des Nibelungen). The Ring of the Nibelungs is a sequence of four musical dramas based on the Norse saga, which concerns the turbulent family history of a race of gods and their pursuit of a magical golden ring. It began as a single opera focusing on the death of Siegfried but grew into a vast cycle of four operas comprising Das Rheingold (The Rhine Gold), Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), Siegfried and Die Gotterdammerung (The Twilight of the Gods). Wagner's intention for The Ring was to create a \"Gesamtkunstwerk,\" a total work of art that fuses elements of music, drama, poetry, and stagecraft into an indivisible whole. It was a more ambitious piece of musical theater than any other devised up to that time and it arguably remains the most influential contribution by any composer to opera. The entire cycle was completed in 1874, and the first complete performance of The Ring took place in 1876 at the Bayreuth Festival in a theater especially designed for the production by Wagner. The opera was an immediate success. Richard Wagner devised the Wagner Tuba, a cross between the French Horn and Sax horn to enrich the harmonies for The Ring. Other composers have since written for the instrument, include Anton Bruckner, whose Symphony No. 7 utilizes four of them in memory of Wagner during the slow movement. The main theme for \"The Ride Of The Valkyries\" itself was first written down on a loose sheet of paper by Wagner on July 23, 1851 and was fully orchestrated by the end of the first quarter of 1856. It introduces the third act, which starts with the Valkyries, warrior maidens raised by the god Wotan, riding back from battle before they gather on a mountaintop. The complete opera Die Walküre was first performed on June 26, 1870 in the National Theatre Munich and soon the composer was receiving requests for \"The Ride\" to be performed separately. However, Wagner wrote in his journal that such a performance should be considered \"an utter indiscretion\" and forbade \"any such thing.\" The best known use of \"The Ride\" in the media is during the 1979 film Apocalypse Now, where it is the music played as the American helicopters bombard a Vietnamese village. The piece was similarly used in the Vietnam flashback scene in the 2009 Watchmen film, where it soundtracks nuclear superhero Dr. Manhattan obliterating Viet Cong soldiers with his godlike power.", "thtr test 1 at University of Colorado Boulder - StudyBlue StudyBlue \"slaughter on 10th avenue\" was a ballet in on your toes how is george bernard shaw related to my fair lady he wrote the source play, pygmalion Advertisement ) this rodgers and hammerstein musical was the second musical to win the pulitzer prize for drama in 1951 and featured the song \"you've got to be carefully taught\" south pacific this choreographer of oklahoma used the \"dream ballet\" to reveal character to the audience depicting laurey's sexual anxieties and conflicting desires agnes de mille what is the term use to describe a lyricist who uses words to draw attention to him/herself and to show of his/her skill with word-play and rhyme structure self-expressive lyricist in class we watched three different performers sing the title song from which cole porter musical anything goes this self-destructive lyricist often showed his dark view of the world and of love while using witty, complex rhyme schemes lorenz \"larry\" hart who sang \"lonely poem\" in oklahoma providing insight into their psychology and inner torment jud this composer was the subject of anti-semitic criticism and accused of not writing his signature jazz composition \"rhapsody in blue\" george gershwin this composer lyricist team wrote musicals which took place in a romanticized past but which showed modern ideals and contained parallels to 1950s america lerner and loewe this artist was very different from their contemporaries in that they were from the midwest, born into wealth, and was not jewish. they also lived the \"high life\"and referred to it in their work cole porter who was the original star of annie get your gun, anything goes, and gypsy, and started her career as a stenographer ethel merman rodgers and hammerstein introduced two innovative devices in this 1945 musical: an extended solo for the leading male character (soliloquy) and a bench scene which intertwined spoken dialogue and song (if i loved you) carousel irving berlin was suspicious of what he called situation musicals when writing the music and lyrics to this hillbilly musical annie get your gun which one of the following attributes does not characterize the work of oscar hammerstein self-expressive lyricist Advertisement this work, set in the american west and dealing with the california gold rush, was written by lerner and loewe paint your wagon this organization was formed in 1913 in an effort to obtain better working conditions for actors actors' equity association this lerner and loewe musical is about a fictional scottish village which comes to life every hundred years. songs include come to me, bend to me brigadoon george gerswhin spent time on folly island, living with the gullah people, while doing research for this 1936 musical about an african american community porgy and bess this 1940 rodgers and hart musical features an anti hero as its leading character, as well as an older woman who is sexually driven and strong pal joey written by the gershwins, this political satire concerned a presidential campaign which was run and won on the platform of love and was the first musical to win a pulitzer prize for drama of thee i sing this modern musical tells the story of a young girl searching for her real father and uses previously released songs mamma mia this lerner and loewe musical, set in england, illustrates that the american dream is still alive and that environment is more important than heredity my fair lady this irving berlin revue was based on headlines from daily newspapers and contained a poignant song (suppertime) sung by ethel waters as thousands cheer name the source material for one of the following musicals (oklahoma, porgy and bess, carousel, south pacific, kiss me kate) source material for porgy and bess was the novel titled porgy * The material on this site is created by StudyBlue users. StudyBlue is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by the academic institution or instructor. Words From Our Students \"StudyBlue is great for studying. I love the study guides, flashcards and quizzes. So", "Sixties City - Cult Television on selected small images for larger versions of the same image or a large different image from the same programme Main Page 1969 TV Viewing Ratings The Benny Hill Show THAMES TELEVISION 1969 The Benny Hill Show was a rather generic television programme starring the comedian Benny Hill. It was produced by Thames Television from 1969 to 1989 and broadcast in over 140 countries. Previous versions and series of the show had aired on BBC Television from 1955 to 1968, and on ATV Associated Television from 1957 to 1960 plus a one-off TV special in 1967. Civilisation BBC2 1969 13 x 50 minute documentary programmes presented by Sir Kenneth Clark which charted the events and ideologies from the fall of the Greek and Roman empires which led to current 20th century Western civilisation. The series, which took two years to make in 13 different countries, was produced by Peter Montagnon and Michael Gill Big Breadwinner Hog GRANADA 1969 The superb Peter Egan played the title role in this London gangland underworld series noted for its unprecedented violence. This led to many viewer complaints, even after the first episode, which is probably the reason why the otherwise brilliant series was so short lived. Ruthlessly ambitious, long-haired and flash, Hog was the nemesis of the old-style London gangs as well as the police. Robin Chapman produced and wrote the 8 x 60 minute episodes with Mike Newell and Michael Apted directing Counterstrike BBC1 1969 A science fiction series created by Tony Williamson featuring Jon Finch as Simon King. After an alien invasion of Earth by the Centaurans, King is sent along by the Intergalactic Council as an undercover agent to help us fight the alien menace. He is assisted in his mission by a doctor called Mary (played by Sarah Brackett) after she discovers his true origin. Although 10 x 50 minute episodes were made, produced by Patrick Alexander, only 9 were actually transmitted. The episode postponed due to other broadcasting needs was never rescheduled Curry and Chips LWT 1969 Extremely controversial for its time, written by who else but Johnny Speight, this sitcom series tried to deal with racial and class hatred and bigotry in a light-hearted manner, not always successfully. Produced and Directed by Keith Beckett, the 6 x 30 minute episodes featured Eric Sykes as the liberal, somewhat confused factory foreman who suddenly has thrust upon him a new worker in the shape of a Pakistani called Kevin O'Grady, played by the brilliant Spike Milligan Dear Mother ... Love Albert THAMES 1969 YORKSHIRE 1970 - 1971 Northern lad moves to London and manages to scrape a living, but exaggerates his success and experiences in letters home to his mum. Rodney Bewes starred as the bemused Albert Courtnay in 19 x 30 minute episodes of this 'Billy Liar' type sitcom, with Garfield Morgan as his boss, A.C.Strain. Bewes wrote and produced with Derrick Goodwin, John Duncan also co-producing. 7 x 30 minute episodes were made by Yorkshire in 1972 of a follow-up series in the same vein simply called 'Albert!' Department 'S' ATV / ITC 1969 Classic action / adventure / espionage television series created by Monty Berman and Dennis Spooner. Featuring Joel Fabiani as Stewart Sullivan, Rosemary Nicols as Annabelle Hurst and, of course, Peter Wyngarde as the fashion conscious playboy, part-time writer, part-time agent Jason King. The three agents were called into action by Department 'S', an off-shoot of Interpol to deal with 'Avengers' type situations which no other official agencies could handle. Dennis Alaba Peters also featured as boss Sir Curtis Seretse in the 28 x 50 minute", "Sadler's Wells Theatre - History History Sustainability History New beginnings sometimes happen quietly and sometimes they are announced. On Monday, 7th March 2005 the new director of Sadler’s Wells, Alistair Spalding, decided the time had come to make a splash. “You’ve got the National Theatre for drama, English National Opera for opera and I want Sadler’s Wells to perform the same function for contemporary dance.” With those words, he inaugurated a new chapter in the history of London’s second oldest theatre: its transformation into a contemporary dance house. Sadler’s Wells was not born of an artistic impulse but the discovery of a mineral spring in 1683. Richard Sadler built a music house around the spring to rival the already fashionable Tunbridge and Epsom wells. By the beginning of the 18th century, visitors to Sadler’s Wells could see entertainments that included jugglers, tumblers, ropedancers, ballad singers, wrestlers, fighters, dancing dogs and even a singing duck. In 1765 Thomas Rosoman had the theatre rebuilt for the first time so that it could mount high-calibre opera productions. However, it wasn’t long before the beer brewed from the spring waters became the primary attraction. By 1801, although a young actor called Edmund Kean and the great clown, Grimaldi, had both appeared on its stage, Sadler’s Wells had become more famous for incidents, both devised (spectacular sea battles) and accidental (a terrible stampede in which 18 people died) than for work of merit. In the 1830s Dickens wrote: “The theatre was in the condition of being entirely delivered over to as ruffianly an audience as London could shake together…Fights took place anywhere, at every period of the performance.” Matters improved in 1843 with the passing of a parliamentary act which enabled the actor-manager, Samuel Phelps, to present a famous run of Shakespeare. But after he left in 1862, the theatre once more sank into the doldrums, suffering conversion into a skating rink and then a cinema. In 1914 the Daily Chronicle’s theatre critic, S.R. Littlewood, described it as “a poor, wounded old playhouse” and in 1915, it closed its doors. It took another decade for the most significant figure in the modern history of Sadler’s Wells to enter the picture. Since 1898, Lilian Baylis had been presenting drama and opera at the Old Vic at popular prices. Motivated by a profound belief that great art should belong to everybody, in 1925 she began fundraising to rebuild Sadler’s Wells so that the people of north London could enjoy the same opportunities as those in the south. Then Baylis met Ninette de Valois, a striking young Irish woman who deeply impressed her. After their interview, Baylis’s secretary, recorded her saying: “Miss de Valois is going to run her school with the Vic and when we have Sadler’s Wells she’ll run a wholetime ballet company for us.” The fact that it all came to pass says much about the abilities of both women. De Valois was formally hired in 1928 and the fifth Sadler’s Wells, designed by the prolific theatre architect Frank Matcham, opened on 6th January 1931 with John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson in Twelfth Night. For four years, drama productions, opera and ballet shuttled between the Old Vic and Sadler’s Wells until Baylis decided to dedicate Sadler’s Wells to opera and ballet for eight months of the year and give the Vic-Wells Ballet a permanent base. The new season opened on 27th September 1935 to great acclaim with one critic noting “the splendid dancing of the young newcomer Miss Margot Fonteyn, who has a compelling personality and exceptional gifts, though only just 16.” Whilst opera continued to be important (Peter Grimes premiered at the Wells in 1945), it was in this period that Sadler’s Wells became most strongly associated with dance. It was where De Valois founded British ballet here and built both a company of dancers and a repertory that included her own works and those of Frederick Ashton and Robert Helpmann. She also founded a school which remained throughout World War II, when the theatre was itself actin", "\"The Pulitzer Prize in Music: 1943-2002\" THE PULITZER PRIZE IN MUSIC: 1943-2002 In celebration of the 1995 Pulitzer Prize in music, the American University Library mounted a special exhibit, displayed May 8-July 1, 1995, which focused on the history and winners of the coveted music award. That exhibit has been updated to include information on the 1996-2002 winners. Exhibit research and photographs by James Heintze, Head, Music Library. All scores and recordings are from the American University Music Library, located in the Kreeger Building. Selected materials provided courtesy of the Columbiana Collection, Columbia University. Special thanks to Helen Ives, American University Library Exhibits Coordinator, for her assistance in making this exhibit possible. Accompanying the display is a guide to the PulitzerPrize in music that lists winners, titles of compositions, published scores, and sound recordings. Pulitzer bequested $2 million in his will to establish a graduate School of Journalism (1912) at Columbia University (currently the site where the Pulitzer announcements are made eachApril). The Pulitzer Prizes were created with part of this money and were first awarded in 1917. The 1943 Award The first Pulitzer Prize in music was awarded in 1943. Although Joseph Pulitzer had a passion for music, his will did not call for a prize in that area, but only a scholarship for a music student. Instead, Pulitzer bequeathed $500,000 to the New York Philharmonic Society--an amount equal to the entire Pulitzer Prize bequest. In 1943 the Pulitzer Board converted the scholarship to a prize. The requirements were stated: \"For distinguished musical composition in the larger forms of chamber, orchestral, or choral work, or for an operatic work (including ballet), first performed or published by a composer of established residence in the United States, Five hundred dollars ($500).\" The first recipient was William Schuman (b. 1910) for his \"Secular Cantata No. 2: A Free Song\" for full chorus of mixed voices, with accompaniment of orchestra. The 1950 Award Gian Carlo Menotti (b. 1911) won the 1950 award with his first full-length opera, The Consul, considered by many to be his greatest composition. The opera was premiered on March 15, 1950 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York. The work, which also received the Drama Critics' Circle Award, has been translated into 12 languages and performed in over 20 countries. The 1968 Award The 1968 award was given to George Crumb for his work \"Echoes of Time and the River.\" Besides the Pulitzer, Crumb has been the recipient of grants from the Fulbright Commission, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Koussevitzky Foundation. The central unifying theme in this work is Crumb's treatment of psychological and philosophical time. The spatial projection of the time continuum takes the form of various \"processionals\"--the four movements of the suite may be realized with the players actually marching about the stage in steps of various length synchronized with the music they are performing. The 1973 Award Four composers have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize twice. Samuel Barber (1958, 1963); Elliott Carter (1960, 1973); Gian-Carlo Menotti (1950, 1955); and Walter Piston (1948, 1961). Elliott Carter (b. 1908) won his second award with his String Quartet no. 3 which was commissioned by the Juilliard School for the Juilliard Quartet. David Schiff writing for Ovation describes the work as a \"constant superimposition of highly colored textures, tapestry upon tapestry, produces a hallucinatory effect, at once terrifying and captivation.\" The 1983 Award Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b.1939) has the distinction of being the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize in music. Her \"Symphony No. 1: Three Movements for Orchestra\" was commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra. Zwilich studied at the famed Juilliard School of Music in New York where she was the first woman to receive the Doctor of Musical Arts in composition. The 1992 Award A controversial music Pulitzer was awarded in 1992 and spawned a t", "Henrik Ibsen | Biography, Books and Facts [Cite This] Henrik Ibsen A Norwegian playwright and poet Henrik Ibsen is considered as the father of Modern Theatre. He is also referred as the father of realism. After Shakespeare , he is considered as the second most influential and insightful dramatist and poet of the 19th century. Ibsen was born on 20th March 1828 in the city Skien, Norway. Henrik Ibsen was the eldest of his five siblings. He belonged to an affluent merchant family settled in the port town of Skien, which was well known for shipping timber. Henrik father, Knud Ibsen (1797-1877) was a well-off merchant. His mother, Marichen Altenburg (1799-1869) was a daughter of one of the richest merchants of the Skien. When Henrik Ibsen turned eight his father went bankrupt and became alcohol addicted. This was the most shattering thing happened to his family. All through his childhood, Ibsen had been doomed and depressive that can easily be seen in his work which is as much a reflection of his own life. Even in most plays he had named his characters after his family and acquaintances like in his most surreal drama, Rosmersholm (1886). At the age of fifteen, he was forced to leave his school. Then he moved to Grimstad and worked as an apprentice to a pharmacist. That was the time when he discovered himself as an author. He worked at the pharmacy for six years and in the rarely given spare time he started writing plays and painting. Then in 1850 he moved to Christiania (now Oslo) for the sake of getting admission into University of Christiania but couldn’t pass all the entrance exams. Quitting the idea of studies Ibsen fully concentrated on his writing. He completed and published his first verse drama, a tragedy, Catilina with the help of a friend. Nor the play did sell any significant number of copies neither it got accepted at any theatre for performances. In 1851, he got a job at the National Theatre of Bergen. The Burial Mound was his first drama to be staged and attracted few. In the following years he wrote numerous plays that went unsuccessful but his determination to be a playwright stayed strong. Year 1858, Ibsen returned to Christiania to work as creative director at a local Norwegian theatre. Later in the year, he got married to Suzannah Thorese. The couple got blessed with one child, Sigurd Ibsen who also became an author and was a successful politician too. Ibsen’s family faced very hard financial crisis at that time. Disappointed from life in Norway, Ibsen went to Italy in 1864 and didn’t return to Norway, his hometown, for 27 years. Then in this self-imposed exile he wrote a drama, Brands, which gave him a breakthrough and financial success he was seeking for as a playwright. After critically acclaimed Brands (1865), there was no looking back for Ibsen. Some of his fine works include the Peer Gynt (1867) which made him famous in Italy. In 1868, Ibsen went to Germany. Here he dramatized his social and controversial plays such as The Pillars of Society followed by his remarkably famous, A Doll’s House (1879). Then he went to Rome again and wrote Ghosts (1881) and An Enemy of the People. Drama, Ghosts, includes the topics such as venereal disease and incest which even more triggered the controversy about Ibsen’s plays. He moved back to Germany after a few years, and wrote his most well known work, Hedda Gabbler (1890). This was the time when Henrik Ibsen became famous across the Europe. In 1891, Henrik Ibsen went back to Norway as a noted but controversial literary hero. The first drama he wrote after his return was The Master Builder. His later plays became the sort of tourist attraction in Christiania. In 1899, he wrote When We Dead Awaken which proved to be his last play. In 1900, he suffered from a series of strokes but managed to live for few years after that. On May 23, 1906 he passed away. Buy Books by Henrik Ibsen", "Richard Wagner - Conductor, Composer - Biography.com Richard Wagner Richard Wagner is best known for creating several complex operas, including Tristan and Isolde and Ring Cycle, as well as for his anti-semitic writings. IN THESE GROUPS Richard Wagner - Mini Biography (TV-14; 3:50) Richard Wagner wrote his first opera, \"The Fairies,\" at the age of 21. He used all elements of theater, from music to lighting, to create \"total art work.\" Synopsis Born in Germany on May 22, 1813, Richard Wagner went on to become one of the world's most influential—and controversial—composers. He is famous for both his epic operas, including the four-part, 18-hour Ring Cycle, as well as for his anti-semitic writings, which, posthumously, made him a favorite of Adolf Hitler. There is evidence that Wagner's music was played at the Dachau concentration camp to \"re-educate\" the prisoners. Wagner had a tumultuous love life, which involved several scandalous affairs. He died of a heart attack in Venice on February 13, 1883. Early Life Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born on May 22, 1813, in Leipzig, Germany, and went on to become one of the world's most influential—and controversial—composers. Richard Wagner was famous for both his complex operas, such as the four-part, 18-hour Ring Cycle, as well as for his anti-semitic writings, which, posthumously, made him a favorite of Adolf Hitler. There is evidence that Wagner's music was played at the Dachau concentration camp to \"re-educate\" the prisoners. Wagner's parentage is uncertain: He is either the son of police actuary Friedrich Wagner, who died soon after Richard was born, or the son of the man he called his stepfather, the painter, actor and poet Ludwig Geyer (whom his mother married in August 1814). As a young boy, Wagner attended school in Dresden, Germany. He did not show aptitude in music and, in fact, his teacher said he would \"torture the piano in a most abominable fashion.\" But he was ambitious from a young age. When he was 11 years old, he wrote his first drama. By age 16, he was writing musical compositions. Young Wagner was so confident that some people considered him conceited. The New York Times would later write in its obituary of the famous composer, \"In the face of mortifying failures and discouragements, he apparently never lost confidence in himself.\" Acclaimed Works Wagner attended Leipzig University in 1831, and his first symphony was performed in 1833. He was inspired by Ludwig van Beethoven and, in particular, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which Wagner called \"that mystic source of my highest ecstasies.\" The following year, in 1834, Wagner joined the Würzburg Theater as chorus master, and wrote the text and music of his first opera, Die Feen (The Fairies), which was not staged. In 1836, Wagner married the singer and actress Minna Planer. The couple soon moved to Königsberg, where Wagner took the position of musical director at the Magdeburg Theatre. There, also in 1836, Das Liebesverbot was produced, with Wagner writing both the lyrics and the music. He called his concept \"Gesamtunkstwerk\" (total work of art)—a method, which he frequently used, of weaving German myths with larger themes about love and redemption. After moving to Riga, Russia, in 1837, Wagner became the first musical director of the theater and began work on his next opera, Rienzi. Before finishing Rienzi, Wagner and Minna left Riga, fleeing creditors, in 1839. They hopped on a ship to London and then made their way to Paris, where Wagner was forced to take whatever work he could find, including writing vaudeville music for small theaters. Wagner was part of the quasi-revolutionary \"Young Germany\" movement, and his leftist politics were reflected in Rienzi; unable to produce Rienzi in Paris, he sent the score to the Court Theatre in Dresden, Germany, where it was accepted. In 1842, Wagner's Rienzi, a political opera set in imperial Rome, premiered in Dresden to great acclaim. The following year, The Flying Dutchman was produced to critical acclaim. Considered a great talent by this time, Wagner was given t", "Kate Winslet - Filmbug Kate Winslet Kate Winslet Academy Award-winning actress, Kate Winslet has brought to life some of this decade's most captivating and memorable roles. Her resume consists of critically and commercially acclaimed work, as well as a span of awards and honors that illustrates Kate's talent and solidify her as a permanent place in cinema history. Most recently, Kate won her first Academy Award after a stunning past five nominations, for her role as 'Hanna Schmitz' in Stephen Daldry 's 2008 film The Reader. The Reader, an adaptation of German author Bernhard Schlink's best-selling book, showcased Kate's true talent and artistry as an actress in a leading role. Kate also won a Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, BAFTA, and Critics' Choice Award, among many others, for her role as 'Hanna'. Kate also starred in Paramount Vantage's 2009 Revolutionary Road, which re-teamed her with Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio . Revolutionary Road, based on the critically acclaimed novel by Richard Yates, was directed by Sam Mendes . Kate won a Golden Globe and received many nominations for her portrayal of 'April Wheeler'. This fall, Kate will be seen in Steven Soderbergh 's Contagion opposite Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow . Kate can most recently be seen starring in Mildred Pierce for director Todd Haynes and HBO. Mildred Pierce, based on the novel by James M. Cain, is the epic story of a proud single mother struggling to earn her daughter's love during the great depression in middle class Los Angeles. Kate grew up in a family of actors and began performing for British television when she was thirteen. At the age of seventeen, she made an international name for herself in Peter Jackson 's feature film Heavenly Creatures. She followed that in 1995 with her role as Marianne Dashwood in Ang Lee 's Sense and Sensibility. Kate received her first Academy Award nomination for this performance and was also nominated for a Golden Globe. She then went on to win the BAFTA and the Screen Actors Guild Award for her role. In her next film, Kate co-starred with Christopher Eccleston in Michael Winterbottom 's Jude and then as 'Ophelia' in Kenneth Branagh 's Hamlet. She next appeared as the amazing 'Rose' in James Cameron 's Titanic opposite Leonardo DiCaprio. At the age of 22, Kate received her second Academy Award nomination for this role and the honor of being the youngest actress ever to be nominated for two Academy Awards. In 1997, Kate starred as Julia in Hideous Kinky directed by Gillies McKinnon, and in 1998 co-starred with Harvey Keitel in Jane Campion 's comedic drama Holy Smoke. Kate also starred in Philip Kaufman 's period drama Quills along with Geoffrey Rush , Joaquin Phoenix and Michael Caine . Kate starred in the Richard Eyre production of Iris in 2001. In her performance portraying a young Iris Murdoch, Kate received a Golden Globe and Oscar nomination. She next starred in Michael Apteds' Enigma, a spy drama about code breakers during early WWII period and The Life of David Gale with Kevin Spacey . Kate then came to New York and dyed her hair blue and orange for her amazing portrayal as the quirky Clementine in Michel Gondry 's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, for which she received Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for Best Actress. She then went on to star opposite Johnny Depp in Finding Neverland, which was named the 2004 Best Film by the National Board of Review. In 2006, Kate was seen in All the King's Men, opposite Jude Law and Sean Penn , directed by Steven Zaillian . She then extended her voice to the animated feature Flushed Away. Kate finished the year in the romantic comedy The Holiday opposite Cameron Diaz , Jude Law, and Jack Black and also starred opposite Jennifer Connelly in Todd Field 's Little Children. Kate received her fifth Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her portrayal of Sarah Pierce in Little Children. This nomination earned Kate the title as the youngest actress to receive five nominations. Note: This profile was written in or before 2012. Read earlier biog", "THE SOUND OF MUSIC JULIE ANDREWS MARIA VON TRAPP Color: Color (DeLuxe) Sound Mix: 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) / Mono (Westrex Recording System) (35 mm prints) / Stereo (some 35 mm prints) Certification: Canada:F (Ontario) / Canada:G (Manitoba/Nova Scotia/Quebec) / Argentina:Atp / Australia:G / Chile:TE / Finland:S / Norway:7 (original rating) / Norway:A (DVD rating) / Peru:PT / Singapore:G / South Korea:All / Sweden:11 / Sweden:Btl (re-release) / UK:U / USA:G (re-rating) (1969) Trivia: The first time they filmed the wedding scene between the Captain and Maria, there was nobody at the altar to wed them when they reached the top of the stairs - someone had forgotten to summon the actor playing the bishop. According to Julie Andrews, the real bishop of Salzburg is seen in the movie. Goofs: Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Papa von Trapp was an officer in the Austrian Navy. Yet how can this be? Austria is a landlocked country. But it wasn't, during World War I, when the old Austro-Hungarian empire, which included what became Yugoslavia, had ports on the Adriatic Sea and Papa Von Trapp served in its navy. Quotes: Frau Schmidt: The Von Trapp children don't play. They march. \"The Sound of Music\" DVD cover 1981 London revival In 1981, at producer Ross Taylor's urging, Petula Clark signed to star in a revival of the show at the Apollo Victoria Theatre in London 's West End. Despite her misgivings that at age 51 she was too old to play the role convincingly, Clark opened to unanimous rave reviews (and the largest advance sale in the history of British theatre at that time). Maria von Trapp herself, present at the opening night performance, described her as \"the best\" Maria ever. Due to an unprecedented demand for tickets, Clark extended her initial six-month contract to thirteen months. Playing to 101% of seating capacity, the show set the highest attendance figure for a single week (October 26�31, 1981) of any British musical production in history, as chronicled by The Guinness Book of Theatre. This was the first stage production to incorporate the two additional songs that Rodgers had composed for the film version. The cast recording of this production was the first to be recorded digitally, but the recording has never been released on compact disc. The 1987 Telarc studio cast recording The Telarc label made a studio cast recording of The Sound of Music with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra conducted by Erich Kunzel, casting opera stars in the lead roles. Frederica von Stade sang the role of Maria opposite Hakan Hagegard's Captain von Trapp and Eileen Farrell as the Mother Abbess. Kunzel cast children from the Cincinnati School for the Creative and Performing Arts to sing the children's parts. This all-digital recording combined the songs of both the stage and screen versions, and included sections of music that had been recorded for the first time. The 1988 Takarazuka version In 1988, the Snow Troupe of Takarazuka Revue performed the musical at the Bow Hall, starring Harukaze Hitomi and Gou Mayuka. The 1991 Japanese Animation version In 1991, Nippon Animation produced a series of animation with 40 episodes according to the life of the Trappe family, and was broadcasted by Fuji TV. This series had been broadcast in Italy,", "Verdi's La traviata: Falling for the fallen women | Music | The Guardian Opera Verdi's La traviata: Falling for the fallen women Europe was already convulsed by questions of moral duplicity when La traviata’s Violetta took to the stage. Ahead of a new documentary about Verdi’s masterpiece, Tom Service examines why the tragic heroine caused such a stir ‘Verdi’s Violetta is much more than Dumas’s consumptive heroine’. Corinne Winters as Violetta with Ben Johnson as Alfredo, far left, in a modern-dress production at English National Opera. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian Tuesday 16 June 2015 12.51 EDT Last modified on Tuesday 16 June 2015 12.54 EDT Share on Messenger Close “A whore must always be a whore,” wrote Giuseppe Verdi , a furious response to the censors in Rome who had demanded changes to his opera La traviata to make the story of the courtesan Violetta more palatable to a conservative public, and a startling statement of his radical vision of his opera. At the height of his self-confidence and compositional maturity in his 40th year, Verdi had turned away from biblical stories and historical dramas to confront his audiences with a drama that dealt with some of the great moral and social dilemmas of the 19th-century world: prostitution, disease, and human passion. Or as Verdi put it in his first title for La traviata (“The Fallen Woman”): Love and Death. But it wasn’t just in Rome that there was controversy. First performed in Venice in 1853, La traviata came to London in 1856. And here too, the reaction from the great and the good – well, the Times and Illustrated London News – was of self-righteous moral indignation: “An exhibition of harlotry upon the public stage. It is the poetry of the brothel … All the interest is concentrated upon the death-struggles of this wretched girl. It is for her that pity is asked, and it is to her that pity is given. Now, we say that, morally speaking, this is most hideous and abominable.” His opera’s music didn’t go down well with some of those London critics either: “The claims of the Traviata, as a musical work, are poor indeed, and it required something extraordinary in the way of representation to lift it from the oblivion to which it was evidently doomed.” One of the most popular and most performed operas in the world today, the anonymous author of those words would have to do more than a Paddy Ashdown , and eat an entire millinery. La Traviata exposed an open wound of hypocrisy, misogyny, and sexual politics at the heart of European society But La traviata didn’t just touch a nerve with the leader writers, those self-appointed guardians of the moral compass of the British Empire. There was a feeling at the time that the entire imperial edifice was under threat from the contagion of sexual promiscuity and its concomitant physical diseases. La traviata exposed an open wound of hypocrisy, misogyny and sexual politics at the heart of European society. And in revealing it for his audiences, in creating that problematic but indelible “pity” for Violetta through his music, Verdi confronted head-on some of the social difficulties in his own life as well. Pinterest Verdi’s journey towards La traviata begins in a theatre in Paris in 1852, where he and his partner, the soprano Giuseppina Strepponi – the mother of at least four illegitimate children, a woman who had reached the end of her career by the time she was in her early 30s, whose then unmarried relationship with Verdi scandalised the good burghers of his home town Busseto – saw the theatrical sensation of the season, Alexandre Dumas’s La Dame aux camélias. A fictionalised account of Dumas’s affair with the real-life courtesan, Marie Duplessis, the play was based on his novel, which in turn built on Marie’s fame. Dead at just 23, she was one of the most feted figures of the demi-monde, whose funeral in 1847 was attended by a glittering array of French aristos – who had rented her out on a nightly basis and bought shares in her body. Verdi put on stage the waltzes and polkas which were thought to encourage moral corr", "About David Bowie - History, Biography, Songs and Facts david “As was the case with Miles Davis in jazz, Bowie has come not just to represent his innovations but to symbolize modern rock as an idiom in which literacy, art, fashion, style, sexual exploration and social commentary can be rolled into one.” Rolling Stone magazine Bowie is the man who elevated his music to what can only be described as an art form. Driven by an entirely deeper dynamic than most pop artists, David Bowie inhabits a very special world of extraordinary sounds and endless vision. Unwilling to stay on the treadmill of rock legend and avoiding the descent into ever demeaning and decreasing circles of cliché, Bowie writes and performs what he wants, when he wants. His absence from the endless list of “important events” has just fuelled interest. Constant speculation about what the guy was up to has even led some to wonder if this is his greatest reinvention ever. David Jones! David Robert Jones was born in Brixton on January 8, 1947. At age thirteen, inspired by the jazz of the London West End, he picked up the saxophone and called up Ronnie Ross for lessons. Early bands he played with – The Kon-Rads, The King Bees, the Mannish Boys and the Lower Third –provided him with an introduction into the showy world of pop and mod, and by 1966 he was David Bowie, with long hair and aspirations of stardom rustling about his head. Kenneth Pitt signed on as his manager, and his career began with a handful of mostly forgotten singles but a head full of ideas. It was not until 1969 that the splash onto the charts would begin, with the legendary Space Oddity (which peaked at No. 5 in the UK). Amidst his musical wanderings in the late 60s, he experimented with mixed media, cinema, mime, Tibetan Buddhism, acting and love. The album, originally titled David Bowie then subsequently Man of Words, Man of Music, pays homage to all the influences of the London artistic scene. It shows the early song-writing talent that was yet to yield some of rock-n-roll’s finest work, even if it would take the rest of the world a few years to catch up with him. Early 70s Bowie’s first album, The Man Who Sold The World, was recorded as an entity in itself and marks the first definitive creative stretch for the listener. Mick Ronson’s guitars are often referred to as the birth point of heavy metal, and certainly the auspicious beginnings of glam rock can be traced here. The album was released by Mercury in April 1971 to minimal fanfare and Bowie took his first trip to the United States to promote it that spring. In May of the same year, Duncan Zowie Haywood Bowie was born to David and his then wife Angela. RCA was the next label to sign Bowie, and after a trip to America to complete the legalities, he returned to London to record two albums nearly back to back. Hunky Dory was built from a six-song demo that had enticed the label to sign him and features Changes and Life On Mars. Almost immediately, it was followed up by the instant classic The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars. 1972 was certainly the year that Bowie began to get a glimpse of the power of pop. GQ editor Dylan Jones said of the landmark 1972 Top of The Pops appearance on 6th July “This is the performance that turned Bowie into a star, embedding his Ziggy Stardust persona into the nations consciousness.” The sound of the suburbs suddenly got a whole lot louder. Previewed in London that spring, his rock-n-roll creation Ziggy Stardust staged one of the most spectacular and innovative live shows to date, and the craze that followed was the beginning of his superstar myth. The summer of 1972 was also a busy one for him in the studio, as he produced albums for Lou Reed (Transformer) – a seminal record that to this day enthuses critics the world over and spawned the surprise leftfield hit, Walk on the Wild Side, a fairytale of the dark side of New York. The fact that David had also co-produced the terrifying and vastly influential Raw Power by Iggy and The Stooges that year, only added to his growing rep", "Hollyoaks (TV Series 1995– ) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error Hollyoaks takes a look at the lives, loves and careers of a group of teenage friends and their families as they graduate through GCSE's, A-Levels and College into the world of work. Creator: a list of 39 titles created 03 Aug 2012 a list of 23 titles created 29 Sep 2012 a list of 25 titles created 10 Sep 2013 a list of 28 titles created 01 Jan 2014 a list of 26 titles created 18 Sep 2015 Search for \" Hollyoaks \" on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. 32 wins & 194 nominations. See more awards » Photos The everyday lives of working-class inhabitants of Albert Square, a traditional Victorian square of terrace houses surrounding a park in the East End of London's Walford borough. The square includes the Queen Vic pub and a street market. Stars: Steve McFadden, Adam Woodyatt, June Brown A soap opera set in a fictional village in the Yorkshire Dales. Stars: Lucy Pargeter, Elizabeth Estensen, Mark Charnock Coronation Street (TV Series 1960) Drama | Romance The UK's longest-running TV soap, Coronation Street focuses on the everyday lives of working class people in Manchester, England. Stars: Helen Worth, Simon Gregson, William Roache Jeremy Kyle deals with more dilemmas, fiery confrontations and topical issues all in front of a studio audience. Stars: Jeremy Kyle, Graham Stanier, Georgette Civil The everyday lives of the people frequenting the frenetic Accident and Emergency department of Holby City hospital. Stars: Derek Thompson, Suzanne Packer, Ian Bleasdale Holby City (TV Series 1999) Drama The everyday lives, professional and personal, of the doctors, nurses and patients who find themselves, for various reasons, in the wards of the frenetic cardiac unit of Holby City General Hospital. Stars: Hugh Quarshie, Rosie Marcel, Tina Hobley The Undateables (TV Series 2012) Documentary | Reality-TV Documentary series about disability and dating. Stars: Sally Phillips, Brent Zillwood, Gareth Cooper Drama following the life of the officers and men of the King's Own Fusiliers regiment, during their home lives, training exercises and battles. Stars: Ben Nealon, Robson Green, Jerome Flynn 1 vs. 100 (TV Series 2006) Game-Show One contestant competes against 100 people by answering trivia questions for a chance to win a huge cash prize. Stars: Bob Saget, Dexter Takashi Odani, Richard Rubin University Challenge (TV Series 1962) Game-Show Jeremy Paxman hosts this trivia quiz show where colleges from around the UK compete against each other. Stars: Jeremy Paxman, Roger Tilling, Waldemar Januzczak Uniform officers and detectives from an inner London police station enforce law and order on a day to day basis. Stars: Graham Cole, Trudie Goodwin, Jeff Stewart Hollyoaks Later (TV Series 2008) Comedy | Music | Romance Unseen scenes from Hollyoaks which are high in gore, violence and sex. Which is why they weren't shown in the first place. Stars: Jorgie Porter, Rachel Shenton, Jennifer Metcalfe Edit Storyline Hollyoaks is a British TV soap opera, that takes a mundane look at the lives, loves and careers of a group of teenage friends and their families as they graduate through GCSE's, A-Levels and College into the world of work. first broadcast on 23 October 1995, on the Channel 4 network. Originally devised by Phil Redmond, who also devised shows such as Brookside and Grange Hill, the program is set in and around the fictional Chester suburb of Hollyoaks and is centered around a former 1950s technical college which is now a college of higher education called Hollyoaks Community College (often mistaken for the real-life University of Chester), with the characters and main target audience generally being in their late teens or early twenties. Written", "John Travolta - Biography - IMDb John Travolta Biography Showing all 151 items Jump to: Overview (3) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trade Mark (4) | Trivia (102) | Personal Quotes (22) | Salary (18) Overview (3) 6' 2\" (1.88 m) Mini Bio (1) John Joseph Travolta was born in Englewood, New Jersey, one of six children of Helen Travolta (née Helen Cecilia Burke) and Salvatore/Samuel J. Travolta. His father was of Italian descent and his mother was of Irish ancestry. His father owned a tire repair shop called Travolta Tires in Hillsdale, NJ. Travolta started acting appearing in a local production of \"Who'll Save the Plowboy?\". His mother, herself an actress and dancer, enrolled him in a drama school in New York, where he studied voice, dancing and acting. He decided to combine all three of these skills and become a musical comedy performer. At 16 he landed his first professional job in a summer stock production of the musical \"Bye Bye Birdie\". He quit school at 16 and moved to New York, and worked regularly in summer stock and on television commercials. When work became scarce in New York, he went to Hollywood and appeared in minor roles in several series. A role in the national touring company of the hit 1950s musical \"Grease\" brought him back to New York. An opening in the New York production of \"Grease\" gave him his first Broadway role at age 18. After \"Grease\", he became a member of the company of the Broadway show \"Over Here\", which starred The Andrews Sisters . After ten months in \"Over Here\", he decided to try Hollywood once again. Once back in Hollywood, he had little trouble getting roles in numerous television shows. He was seen on The Rookies (1972), Emergency! (1972) and Medical Center (1969) and also made a movie, The Devil's Rain (1975), which was shot in New Mexico. The day he returned to Hollywood from New Mexico, he was called to an audition for a new situation comedy series ABC was planning to produce called Welcome Back, Kotter (1975). He got the part of Vinnie Barbarino and the series went on the air during the 1975 fall season. He starred in a number of monumental films, earning his first Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for his role in the blockbuster Saturday Night Fever (1977), which launched the disco phenomenon in the 1970s. He went on to star in the big-screen version of the long-running musical Grease (1978) and the wildly successful Urban Cowboy (1980), which also influenced trends in popular culture. Additional film credits include the Brian De Palma thrillers Carrie (1976) and Blow Out (1981), as well as Amy Heckerling 's hit comedy Look Who's Talking (1989) and Nora Ephron 's comic hit Michael (1996). Travolta starred in Phenomenon (1996) and took an equally distinctive turn as an action star in John Woo 's top-grossing Broken Arrow (1996). He also starred in the classic Face/Off (1997) opposite Nicolas Cage , and The General's Daughter (1999), co-starring Madeleine Stowe . In 2005, Travolta reprised the role of ultra cool Chili Palmer in the Get Shorty (1995) sequel Be Cool (2005). In addition, he starred opposite Scarlett Johansson in the critically acclaimed independent feature film A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004), which was screened at the Venice Film Festival, where both Travolta and the films won rave reviews. In February 2011, John was honored by Europe's leading weekly program magazine HORZU, with the prestigious Golden Camera Award for \"Best Actor International\" in Berlin, Germany. Other recent feature film credits include box-office hit-comedy \"Wild Hogs,\" the action-thriller Ladder 49 (2004), the movie version of the successful comic book The Punisher (2004), the drama Basic (2003), the psychological thriller Domestic Disturbance (2001), the hit action picture Swordfish (2001), the infamous sci-fi movie Battlefield Earth (2000), based upon the best-selling novel by L. Ron Hubbard , and Lonely Hearts (2006). Travolta has been honored twice with Academy Award nominations, the latest for his riveting portrayal of a philosophical hit-man in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994", "Elton John facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Elton John Sources Few pop stars have been so successful for so long as British rocker Elton John. Since bursting onto the music scene with his album Elton John in 1970, the flamboyant singer has placed 24 albums on the charts over a 15-year period while also generating 30 Top 40 hit singles. He has released at least one Top 40 single every year from 1970 to 1997. Only Elvis Presley rivaled John for popularity as a solo act in the United States , and John has managed to keep audiences coming back for more even as he evolved from the outrageous stage persona that earned him the nickname “rock’s Liberace” to a more sedate performer in recent years. Born Reginald Kenneth Dwight in a North London suburb, John was an only child who showed early musical talent. He learned to play piano by ear at the age of four, and soon became adept at playing a wide range of classical pieces. His talent won him a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in London, which he attended on weekends from the age of eleven to 16. Music proved more than just a talent for John; it was also a refuge from a rather sad childhood. He suffered from a terrible inferiority complex and had a poor relationship with his father, who was a Royal Air Force squadron leader. “He never let me do anything that I wanted,” John told the New York Times in 1971. “I couldn’t even play in the garden … I used to pray that my father wouldn’t come home at the weekends.” After his parents divorced when John was a teenager, his father tried to talk his son out of pursuing a career in pop music while his mother fully supported his quest. John’s mother fueled his interest in rock music by bringing home records by Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and other American rock and roll stars of the time. In 1961 he joined Bluesology, the group that backed singer John Baldry. As a teenager John also performed solo at a local hotel. (John’s later changing of his name was the result of his combining the names of John Baldry and Bluesology’s saxophonist Elton Dean.) John quit school at age 17 so that he could focus completely on his music, and he played in various rock and blues bands during the next several years. During the day he found employment as an errand boy for a London publishing house. As John’s musical talent grew, he became frustrated with Baldry’s domination of Bluesology. He tried out for lead vocalist positions with King Crimson and Gentle Giant, but was rejected by both bands. A crucial juncture in John’s career was when he answered an ad for songwriters run by Liberty Records. Answering the same ad was Bernie Taupin, who Liberty teamed up with John to write commercial jingles as well For the Record… Born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on March 25, 1947, in Pinner, Middlesex, United Kingdom ; son of Stanley (a Royal Air Force squadron leader) and Sheila Eileen Dwight; married Renate Blauel, February 14, 1984 (divorced, 1988). Education: Royal Academy of Music, 1959–64. Won scholarship to London’s Royal Academy of Music as a youth; began playing piano with Bluesology, 1961; quit high school to focus on music, 1964; hired by Liberty Records to write songs with Bernie Taupin, 1967; released first single, “I’ve Been Loving You,” 1968; released first album, Empty Sky, 1969; first performed in U.S., 1970; had first charting single, “Your Song,” 1970; had first number-one hit, “Crocodile Rock,” 1972; founded Rocket Records, 1973; appeared in film version of the Who’s Tommy, 1974; signed contract with Geffen Records, 1981; first Western rock star to perform in Moscow , Soviet Union ; had throat operation, 1987; sought treatment for drug and alcohol addictions, 1990; set up Elton John AIDS Foundation, 1992; signed major publishing contract with Warner/Chappell Music, along with Bernie Taupin, 1992; collaborated with lyricist Tim Rice on songs for The Lion King, 1994; went on 41-concert world tour, 1995; began working with Tim Rice on music for a musical, 1996; performed “Candle in the Wind 1997” at the funeral of Dia", "Fred Astaire | Biography and Filmography | 1899 Appeared as himself in the documentary feature, \"George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey\" 1980 Last acting role in a feature film, \"Ghost Story\" 1979 Played eight roles in the NBC holiday movie \"The Man in the Santa Claus Suit\" 1978 Received Emmy for dramatic performance as elderly house painter whose heart attack makes him dependent on his family in the NBC movie \"A Family Upside Down\"; starred opposite Helen Hayes 1977 Had featured role in \"Un Taxi Mauve/The Purple Taxi\" 1976 Narrated the children's animated holiday special \"The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town\" (ABC) 1974 Paired on screen with Jennifer Jones in the all-star \"disaster\" flick \"The Towering Inferno\"; receieved a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination 1974 Was one of the narrators for the compilation film \"That's Entertainment!\", a collection of MGM's great movie musical scenes 1972 Appeared in the award-winning NBC variety special \"Jack Lemmon in 'S Wonderful, 'S Marvelous, 'S Gershwin\" 1969 Starred in the ABC movie sequel \"The Over-the-Hill Gang Ride Again\" 1969 Narrated the animated children's holiday special \"Santa Claus Is Coming to Town\" 1968 One-shot return to musical films, \"Finian's Rainbow\" 1968 Starred in the NBC variety special \"The Fred Astaire Show\"; also produced 1961 Acted in \"The Pleasure of His Company\" 1960 Won Emmy Award for the NBC variety special \"Astaire Time\" 1959 First dramatic role, \"On the Beach\" 1959 Starred in the NBC variety special \"Another Evening with Fred Astaire\"; received Emmy nomination 1958 Appeared in \"An Evening with Fred Astaire\" (NBC), the first of four highly acclaimed, Emmy-winning TV specials over the span of a decade, partnering him with dancer Barrie Chase; won Emmy 1957 Made his last regular song-and-dance films, \"Funny Face\" and \"Silk Stockings\" 1953 Appeared in one of his best films, the semi-autobiographical \"The Band Wagon\", loosely based on the stage musical 1949 Reteamed with Ginger Rogers after an ailing Judy Garland withdrew from \"The Barkleys of Broadway\" 1948 Returned to films to replace an injured Gene Kelly opposite Judy Garland in \"Easter Parade\" 1947 Opened chain of Fred Astaire Dance Studios (date approximate) 1946 Announced retirement after box-office failure of \"Yolanda and the Thief\" (1945) and subsidiary role in \"Blue Skies\" (1946) 1943 Signed by MGM; worked on first film there, the all-star revue, \"Ziegfeld Follies\", which featured \"The Babbitt and the Bromide\", a comic dance number which paired him with Gene Kelly; Astaire had introduced the number on Broadway with his sister Adele in 1940 First film at MGM, \"Broadway Melody of 1940\", opposite Eleanor Powell 1939 Left RKO after last 1930s film with Rogers, \"The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle\" 1938 After box office failure of first starring film without Rogers, \"A Damsel in Distress\", voted \"box office poison\" by motion picture exhibitors along with Marlene Dietrich, Katharine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, Edward Arnold and others 1935 Team of Astaire and Rogers listed in annual motion picture exhibitors poll of top ten box office stars three years in a row; placed fourth, third and seventh 1934 First starring role, opposite Rogers, in \"The Gay Divorcee\"; introduced the Oscar-winning song \"The Continental\" 1933 First sizable film role and first on screen partnering with Ginger Rogers in RKO's \"Flying Down to Rio\"; introduced the \"Carioca\" dance 1933 Film debut, a small guest star part as Joan Crawford's partner in climactic production numbers of \"Dancing Lady\" 1932 Last Broadway and London stage show before venturing to Hollywood, \"Gay Divorce\" (later adapted to film as \"The Gay Divorcee\"), with Claire Luce as his leading lady and dance partner 1931 Last stage show in which he co-starred with his sister Adele, \"The Band Wagon\" 1930 Assisted in choreographing numbers for the Gershwin show \"Girl Crazy\", starring Ethel Merman and Ginger Rogers 1927 Acted opposite sister Adele in \"Funny Face\"; score by George and Ira Gershwin 1924 First formal collaboration with George and Ira Gershwin, \"Lady, B", "Country Music Legend Johnny Cash Dies at 71 | Fox News Country Music Legend Johnny Cash Dies at 71 Published September 12, 2003 Facebook 0 Twitter 0 Email Print NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Johnny Cash ( search ), the gravel-voiced icon of American music known worldwide as \"The Man in Black,\" has died at the age of 71. \"Johnny died due to complications from diabetes, which resulted in respiratory failure,\" said Cash's manager, Lou Robin, in a press release issued by Baptist Hospital in Nashville. \"I hope that friends and fans of Johnny will pray for the Cash family to find comfort during this very difficult time,\" Robin said. Cash gained his legendary status by spanning the musical spectrum in country, rock and folk — as his wry lyrics and deadpan delivery earned him the respect of millions of fans and music critics around the globe. Photo Essay: An American Icon \"More than any single person I can think of, Johnny Cash broadened interest in country music all around the world. He was just a huge star, and became a cultural icon in America,\" said Ed Benson, executive director of the Country Music Association. \"It's extremely sad. He's certainly someone who is irreplaceable in the music business, and in the hearts and minds of many Americans.\" Cash's importance still resonates with today's musicians, and he was nominated for seven awards, and won one, at MTV's 2003 Video Music Awards ( search ) for his heartbreaking rendition of a Nine Inch Nails song, \"Hurt.\" The video was a reflection on mortality that showed his brittle health. The lyric \"I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die,\" from his hit song \"Folsom Prison Blues\" remains one of the most talked about and controversial quotes in recent music history. He was also nominated for three Country Music Awards, including Album of the Year. The awards are to air Nov. 9. The release said Cash died at the hospital at 3 a.m. EDT. He was released from Baptist on Wednesday where he had spent two weeks being treated for an unspecified stomach ailment. \"I hope that friends and fans of Johnny will pray for the Cash family to find comfort during this very difficult time,\" Robin said. Cash had battled a disease of the nervous system, autonomic neuropathy, and pneumonia in recent years and was once diagnosed with a disease called Shy-Drager's syndrome, a diagnosis that was later deemed to be erroneous. Dozens of hit records like \"Folsom Prison Blues,\" \"I Walk the Line,\" and \"Sunday Morning Coming Down\" defined Cash's persona: a haunted, dignified, resilient spokesman for the working man and downtrodden. Cash's deeply lined face fit well with his unsteady voice, which was limited in range but used to great effect to sing about prisoners, heartaches, and tales of everyday life. He wrote much of his own material, and was among the first to record the songs of Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson. \"One Piece at a Time\" was about an assembly line worker who built a car out of parts stolen from his factory. \"The Ballad of Ira Hayes\" told of the drunken death of an American Indian soldier who helped raised the American flag at Iwo Jima during World War II, but returned to harsh racism in America. \"A Boy Named Sue,\" written by Shel Silverstein, was a comical story of a father who gives his son a girl's name to make him tough, and Cash took it to No. 1 in 1969. Cash said in his 1997 autobiography \"Cash\" that he tried to speak for \"voices that were ignored or even suppressed in the entertainment media, not to mention the political and educational establishments.\" His career spanned generations, with each finding something of value in his simple records, many of which used his trademark \"boom-chicka-boom\" rhythm. Cash was a peer of Elvis Presley when rock 'n' roll was born in Memphis in the 1950s, and he scored hits like \"Cry! Cry! Cry!\" during that era. He had a longtime friendship and recorded with Dylan, who has cited Cash as a major influence. \"His influence spread over many generations of different people,\" said Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger. \"I loved him as singer and a writer. I re", "Radio Rewind - BBC Radio 2 History - The 1960's Paul Hollingdale 'This is BBC Radio 2, the Light Programme on 1500 metres Long Wave and VHF and Radio 1 on 247 metres. Good morning, this is Paul Hollingdale on this opening day of Radio 1 and Radio 2 welcoming you to Breakfast Special' Radio 2 launch (6 min) The station was launched at 5:30AM. Thirty year old Paul Hollingdale was first voice heard on both stations when he began his early morning music show Breakfast Special. He played a jingle heard across both networks called 'Wake Up Easy' . Some of the presenters who introduced Radio 2 to the public and featured regularly on the Light (l-r standing) Sam Costa, Wilfred Pickles, Geraldo and (seated) Henry Hall, Doris Hare and June Whitfield. He then played the first Radio 2 disc; The Sound Of Music sung by Julie Andrews. Paul had been heard presenting on BBC Radio since 1964 on light music and pop shows like Newly Pressed, Swing Into Summer and Swingalong. His show continued until 8.30 when Leslie Crowther took to the Radio 1 and 2 airwaves with Junior Choice (a renamed Children s Favourites). Publicity of the day centred on the new Radio 1 disc jockeys, and it should be said that Radio 2 stayed much where it's predecessor the Light Programme had been, featuring the likes of Max Jaffa, Sandy Macpherson, The Band of the Welsh Guards and Semprini. However the opening night of the new service brought Spotlight 1 and 2, a one hour special compered by Kenneth Horne. Then a radio host, Britt Allcroft chatted with Robin Scott, Radio 2's controller who had the task of reshaping popular radio. strong taste of what was to come, including Michael Parkinson on sport, David Frost with record requests, a drama featuring Patrick Allen, Jimmy Hanley playing more records, and Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick as the already celebrated Julian and Sandy. Some Light programmes were lost as a consequence of the new split Network, such as the long running and popular weekday morning show Music While You Work, the daily afternoon jazz and swing show Swingalong and Sunday morning's 90 minute pop show Easy Beat. Others were moved to be heard only on Radio 1, like Saturday Club and Country Meets Folk. Certain Light shows were now heard across both of the new networks; Breakfast Special, Junior Choice, Pick of the Pops, Jack Jackson Show, Family Favourites. This meant that much of the old Light's output carried on as before. 5.30 am News 5.33 Breakfast Special with Paul Hollingdale (as former Light Programme schedule) with resident bands and singers of the week, discs, news, weather, and traffic reports 8.32 As Radio 1 (Junior Choice - childrens record requests with Leslie Crowther - formerly called Children's Favourites at an identical time slot on the Light programme) Jack Jackson spins the discs on Radios 1 & 2 at 1pm 9.55 Five to Ten (as Light Programme - Religious Message) 10.00 Melody Time (was the timeslot for Saturday Club on Light Programme) MAX JAFFA and SANDY MACPHERSON with live orchestral music, choirs and solo singers. Sandy Macpherson plays the organ. 12.00 Marching and Waltzing (Brass Band Music) 1.00 As Radio 1 (The Jack Jackson Show - as former Light Programme schedule) 6.32 Those Were the Days (Old time and sequence dancing - as former Light Programme schedule) Old time and sequence dancing played by SIDNEY DAVEY AND HIS ORCHESTRA with a guest singer. Introduced by BILL CROZIER. M.C., CHARLES CRATHORN who also brings news from the world of traditional dancing Dance hostess, Sylvia Crathorn Dance leaders, Holland and Sylvia Brockbank. 7.30 News, Weather 7.35 Million Dollar Bill If you had all the money in the world to stage an all-star entertainment, whou would you invite to appear Special guests make their own choice with the aid of soundtrack and records and ROBIN BOYLE persuades him to say why. 8.15 Follow the Stars (Similar to former Light Show Be My Guest) 9.15 Wonderful Copenhagen (music) 12.05 As Radio 1 (Night Ride with John Curle - new show) 2.00 News Radio 2 closed at 10pm during the", "Cyril Fletcher, master of the 'odd ode', dies aged 91 | Media | The Guardian Cyril Fletcher, master of the 'odd ode', dies aged 91 Monday 3 January 2005 09.58 EST First published on Monday 3 January 2005 09.58 EST Share on Messenger Close The comedian and broadcaster Cyril Fletcher, one of the last stars of the variety show era, has died, aged 91, at his home in Guernsey. He first appeared on screen in 1937 - the year after the BBC began television broadcasting - but was best known in more recent years for reading out amusing misprints and his own \"odd odes\" on the consumer show That's Life. Fletcher was also well known for his stage work and appeared in several films -most notably in the 1947 adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby, alongside Sybil Thorndike and Cedric Hardwicke. In later years, he became a keen gardener who had a rose named after him. He claimed that he had chosen it for its distinctive smell: it was a case of one \"odd ode-r choosing another\", he said. Born in Watford shortly before the first world war, Fletcher displayed a gift for comic verse at school. He went on to study drama part-time while working in insurance. By the age of 22, he had landed his first professional work, appearing with the Fol-de-Rols musical revue. His comic verse was an instant hit when first aired on radio in the same year. Soon after, he married actor and singer Betty Astell and remained devoted to her, working with her on many occasions and celebrating their long marriage in his autobiography Nice One, Cyril. The couple went into theatrical management, producing pantomimes and summer shows and discovering new stars, including the young Harry Secombe. But Fletcher found time to front his own radio sketch shows as well as appearing on What's My Line? and the comedy quiz show Does the Team Think? In an interview about 10 years ago, he said he had made a \"fabulous living\" from showbusiness and had never faced a day's unemployment. He recently presented a gardening programme for Channel TV. But his humour belonged to a more innocent age; he disapproved of \"dirt\" and sex, preferring the \"good, honest vulgarity\" of music-hall innuendo. Michael Pointon, a family friend, said the comedian passed away peacefully in his sleep after a short illness. He described Fletcher as a \"consummate professional... He was a whimsical, droll fellow, but also a very artistic man.\" Fletcher is survived by his wife, who is 92, and their daughter, Jill.", "Eurovision Winners Videos - 1960s 1960s 1969 - Joint Winners! France, Netherlands, Spain, UK The Eurovision Song Contest in 1969 was the first time that the contest resulted in a tie for first place, with four countries each gaining 18 votes. Since there was at the time no rule to cover such an eventuality, all four countries were declared joint winners. Had the later tie-break rule been in place (i.e. the song receiving votes from the most countries, then the song receiving the most high votes in case of another tie), France would have been the overall winner. France - Frida Boccara, \"Un Jour, Un Enfant\" \"Un jour, un enfant\" (\"A Day, a Child\") was one of four winning songs in the Eurovision Song Contest 1969, this one being sung in French by Frida Boccara representing France. The other three winners were Salomé representing Spain with \"Vivo cantando\", Lulu representing the United Kingdom with \"Boom Bang-a-Bang\" and Lenny Kuhr representing the Netherlands with \"De troubadour\". The song was performed fourteenth on the night, following Germany's Siw Malmkvist with \"Primaballerina\" and preceding Portugal's Simone de Oliveira with \"Desfolhada portuguesa\". At the close of voting, it had received 18 points, placing equal first in a field of 16. The song is a classical ballad, describing the wonders of the world as seen by a child. Boccara recorded the song in five languages, French, English (as \"Through the Eyes of a Child\"), German (\"Es schlägt ein Herz für dich\", translated: \"A Heart Beats for You\"), Spanish (\"Un día, un niño\", translated: \"A Day, a Child\") and Italian (\"Canzone di un amore perduto\", translated: \"Song of a Lost Love\"). Netherlands - Lennie Kuhr, \"De Troubadour\" \"De troubadour\" (\"The troubadour\"), sung in Dutch by Lenny Kuhr representing the Netherlands, was – together with \"Boom Bang-a-Bang\", \"Un jour, un enfant\", and \"Vivo cantando\" from, respectively, the United Kingdom, France, and Spain – one of the four winners of the Eurovision Song Contest 1969. In a ballad inspired both musically and lyrically by folk-song traditions, Kuhr sings about a troubadour of the Middle Ages, describing the impact the music has on his audiences. Kuhr also recorded the song in English (as \"The troubadour\"), French (\"Le troubadour\"), German (\"Der troubadour\"), Italian (\"Un canta storie\") and Spanish (\"El trovador\"). The 1969 Contest was controversially held in Madrid, Spain during Francisco Franco's dictatorship; 5 years after the Contest, Kuhr also recorded the song with revised Dutch lyrics, then retitled \"De generaal\" (\"The general\"), which was a homage to the Dutch national socker coach Rinus Michaels, who was called \"De Generaal\" by the players of the Dutch team. The song was performed eighth on the night, following the United Kingdom's Lulu with \"Boom Bang-a-Bang\" and preceding Sweden's Tommy Körberg with \"Judy, min vän\". By the close of voting, it had received 18 points, placing it equal first in a field of 16. The Netherlands thus achieved the rare feat of going from (equal) last to (equal) first in the space of one year. Spain - Salome, \"Vivo Cantando\" \"Vivo cantando\" (Spanish pronunciation: ['bißo kan'tando], \"I Live Singing\") was one of four songs which tied for first place in the Eurovision Song Contest 1969. Performed in Spanish by Salomé for Spain, the song was joint winner with the United Kingdom's \"Boom Bang-a-Bang\" performed by Lulu, \"De troubadour\" by Lenny Kuhr representing the Netherlands, and \"Un jour, un enfant\" sung for France by Frida Boccara. It was Spain's second winning entry in the contest and the last to date. The song is a very up-tempo number, sung from the perspective of a woman telling her lover about the positive changes he has had on her, specifically that she now lives her life singing. Two memorable aspects of the performance were Salomé's costume – a pantsuit covered in long strands of porcelain resembling beads – and the fact that the singer chose to dance on the spot during certain parts of the song. Dancing was against Eurovision Song Contest regulations at the time; Salomé was not pena", "The Move The Move vocal, lead guitar, bass, cello, oboe Ace Kefford vocal, bass guitar (left 1968) Trevor Burton vocal, guitar, bass (left 1969) Bev Bevan vocal, bass guitar (joined 1969 - left 1971) Jeff Lynne vocal, guitar, keyboards (joined 1970) Richard Tandy guitar, bass, keyboards (joined 1971) Bill Hunt keyboards (joined 1971) One of the most successful pop groups to come out of Birmingham during the 1960s in terms of British chart success, The Move were difficult to categorize musically as their style ranged from pop to psychedelic, blues, progressive, 1950s style rock 'n' roll and even country and western! Above all, it was Roy Wood's talent as a highly original songwriter that propelled the band on an extended chart run. Many songs that Roy Wood composed for The Move were considered by some to be drug inspired but in reality, some of his early lyrics were written while a student at Moseley School of Art. Despite the group's controversial reputation and almost constant inner turmoil, The Move laid the foundations of what was to become one of the biggest and most successful rock bands of the 1970s. The Move was formed in December of 1965 by guitarist Roy Wood from Mike Sheridan and The Nightriders , vocalist Carl Wayne, Chris 'Ace' Kefford (bass guitar), and Bev Bevan (drums) from The Vikings and guitarist Trevor Burton from The Mayfair Set . A band from London called \"Davy Jones and The Lower Third\" were performing one evening in Birmingham at the trendy Cedar Club on Constitution Hill. Their vocalist Davy Jones (later known as David Bowie) suggested to Trevor Burton and Ace Kefford that they should form their own group. Ace Kefford recalled; \"Trev and I were there one night and Davy Jones and The Lower Third was on. They were like The Who with target jumpers, hipster trousers, doing stuff like 'Heatwave' and 'Needle In A Haystack'. Chatting afterwards, David put the notion in our heads of forming our own band. We approached Roy Wood who was already singing that sort of stuff with The Nightriders. I had a similar spot in The Vikings doing 'Jump Back' and 'Every Little Bit Hurts', trying to copy Stevie Winwood like everyone else.\" The original plan formulated by Trevor Burton, Ace Kefford, and Roy Wood was to start a band consisting of Birmingham's supposedly best musicians and create a look and sound similar to 'The Who'. The Cedar Club hosted late night jam sessions and it was there where the line-up first got together on stage. Veteran Brum vocalist Carl Wayne was invited to be the front-man and Bev Bevan was chosen as drummer after future Led Zeppelin star John Bonham turned them down (see Carl Wayne and The Vikings ). \"It felt different instantly. From the first rehearsals we knew we had something special.\" Bev Bevan remembers; \"I knew the band had something special when Jasper Carrott came to see us. Up to that time he'd always been my harshest critic, slamming the groups I'd been in as 'a load of rubbish'. After he'd seen The Move he said: That's the best of the lot so far, I think you're going to make it.\" Trevor Burton recalled; \"It felt different instantly. From the first rehearsals we knew we had something special.\" Under the initial leadership of Carl Wayne (who was a few years older than the others), The Move played their debut gig at the Belfry Hotel in Stourbridge. The new group was well received and other successful gigs soon followed. Material performed on stage by The Move at this time included many covers of American west coast groups such as 'The Byrds' and 'Moby Grape' as well as various Motown and rock 'n' roll classics. Although Carl Wayne handled most of the lead vocals, all the band members shared harmonies and each were allowed at least one lead vocal per show. Following further bookings in the Birmingham area, former Moody Blues manager Tony Secunda saw them and offered his services. Tony Secunda was one of the more controversial pop managers of the 1960s and his tactics were likely a big influence on future Sex Pistols' manager Malcolm McLaren. The group soon found out that Tony Secund", "Nobel Prize for Literature: the good, the bad and the British - Telegraph Book news Nobel Prize for Literature: the good, the bad and the British As this year's recipient is set to be announced, we look back at some of the award's beloved, obscure and homegrown winners. Ernest Hemingway Photo: GETTY IMAGES The Italian playwright Dario Fo By Marie-Claire Chappet 10:55AM BST 09 Oct 2014 The 107th Nobel Prize for literature, the richest literary prize in the world, is awarded today. Over it's history, the prize has been awarded to works in over 25 different languages.There have been 10 British winners (including one British prime minister) four joint wins, 13 female recipients, one Yiddish winner and two writers who have declined the substantial prize. The award has not been without controversy, with prominent and successful writers often rejected in favour of more obscure choices and selections often tainted by political bias. The Prize has, however, celebrated some of the finest literary output of the last century. The Popular: W.B. Yeats (1923): The beloved Irish poet was awarded the prize \"for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation\". Reflecting this, Yeats claimed that he accepted the award \"less as an individual than as a representative of Irish literature.\" Ernest Hemingway (1954): One of the most significant writers of the twentieth-century, Hemingway was awarded his Prize in recognition of an individual work. The Old Man and the Sea (1951) was singled out as an example of his \"mastery of the art of narrative.\" Related Articles 15 Apr 2015 Novelist Ernest Hemmingway Jean Paul Sartre (1964): Sartre was the second writer to decline a Nobel Prize, out of a habit of refusing all official honours. The first was Boris Pasternak in 1958 who initially accepted but then was forced to decline, under pressure from his native Soviet Union. Sartre refused as he felt it was wrong for a writer to turn himself into \"an institution\" yet was selected for having \"exerted a far-reaching influence on our age\". Samuel Beckett (1969): The avant-garde playwright and novelist was honoured for his writing, which \"in new forms for the novel and drama - in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation\". Playwright Samuel Beckett Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1982): The magic realist novelist, and auhor of the highly acclaimed One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), was honoured for \"his novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continent's life and conflicts\". Wole Soyinka (1986): was the first African in Africa and in Diaspora to be honoured with a Nobel Prize for literature. The Nigerian writer was chosen for his works which \"in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashion the drama of existence\". The Obscure: Elvyind Johnson and Harry Martinson (1974): The choice of the joint prize for these Swedish authors was an unpopular one. The Prize has long been criticised for favouring European authors, particularly authors from Sweden, as the award is granted by The Swedish Academy. The relatively unknown Johnson and Martinson, who were both Nobel Prize judges, controversially beat Graham Greene and Vladimir Nabakov to the award. Dario Fo (1997): Viewed as one of the least worthy winners, Fo was primarily a performance artist who had been censored by the Roman Catholic Church. What made his selection even more unpopular was that he succeeded over other, more established, writers: Salman Rushdie and Arthur Miller. Rushdie's rejection was widely criticised and two academy members resigned over its refusal to support the writer after a fatwa was issued against him in 1989. The selection of Fo was defended by the academy, however, who awarded the prize on the grounds that Fo: \"emulates the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden\". Italian playwright Dario Fo Elfriede Jelenik (2004): Jelenik herself believed that sh", "Project MUSE - Auden and Britten’s Paul Bunyan and the Frontiers of Opera The wind blows it back and forth. They die to make man just And worthy of the earth. (417–18) The contemporary critic F. McEachran suggested that these lines look “uncommonly like a Christian hymn to a better world” (202). That may be so, but the prevailing response seems to have been articulated by Auden’s friend and collaborator, Louis MacNeice, who said, “The mystical love scenes of Eric and Anna made one long for a sack to put one’s head in” (qtd. in Hynes 309 ). The title of McEachran’s review of On the Frontier, “Topical Drama,” may provide a clue to why these operatic love duets did not come off. The conventions of spoken drama at the time – especially for plays where audiences expected some kind of direct commentary on contemporary political events – just did not allow for scenes this ritualized or unrealistic. When T.S. Eliot reflected on two passages that “used the device of a lyrical duet” in his own 1939 play The Family Reunion (which is less immediately topical than On the Frontier), he criticized them for being “too much like operatic arias. The member of the audience, if he enjoys this sort of thing, is putting up with a suspension of the action in order to enjoy a poetic fantasia” (88). Eliot’s quest for the proper form for spoken verse drama would continue until the end of his career, and as his dramatic language evolved, he purged it of anything resembling a “poetic fantasia.” Meanwhile, as Auden’s work grew less political, he gave up spoken verse drama altogether – On the Frontier was his last effort in this direction, and it was clear that he was very nearly approaching the generic frontier of opera itself. Suspensions of action and poetic (or musical) fantasias are precisely what the conventions of opera require and what Auden’s dramatic verse was capable of providing. But Auden and Britten’s next collaboration, begun in 1939, is not an opera in any strict sense; in fact, they seem to have been bent on first undertaking almost every other form of musical theatre – and all within the same work. Paul Bunyan’s Multiple Frontiers In some ways, and especially on the page, Paul Bunyan feels like a continuation of Auden’s verse dramas. Humphrey Carpenter, who is both Auden’s and Britten’s biographer, considers the libretto “as exuberant and [End Page 415] undisciplined as were Auden’s early attempts at writing plays. Like them it sets doggerel alongside fine lyric poetry” ( W.H. Auden 277 ). Peter Porter labels it a “transitional work whereby Group Theatre Auden is initiated into America” ( “Great” 10 ). Significantly, however, this is Group Theatre Auden sans Isherwood, and it shows. Of the contemporary reviews of the original production, almost all are negative and most single out the conspicuous lack of plot development and dramatic structure. Virgil Thomson, in his New York Herald Tribune review (titled “Music- Theatrical Flop” and easily the harshest of the bunch), complains, “‘Paul Bunyan’ has, as dramatic literature, no shape and very little substance . . . What any composer thinks he can do with a text like ‘Paul Bunyan’ is beyond me. It offers no characters and no plot” (14); this judgement seems particularly damning coming from a composer who was resourceful enough to compose operas to texts by Gertrude Stein. According to Sherill Tippins, the director, Milton Smith, had his doubts before the work was ever performed, and he attempted, without success, to persuade Auden to alter it; it was Smith’s opinion that “[t]he opera had begun to resemble more a strung-together series of tableaux vivants, each illustrating a separate theme, than a convincing and captivating story” (182). This is what happens, Dryden might say, when a libretto is written by a poet who excels at “Songish Parts” and “variety of Numbers” but who neglects to “gratify the understanding” (4). It is ironic that a libretto about taming the wilderness and establishing civilized order out of chaos should itself be so untamed and chaotic. But if one can get past Th", "‘Dark Knight Rises’: Michael Caine on Alfred’s final scene | Hero Complex – movies, comics, pop culture – Los Angeles Times ‘Dark Knight Rises’: Michael Caine on Alfred’s final scene Dec. 05, 2012 | 8:00 a.m. Michael Caine as Alfred in “The Dark Knight Rises.” (Warner Bros.) Michael Caine distinctly remembers the morning Christopher Nolan turned up at his English country home with a screenplay for the two-time Oscar-winning actor to read. “My instant thought was, I’m going to be in one of these wonderful little dramas, murder thrillers. I’d love that,” Caine recalled during an interview late last week. The screenplay, of course, wasn’t for a film like Nolan’s time-bending indie “Memento” or his crime drama “Insomnia.” It was for 2005’s “Batman Begins,” which ultimately would include some of the same hallmarks as those moody, evocative thrillers — precision, tension, mystery — the signature qualities that would carry forward into “The Dark Knight” and “The Dark Knight Rises,” the last of which comes to DVD and Blu-ray this week. “I thought to myself, I’m a bit old for Batman,” Caine said. “So, I said, ‘Who am I going to play?’ He said, ‘The butler.’ I immediately thought I’ll be spending the entire series saying, ‘Dinner is served’ and ‘Would you like a coffee?’ I thought, well, I’ll read it and turn it down. “I said, ‘OK, I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know whether I want to do it or not,'” he continued. “And this is where I first found out Chris is the most secretive director you’ve ever come across. It’s like working for MI6.” Nolan asked Caine to read the script right away, and the actor obliged while his wife shared a cup of tea with their unexpected guest. And Caine soon discovered that in Nolan’s universe, Alfred Pennyworth, the confidant of the DC Comics caped vigilante, was much more than hired help. “I thought it was wonderful,” Caine said of the role. “He was the foster father of young Bruce Wayne whose parents got killed and started to bring him up. I thought this is a great director. He’s never made a big-budget movie like this and [Warner Bros. has] given him a shot. I thought, I’m going to go with him and I’ll see how we get on.” The answer, it turned out, was quite well. These years later, Caine, who still more often refers to Alfred by his job rather than his first name, considers himself Nolan’s “biggest fan,” comparing the filmmaker to David Lean and praising his ability not just to direct but also to write screenplays and create complex, nuanced characters so often absent from big-budget studio fare. Christopher Nolan on the set of “The Dark Knight Rises.” (Ron Phillips / Warner Bros.) Caine, of course, is hardly alone in that opinion. When “The Dark Knight Rises” was released in July, critics hailed the final installment in the Gotham City triptych, which sees Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne compelled to don the cowl to battle a masked menace named Bane after years in seclusion. The mission puts him in conflict with Alfred, who fears that time has dulled Wayne’s skills and that returning to the battlefield opposite such an uncompromising foe could end in his destruction. “What happened with Alfred was in the three films — ‘Batman Begins,’ ‘The Dark Knight,’ ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ — that could have made one whole film as a relationship,” Caine said. “It had a beginning, a middle and an end. I watched [Bruce Wayne] go into being Batman, I watched him get into trouble being Batman and at the end I tried to get him out of being Batman and when he wouldn’t I walked away. It was a complete story for me.” Writing in The Times, critic Kenneth Turan called “The Dark Knight Rises” “potent, persuasive and hypnotic,” adding of Nolan, “To have a director this gifted turning his ability and attention to such an unapologetically commercial project is beyond heartening in an age in which the promise of film as a popular art is tarnished almost beyond recognition.” “The thing about Chris is he’s not a normal blockbuster director,” agreed Caine. “Normally when you get these blockbusters, they spend so much money on t" ]

[ "PALOP" ]

[ "What Yo Name Iz?", "Truthfully Speaking", "speaking on camera", "No Name", "Michael Speaks", "Speak for Yourself", "My Name Is My Name", "Interstate 575", "Interstate 494", "Interstate 395", "Interstate 78", "Interstate 880" ]

[ "Two people sitting in a go-cart." ]

[ "A man teaching his son how to tie knots for a merit badge.", "A man riding a cart.", "A man rides a golf cart.", "The man is riding a cart", "A man is riding on top of a cart.", "an old man is riding in a cart", "A red-haired rides a go-cart.", "A man wearing a navy blue and orange outfit riding in a go cart at a go cart track.", "The man was riding in a cart attached to a motorcycle.", "A go-cart racer is sitting in a cart.", "A person is riding a cart.", "Three boys go for a ride in a cart pulled by dogs.", "The child is going sled riding.", "A golfer is riding a cart.", "Go-cart breakdown.", "The child sits in the cart.", "A man rides a motorcyle with a child.", "Go-carts are on a racetrack.", "A man rides inside his cart.", "A man and child are riding bicycles.", "A man rides a bike that's pulling an empty cart", "The girl is riding the cart.", "A man is riding on a cart pulled by donkeys.", "A child riding a merry-go-round.", "A couple riding in a golf cart.", "A child in a shopping cart.", "A man is riding a golf cart down the street.", "Two people are going down a long slide riding carts.", "The man is driving a go-cart around the track.", "a man is riding a shopping cart down a hill", "The man wants to go for a ride.", "Two people are on a ride." ]

[ "In Italia il 20%, come nei Paesi Mediterranei" ]

[ "Il Werder Brema ha battuto l'Ajax Amsterdam per 3-0 in una partita dei 16/i di finale della Coppa Ue...", "Pecoraro Scanio: \"Il ministro dell'Ambiente Matteoli si dimetta\"L'Enel: \"Con quei parametri rischio aumento della bolletta\" Gas serra, la Ue denuncia l'Italia per ritardo sul protocollo di Kyoto Tremonti: \"Il trattato nuoce ai paesi che lo applicano\"", "Financial Times, c'e' il rischio di aumenti diffusi", "'C'e' il rischio di una inqualificata protesta fiscale'", "A Marassi 1-1 nell'anticipo. Il Napoli ospita il FrosinonePiacenza, trasferta a rischio a Crotone. Il Bologna va a Verona Genoa-Juve, pareggio spettacolo Impegni a rischio per le prime di JACOPO MANFREDI", "I giudici della Corte di giustizia bacchettano il regime italianoE ricorda che a Europa 7 non sono mai state assegnate frequenze Ue, bocciate frequenze di Rete4 \"Contrarie a diritto comunitario\" Ma da Mediaset si affrettano a sottolineare: \"Nessun rischio per la nostra emittente\"", "COMMENTO Piano per scalare il Quirinale il premier e il rischio Consolato di MASSIMO GIANNINI", "Il neopresidente francese riceve il presidente del Consiglio all'EliseoAl centro del colloquio, il trattato per la riforma delle istituzioni della Ue Prodi e Sarkozy, accordo per un trattato Ue semplificato", "Bruxelles, 16 dicembre 2004 - Il premier olandese e presidente di turno dell&#39;Unione europea, Jan Peter Balkenende, ha annunciato che i negoziati di adesione della Turchia all&#39;Ue saranno avviati il 3 ottobre 2003.", "Studio italiano, riducono il rischio di morte per ogni causa", "Ps, aumenta il rischio per i Paesi colpiti dallo tsunami", "Il gasdotto portera' 30 mld metri cubi gas da Russia a Ue", "Ue. Ecofin, Siniscalco incontra Almunia: deficit coerente con il debito, nessun match con Bruxelles sui conti pubblici. Per il ministro dell&#39;Economia l&#39;Ue ha riconosciuto che il deficit italiano nel 2005 sarà &quot;coerente con il debito&quot;.", "Olimpiadi di Pechino con il sole. L'ultimo rimediato per scongiurare il rischio pioggia durante i Gi...", "Il Premier olandese, Jan Peter Balkenende, presidente dell&#39;Ue, ha dichiarato oggi, al termine del summit tra UE e Russia all&#39;Aia, che &quot;l&#39;UE non può accettare il risultato&quot; delle elezioni in Ucraina. Balkenende", "Molotov contro le volanti, bus incendiati, lacrimogeni. Rotto l'assedio intorno a QuartoContusi otto manifestanti. La Procura apre un'indagine. La Ue: \"Fondi a rischio\" Pianura, una giornata di guerriglia In strada restano in migliaia", "Sono state valutate appena sotto il massimo rischio le prosime sfide Fiorentina-Juventus e Reggina-L...", "La carriera di Mark Philippoussis &egrave; a rischio. Il 31enne tennista australiano dovr&agrave; so...", "Pecoraro Scanio: &quot;Il ministro dell&apos;Ambiente Matteoli si dimetta&quot;L&apos;Enel: &quot;Con quei parametri rischio aumento della bolletta&quot; Gas serra, la Ue denuncia l&apos;Italia per ritardo sul protocollo di Kyoto Tremonti: &quot;Il trattato nuoce ai paesi che lo applicano&quot;", "Oggi e domani agitazione per il rinnovo del contratto nazionale, a rischio gli acquisti prenatalizi. Agitazione anche nelle farmacie private. Il calendario", "(AGI) - Roma, 16 dic. - La reazione del Presidente della Camera sulla protesta della Lega contro l&#39;ingresso della Turchia nella UE &quot;e&#39; sproporzionata e spropositata&quot;. Lo ha detto il Ministro del Welfare, il leghista Roberto Maroni.", "Nel mirino la \"chiusura\" verso player diversi dall'iPodE' la prima volta che la Ue si interessa alla questione iTunes, il commissario Ue contro Apple \"Sistema anomalo, qualcosa deve cambiare\"", "Il Sud Africa &egrave; attraversato da una grossa crisi energetica che mette a serio rischio l'organ...", "L'Osservatorio sulle manifestazioni sportive del Viminale ha assegnato il massimo livello di rischio...", "''C'&egrave; un regolamento, e va rispettato: se lo rispettano alla lettera, esiste il rischio di sq...", "''Il rischio più grande sarebbe quello di considerare questo girone facile. Dovremo mettere la stess...", "Dopo aver perso per strada Marchionni e Camoranesi, c'&egrave; il rischio che adesso si fermi anche ...", "Dpef. Arriva la &quot;benedizione&quot; del commissario Ue Almunia. Secco no ai tagli fiscali senza l&#39;accordo in sede Ecofin. Secondo il commissario Ue agli affari monetari ed economici, Joaquin Almunia, il Dpef italiano &quot;è un documento realistico&quot;.", "Il premier lussemburghese Jean-Claude Juncker e&#39; stato nominato presidente dell&#39;Eurogruppo. Lo rende noto la presidenza olandese dell&#39;UE. Fonti della presidenza di turno della Ue hanno confermato che il mandato", "\"Per come si era messa la partita c'era anche il rischio di poterla perdere. Invece i ragazzi sono s...", "Il rischio &egrave; quello di sentirsi appagati e di mollare. Tommaso Rocchi vuole che la Lazio rest...", "\"Quando rischi di andare sotto con un rigore a gara largamente iniziata, c'&egrave; il rischio di pe..." ]

[ "They do. The problem is that because it's very new to a lot of people we aren't used to thinking about security for smart phones. Try searching for android and malware, you'll find all kinds of articles about malicious software for phones." ]

[ "In my opinion, smartphones. Here's why: To make a modern quadcopter drone, you need the following: * lightweight, high capacity batteries * very powerful tiny motors * a motion sensing chip to stabilize flight * a tiny camera * a tiny computer to operate all of the above. Every one of these technologies was originally developed for mobile phones, smartphones especially. (The tiny motors are needed to run the vibrate feature.) Early modern drones often used tons of cell phone parts in the construction, and there's still a huge amount of technological overlap. It's no coincidence that quadcopter drones started becoming popular as soon as smartphone parts became cheap and widely available. (I should mention I'm not talking about military drones here. Those are, IMO, basically a totally different tech.)", "What I did was delete that norton junk, installed a free antivirus and firewall and told him norton changed their name to the one i installed.", "Use a virtual private network anytime you are connecting to a public WiFi hotspot, or when conducting activities online that you do not want to be traceable. I use ProtonVPN. Use NoScript, Disconnect, HTTPS Everywhere, AdBlock, etc. when browsing, and routinely clear your cookies and browser history. Use a non-tracking search engine like DuckDuckGo instead of Google. Use a firewall / antivirus and anti-malware software on your computer. (I'm using Kaspersky, despite the current controversy, and Malwarebytes). Use an encrypted email provider (I use ProtonMail). You might also want to look into encrypted text messaging if you have a smartphone. I use Signal, by Open Whisper Systems, on my rooted Android phone running LineageOS.", "smartphone? Your average microcontroller has greater computing power. With 4 kB of read write memory and a 2 MHz processor with on the order of 10k transistors, the computing power of the apollo guidance computer is absurdly small compared to a common smartphone with 512 MB of RAM, a 1 GHz processor, and a billion transistors.", "I believe any potential source of power comes with risks. Our job as scientists and engineers is to minimize those risks. I personally believe that the benefits of using nuclear power outweigh the potential drawbacks due to the advancements in computer control systems and an overall understanding of harnessing the power from a nuclear reaction.", "Yes because the body has code to determine everything about you which is DNA. The environment around you helps you learn, just like a computer AI learning how to play a game, humans learn how to react to the world around them. Scientifically, our brains work just like computers in that synapses fire just like computers process information and our brain cells store information like computers have hard drives. However, outside of what science says, it’s up for you to determine if there is more than just chemical reactions within humans. Many religions believe in souls being connected to humans, which would imply that humans are more than just a code.", "I believe it can be, but in a different way. I believe we will beable to download our counsciouness on to computers one day. The question then becomes do \"you\" die and the machine is just a perfect copy of you.", "There's actually a video about this on YouTube. I can't look it up because of my work computer's firewall but it's from the channel \"Smarter Every Day\" and it's awesome.", "I believe that any uploading requires a tiny amount of downloading, as the two computers make requests and send confirmations back and forth.", "The same way they have movies set in the Middle Ages even though there were no recording devices capable of filming it at the time. They're either drawings, computer simulations, pictures of other galaxies that are believed to look like ours, etc.", "**Who:** Mostly people who know how to code and want to get information about people or just damage a computer. **Why:** As I said before, to damage computer, get information, try to get money (Ransomware). **How:** There's a plenty ways how they work. *Ransomware*, for example blocks completely the computer encrypting files with a password and making it unaccessible to the host. You get a bitcoin account and you are asked to pay a certain amount of money (if you have this kind of problem NEVER PAY. Just call the police) A *trojan* is a virus which will let remote access to the person who infected it allowing him to do whatever he wants. Just as if he was in front of the computer. A *worm* --- barbodelli will explain it nice here down! Edit: I forgot about antivirus. Yes they are useful. They work with a big database of virus around the world and are able to detect them before they do serious damage. Anyway the best antivirus, is you.", "I'm an ahmadi muslim. The main difference between us would be that we believe in the second coming of Jesus/Krishna/Buddha etc arrived already. We believe Jesus did not die on the cross but survived and traveled to find the lost tribes of Israelite. I think those are the main difference. The smaller difference would be we see all of Gods messengers as his prophets, even krishna or socrates. We don;t believe in punishment for choosing religions at your own will Aka apostasy . Check out /r/ahmadiyyat", "Memory is tricky. A good way of splitting it up is into declarative \\(things that have happened, names of things, events, places, etc\\) and non\\-declarative \\(e.g. skills, 'habits', etc\\) memory. Declarative memory is usually the type of stuff that we think of with regard to a computer's capacity \\- how many things that can it store. Its pretty clear that computers have a much, much higher capacity in this respect. Human's can't remember much, and many of our memories are incomplete and subject to retrieval errors. Even an old computer could, by comparison, store information about millions of events or things. Important to remember though, the primary function of a brain isn't storage \\- its to run the body and provide adaptive responses to the environment. Memory is just one part of that response, which has become pretty key for how our civilisation has developed. But there's a lot of other stuff going on in there that computers aren't anywhere near.", "Sounds like what is happening here is that you are syncing a device with a device with an unassociated library. An iDevice gets linked to a particular authorised computer + library file, and when you sync your device with an unrelated computer, it will erase the content. I know you said you manually manage the device, but the only thing I can think of is that something is going wrong in this process and erasing your device. I don' t mean this as a slightly against you. Itunes can be pretty ridiculous to work with at times. It just seems like that is the one consistent factor across your story.", "We're awfully elastic. All our external body parts are soft tissue, many covered with fine hairs, blemishes, moles, freckles, etc. And they tend to move when we move. The kind of processing power necessary to match that in CGI is astronomical (some of the most powerful computers on the planet are for making films) Beyond that, I think it's just a matter of eventually getting both sufficiently powerful computers, and understanding well enough how all those tiny bits move. We're awfully close when we chose to be. The Hulk in the Avengers movie was amazingly good CGI, for example.", "By using light. Internet cables are basically tiny tubes through which light flashes are sent. These flashes have a meaning (a bit like morse code) depending on their timing. Computers know how to translate these flashes into text, images, music etc. As the circumference of the earth is about 40.000 km and the speed of light is about 200.000 km per second in an internet cable, we need far less than a second to send these flashes around the world. However, it will be a bit slower because computers need time to make the flashes first and then interpret them as they arrive.", "Not every device on a government network is connected to the internet. There are separate closed networks for all kinds of secure activities, which are on physically separate networks from the internet. Such as _URL_0_ There are also computers and systems which are fully standalone and not connected to any network. But yes, many government computers are connected to the internet, often behind some kind of firewall.", "One of the primary things that protects your phone is the source of the software that you run. For most users, every piece of software that they run comes directly from the manufacturer, service provider, or app store of their choice. Because users aren't downloading and running random software, it's much harder to get malware running on a smartphone. On a related note, its not hard to prevent viruses and other malware on a PC with a little bit of common sense and precautions. In all of my time using computers and the internet, I have never lost a computer to a virus. Additionally, most of the people who have brought me \"infected\" computers to fix have just downloaded themselves into toolbar hell or have had minor hardware failure.", "It doesn't exist physically. Most money nowadays is completely digital. I believe it is only 10 - 20% of our money that is actually available in physical form, the rest is all numbers in a computer system.", "The body's immune system has a reaction similar to a computer's antivirus having a false positive, and tries to get rid of it, even for things that are completely harmless. Think of different people having different brands of antivirus. Deadly reactions are like the computer going full ham safemode shred file. The body thinks it's being destroyed by an insane threat and can end up overreacting over nothing, causing the person to die. Sorry if it didn't explain much but that's the best way I can explain it.", "[They do](_URL_0_), but most of the market doesn't really seem to want \"rugged\" phones as a prime feature. In particular, some prefer having the case system because it lets them personalise their phone.", "I work in an academic library and we allow community members to check out our books. We also have computers and printing for the public and access to all our database products(JSTOR, EBSCO, etc) from on campus. Check out your local college library!", "Particle accelerators help scientists understand how the physical world works. Theoretical physicists can construct models of quantum mechanics and particle physics, but without experimental equipment like particle accelerators, they're flying blind. High level physics is how we get the super high density computing in your smartphone. Or the radiotherapy to treat cancer. Or atomic clocks that let GPS work. There are also spinoffs that come from developing the computers to analyse all the particle physics data. All websites run on HTTP, which was developed at CERN.", "The human brain is *not* an incredible computer at certain tasks, such as math calculations. I mean, it's incredible compared to many other brains, and even some of the earliest electronic computers. But it isn't good at specifically doing math computations compared to a digital computer. However, human brains are much better at things like pattern recognition than all of our current engineered computers.", "The issue is that people needed a computer smaller than a laptop or a desktop. The idea that the smartphone would so quickly grow to the point where it would be that replacement instead of the tablet came as a surprise to most.", "Our brains are faster, but they work extremely differently. Computers generally can only do one thing at a time, but they do so extremely quickly and each individual operation happens in a split second. Brains can do hundreds of things at a time, like maintain breathing and heart rate, process data from our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin, and then ignore irrelevant data, keep our balance, process language, and maintain a constant sense of self *all at once* because, while each individual process is pretty slow, it is doing all of those things in massive parallel, sort of like if you made a supercomputer out of millions of individual computers. Each computer only does one tiny piece of the calculation. We have difficulty with many things computers can do quickly because our brains weren't really designed to be good at those things. What hunter gatherer needs to multiply 2 3 digit numbers? Instead, we do a ton of complex processes at once with our brains, leaving little power remaining for long division.", "Google's Nexus Line does. Other manufacturers, along with carriers have a financial incentive to bloat your phone.", "Our DNA is comprised of different chemical bases. Just like computer coding is done with 1s and 0s , our coding is done with complex DNA structure that codes A, G, C and T. When you count each A, G, C and T as a bit of information just like a 1 and a 0 , and count the total number of code a DNA has, you'll reach the amount of data stored. For example, let's hypothesize that a DNA has 8 million bases in one strand. Since it's double stranded, you'll get a total of 16 million bits of information. 1 byte is 8 bits: 16 million / 8 = 2 million bytes of data. 2 million bytes roughly translates to 1.92 megabytes. P.s : Instead of computing's 8-bit bytes, our DNA codes data in 3-bit bytes. So, the calculation I made MAY be wrong, but I wanted to give an insight. Hope this helped!", "Your antivirus is like a bodyguard. If i have a car I can transport that extra person with me with little problem. If all i have is a bicycle then i will really struggle to support him. Your computer might be a bicycle more than it is a car.", "It is all about being a mutual care system. You don t pay when you need it and you don t benefit when you want. See this like road work. Are you paying when you use a road ? Is it cheaper to construct a road for everyone or that each people construct its own road. Would you consider pay for your army, police when you need it? I don't understand all the rage about tax. The French system cost less to the community, rich or poor. Stop thinking you ll always be healthy you have no idea. If you prefer gamble, don t forget the house always win. ( And consider that in fact you can t stop playing ....)", "We don't know. We know that all the things the brain does arise from the staggering network of connections between nerve cells, communicating with each other with a few simple rules which, together, create the immensely complicated meat computer in your skull, but we don't yet have any idea how consciousness works. That said, very, very few neurologists believe in \"souls.\" When we die, we cease to be, and when we damage our meat computers we permanently damage ourselves and all that we are, because the brain *is* ourself. Take care of your meat computer.", "Short answer: We do. It works some of the time. _URL_1_ _URL_0_ _URL_2_" ]

[ "Web browsers are the programs you will need to go to websites and explore the web. Without this, you will not be able to surf anything on the web. To start using a browser, you will need to install it first." ]

[ "If the mentioned Browser Safeguard has been installed without your permission, this tutorial will allow you to rid your Windows of the risky browser extension.", "Now, lets face it, Internet Explorer isn't the best web browser out there, but we always seem to be stuck with it, even when we have other browsers installed.", "Your Internet browser may experience redirects as a result of having installed malware or browser hijacker programs that alter the settings and preferences in your browser.", "SnapDo is a browser hijacker program that installs a toolbar in your browser and modifies browser settings in favor of SnapDo products and services.", "Sweetpages.com is a browser hijacker virus. You may install it with some third party programs, which can be downloaded from the Internet for free. Once it gets installed, it changes browser settings like homepage.", "The Homebrew browser is an application you must first download to your computer before installing and using it on your Nintendo Wii. The browser will allow you to search for and download Homebrew applications and utilities directly through your Wii's Homebrew channel.", "AdChoices is a browser hijacker add-on that when installed, will make a series of changes to your personal browser preferences and cause pop-up ads to display on your desktop.", "Add-ons are pieces of software that are designed to work in conjunction with Internet browsers and add new elements and capabilities to the browsers.", "WhiteSmoke is a program and browser add-on that changes your Internet browser settings, and installs a toolbar that allows you to check Web pages for grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors.", "The Kindle Fire HD does not have Flash support installed natively. You will need to install Adobe Flash using a third-party installer, as well as a browser app that supports flash content.", "If you had performed the default installation of Winamp player, you then may need to: 1) Remove Winamp® Toolbar; 2) Restore the Search Engine setting for Web browser(s) install.", "BearShare is a file transfer program that tends to install a lot of unwanted browser add-ons and extensions. It can hijack your web browser experience and is a serious pain to remove.", "Many programs will install toolbars that are loaded into your web browser, sometimes without your knowledge. Removing these toolbars can be a nuisance, especially if you have several installed.", "Tuvaro is a nasty browser hijacker that was likely installed alongside another program. Tuvaro is a PUP, or Potentially Unwanted Program. Typically, it is installed when you select \"Automatic\" or \"Express\" installations for programs downloaded online.", "This wikiHow teaches you how to install a button in your computer's browser that allows you to view (and potentially pin) any Pinterest-compatible photos on a page.", "McAfee SiteAdvisor is a browser add-on that can be installed into Chrome. It will rate the safety of your search results based on reports gathered about each one.", "Are all of the toolbars installed on your browser slowing it to a crawl? Toolbars can get installed alongside other programs, making it very easy to pick up a few without even realizing it.", "You can install a homebrew channel for your Wii U by using a simple internet browser exploit. This will allow you to install homebrew applications, such as programs that let you run games from other regions.", "Yontoo is an adware plugin installed on your web browser that modifies its settings without your consent for malicious or promotional purposes. Yontoo can be installed on your computer by downloading and installing third-party applications from unknown sources.", "Lots of Windows starters wished to uninstall Ad-Aware Free Antivirus + 11 because the Ad-Aware web installer pre-installed potentially unwanted \"browser hijacker\" Ad-Aware SECURITY TOOLBAR.", "Adobe's Flash Player is one of the old standards of the internet, responsible for bringing countless streams of content to browsers everywhere. If your browser does not have Adobe Flash Player installed, or if the one that you have is getting a little old, it's time to update!", "This how-to explains a clear and step by step 5-minute process to install the Tor Browser Bundle onto Linux. The Tor Browser Bundle is free and open source software designed to protect your privacy while browsing online.", "Changing your new tab page on the Safari Internet browser allows you to decide which page is displayed when you open a new tab. If you would like to learn how to do this, please continue reading.", "Google's new software will soon be released to the public but for now there is a quick way to try it out. This will not work for all computers and browsers.", "To view YouTube and other streaming videos you need flash player installed. To install flash player in Windows you need Administrative rights. This article tell you how to install flash player in Firefox browser without administrative rights and thus enabling you to watch your favorite videos.", "Installing the StumbleUpon toolbar onto your Safari browser may not be as easy as it is for Firefox users, but you can still enjoy that OSX feel by following these simple steps.", "Pageset is a web browser malware that forcibly changes your home page and the default search engine settings of your browser to pageset.com. It is usually carried by and installed on your computer through suspicious freeware applications that you get from clicking on random ads on the Internet.", "Do you have difficulty opening multiple tabs in your browser window? This article shows you how to open links in new tabs and windows in multiple browsers.", "Whether you're installing a new sink in a recently constructed home or replacing an old one, you can learn to plan properly and install your new sink securely.", "Usually, media means Flash content and Flash videos in websites. Normal browsers are not able to play these content without the Flash Player installed on your device.", "Firefox OS for Smartphone can be views in your PC. You could view Firefox OS for Smartphone in Firefox web browser. Your must have the Firefox latest version and install “Firefox OS simulator” add-on installed in your PC.", "This wikiHow teaches you how to pin posts to boards on your Pinterest profile. For an easy way to pin items on a computer, consider installing the \"Pin It\" button for your browser." ]

[ "Rise got it right- almost. First of all, only 3 ingredients- whey protein, almonds, and honey- is fantastic. And they taste good- except they are just a little too sweet. There's no need for 13grams of sugar. They could have cut it in half quite easily in my opinion. For this reason, I never eat a whole bar. I usually use 1/2 a bar as a '2nd breakfast' after my morning workouts. Because of the high sugar content, I can't justify the entire bar at once, so I take along some grilled chicken to round out the meal. I feel the same way about all of Rise's bars. They are delicious, clean, and convenient... but they overdo it on the sugar in every single one of their bars. If you are as careful as I am about sugar (I stay at no more than 15-20grams/day) buy these with caution b/c a full bar will be your full day of sugar. If you are not cautious about sugar, consider becoming so." ]

[ "Costco carried this particular brand of cornbread for many years, but appears to have stopped carrying it. Big mistake. This is hands down the best cornbread period. It is moist and sweet. Almost cake-like. Perfect with Chili or Pork BBQ Country Ribs.", "This stuff is perfect for low carb/high protien chocolate power shakes... I mix it with banana whey powder and egg whites for a super thick low cal, low carb, chocolate-banana-sticky-paste-thingy. It's almost like a chocolate banana moose desert.... great for weight watching chocolate freaks!", "Gluten free diets can be so much more varied with this product. It can be coating to chicken or meat, or can be added to juices/broths to thicken. It can even be used to make a perfect stuffing for chicken or turkey.<br /><br />It has make my boring diet almost feel normal. No feeling of deprivation any more!", "I always look forward to holiday season just for the pumpkin spice lattes from Starbucks. I have tried many syrups in pumpkin spice flavor. So far this one is the closest. I have also mixed some of the pumpkin spice creamer from coffee mate, with it it's almost a perfect match. I would recommend this but don't use too much and you might want to mix it with a vanilla flavor syrup also.", "Peeled Snacks Cherry is *very* tasty. They are like soft, juicy, extra plump raisins, but with the distinct flavor of cherry. The Packs are a convenient size for travel, and are a built in limit to the tendency to over-indulge.<br /><br />That said, the cost isn't bad for a travel pack, but for a household staple it's pricey. It would be nice to have the option to buy it in bulk at a more economical price. I almost downgraded it a star for that reason; but I must admit it might be difficult to maintain the perfect flavor and texture achieved in the travel pack.<br /><br />Taste it to believe it!", "I came across a review by Details Magazine last night: \" Pumpkin Chips<br />Pumpkins are higher in beta- and alpha- carotene than almost any other food, and recent studies have found that those who eat the most orange foods live longer. These thick-cut pumpkin slices are the perfect longevity snack.\"<br /><br />wow......Aside from the heath benefits; the pumpkin chips taste great as snacks. Sometime I sprinkle them on salad for extra crunch." ]

[ "An Essay on Criticism - The Full Wiki The Full Wiki More info on An Essay on Criticism Wikis An Essay on Criticism: Wikis Note: Many of our articles have direct quotes from sources you can cite, within the Wikipedia article! This article doesn't yet, but we're working on it! See more info or our list of citable articles . Related top topics Alexander Pope An Essay on Criticism was the first major poem written by the English writer Alexander Pope (1688–1744). However, despite the title, the poem is not as much an original analysis as it is a compilation of Pope's various literary opinions. A reading of the poem makes it clear that he is addressing not so much the ingenuous reader as the intending writer. It is written in a type of rhyming verse called heroic couplets . The poem first appeared in 1711, but was written in 1709. It is clear from Pope's correspondence [1] that many of the poem's ideas had existed in prose form since at least 1706. It is a verse essay written in the Horatian mode and is primarily concerned with how writers and critics behave in the new literary commerce of Pope's contemporary age. The poem covers a range of good criticism and advice. It also represents many of the chief literary ideals of Pope's age. Pope contends in the poem's opening couplets that bad criticism does greater harm than bad writing: 'Tis hard to say, if greater Want of Skill Appear in Writing or in Judging ill, But, of the two, less dang'rous is th' Offence, To tire our Patience, than mis-lead our Sense Some few in that, but Numbers err in this, Ten Censure wrong for one who Writes amiss; A Fool might once himself alone expose, Now One in Verse makes many more in Prose. ... (1–8) Despite the harmful effects of bad criticism, literature requires worthy criticism. Pope delineates common faults of critics, e.g., settling for easy and cliché rhymes: And ten low words oft creep in one dull line: While they ring round the same unvaried chimes, With sure returns of still expected rhymes; Wher'er you find \"the cooling western breeze\", In the next line, it \"whispers through the trees\"; If crystal streams \"with pleasing murmurs creep\", The reader's threatened (not in vain) with \"sleep\" . . . (347–353) Throughout the poem, Pope refers to ancient writers such as Virgil , Homer , Aristotle , Horace and Longinus . This is a testament to his belief that the \"Imitation of the ancients\" is the ultimate standard for taste. Pope also says, \"True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, / As those move easiest who have learned to dance\" (362–363), meaning poets are made, not born. As is usual in Pope's poems, the \"Essay\" concludes with a reference to Pope himself. Walsh, the last of the critics mentioned, was a mentor and friend of Pope who had died in 1710. An Essay on Criticism was famously and fiercely attacked by John Dennis , who is mentioned mockingly in the work. Consequently, Dennis also appears in Pope's later satire, the Dunciad . Part II of An Essay on Criticism includes a famous couplet: A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring . in reference to the spring of Pieria in Macedonia, sacred to the Muses . Ironically, the first line of this couplet is often misquoted as \"a little knowledge is a dangerous thing,\" thus reinforcing the aptness of this very admonition, as the misquote betrays a certain want of learning. Part II is also the source of this famous line: To err is human, to forgive divine. The line \" Fools Rush In Where Angels Fear to Tread \" from Part III has become part of the popular lexicon, and has been used for and in various works. References ^ 22nd October, 1706: Correspondence, i.23–24. External links Up to date as of January 14, 2010 From Wikiquote Some Figures monstrous and mis-shap'd appear, Consider'd singly, or beheld too near, Which, but proportion'd to their Light, or Place, Due Distance reconciles to Form and Grace. A prudent Chief not always must display His Pow'rs in equal Ranks, and fair Array, But with th' Occasion and the Place comply, Conceal his Force," ]

[ "Alexander Pope - Alexander Pope Poems - Poem Hunter Alexander Pope - Alexander Pope Poems - Poem Hunter Do you like this poet? Alexander Pope Poems Ode On Solitude Happy the man, whose wish and care A few ... Summer See what delights in sylvan scenes appear! ... Sound And Sense True ease in writing comes from art, not ... An Essay On Criticism Part I INTRODUCTION. That it is as ... Essay On Man The First Epistle Awake, my ST. JOHN!(1)... Eloisa To Abelard In these deep solitudes and awful cells, ... All poems of Alexander Pope » Search in the poems of Alexander Pope: Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson. Pope's use of the heroic couplet is famous. Life Early Life Pope was born in London to Alexander Pope (senior, a linen merchant) and Edith Pope (née Turner), who were both Catholics. Pope's education was affected by the penal law in force at the time upholding the status of the established Church of England, which banned Catholics from teaching on pain of perpetual imprisonment. Pope was taught to read by his aunt, then went to Twyford ... more » Click here to add this poet to your My Favorite Poets. Quotations more quotations » ''So vast is art, so narrow human wit.'' Alexander Pope (1688-1744), British poet. Essay on Criticism (Fr. I). . . Poetical Works [Alexander Pope]. Herbert Davis, ed. (1978; repr. 1990) O... ''For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.'' Alexander Pope (1688-1744), British poet. Essay on Criticism (Fr. III). . . Poetical Works [Alexander Pope]. Herbert Davis, ed. (1978; repr. 1990)... ''Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.'' Alexander Pope (1688-1744), British satirical poet. An Essay on Criticism, l. 625 (1711). ''The worst of madmen is a saint run mad.'' Alexander Pope (1688-1744), British satirical poet. Imitations of Horace, bk. 1, epistle 6, \"To Mr. Murray,\" l. 27 (1738). ''An honest man's the noblest work of God.'' Alexander Pope (1688-1744), British poet. An Essay on Man (Fr. Epistle IV). SeCePo. Poetical Works [Alexander Pope]. Herbert Davis, ed. (1978; rep...", "SparkNotes: The Rape of the Lock: Context The Rape of the Lock Alexander Pope Table of Contents Characters Alexander Pope was born in London in 1688. As a Roman Catholic living during a time of Protestant consolidation in England, he was largely excluded from the university system and from political life, and suffered certain social and economic disadvantages because of his religion as well. He was self-taught to a great extent, and was an assiduous scholar from a very early age. He learned several languages on his own, and his early verses were often imitations of poets he admired. His obvious talent found encouragement from his father, a linen-draper, as well as from literary-minded friends. At the age of twelve, Pope contracted a form of tuberculosis that settled in his spine, leaving him stunted and misshapen and causing him great pain for much of his life. He never married, though he formed a number of lifelong friendships in London’s literary circles, most notably with Jonathan Swift. Pope wrote during what is often called the Augustan Age of English literature (indeed, it is Pope’s career that defines the age). During this time, the nation had recovered from the English Civil Wars and the Glorious Revolution, and the regained sense of political stability led to a resurgence of support for the arts. For this reason, many compared the period to the reign of Augustus in Rome, under whom both Virgil and Horace had found support for their work. The prevailing taste of the day was neoclassical, and 18th-century English writers tended to value poetry that was learned and allusive, setting less value on originality than the Romantics would in the next century. This literature also tended to be morally and often politically engaged, privileging satire as its dominant mode. The Rape of the Lock is one of the most famous English-language examples of the mock-epic. Published in its first version in 1712, when Pope was only 23 years old, the poem served to forge his reputation as a poet and remains his most frequently studied work. The inspiration for the poem was an actual incident among Pope’s acquaintances in which Robert, Lord Petre, cut off a lock of Arabella Fermor’s hair, and the young people’s families fell into strife as a result. John Caryll, another member of this same circle of prominent Roman Catholics, asked Pope to write a light poem that would put the episode into a humorous perspective and reconcile the two families. The poem was originally published in a shorter version, which Pope later revised. In this later version he added the “machinery,” the retinue of supernaturals who influence the action as well as the moral of the tale. After the publication of The Rape of the Lock, Pope spent many years translating the works of Homer. During the ten years he devoted to this arduous project, he produced very few new poems of his own but refined his taste in literature (and his moral, social, and political opinions) to an incredible degree. When he later recommenced to write original poetry, Pope struck a more serious tone than the one he gave to The Rape of the Lock. These later poems are more severe in their moral judgments and more acid in their satire: Pope’s Essay on Man is a philosophical poem on metaphysics, ethics, and human nature, while in the Dunciad Pope writes a scathing exposé of the bad writers and pseudo-intellectuals of his day. More Help", "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard Introduction In A Nutshell Thomas Gray invariably plays second fiddle to the more famous eighteenth-century British poet Alexander Pope in the literary history books, which is kind of a bummer, because Gray was a really interesting guy. Sure, he wrote relatively few poems, and of those few, most readers and critics agree that \"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard\" is far and away the best, but the question is, why did he write so few poems? What was holding him back? How could the guy who wrote the haunting, beautiful \"Elegy\" also write the relatively stilted and formal \"Sonnet on the Death of Richard West\" (1775)? There are so many unanswered questions about Thomas Gray! If Shmoop had a time machine, we'd want to transport ourselves back to the late 1700s to try to get the Shmoop scoop on Gray. What made this guy tick? Here's what we do know: his home life wasn't so great. His father went kinda crazy on occasion, and abused his mother. Not a very happy environment to grow up in! But that's the good thing about being a relatively well-to-do young man in the 1700s: you get sent to boarding school from a very young age, so you get to escape from the yelling and abuse at home. At Eton, Gray met his BFF, Richard West (whose early death inspired the poem, \"Sonnet on the Death of Richard West\") and he also made friends with Horace Walpole, who grew up to write the totally awesome, completely insane The Castle of Otranto, the novel that practically launched the literary Gothic movement (a.k.a. the literary ancestors of modern horror flicks). But what else do we know about Gray? Not much, really—he wrote a lot of letters, but didn't share much personal gossip. Gray tended to start poems and never finish them, or else he'd finish them but never publish them. He was offered the prestigious post of British Poet Laureate in 1757, but he turned it down. It seems as though he might have lacked confidence in himself as a poet. He only published the \"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard\" because, after sending a few copies to his friends for their private enjoyment, some hack publishers got hold of it and tried to print a knock-off version without his permission. (Copyright laws weren't very strict in those days, so they'd have gotten away with it.) And yet the \"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard\" is hands-down one of the most beautiful poems written in the eighteenth century, and it certainly had a major impact on later writers, especially Romantic-era poets like William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and John Keats, among others. The \"Elegy\" asks us to honor the lives of common, everyday people—not just rich, famous folks. This idea of glorifying mundane, everyday things becomes central to the philosophies of British Romantics. That's part of why Gray's \"Elegy\" often gets interpreted as a kind of turning point from the more formal poetry of the 18th century, with its emphasis on rich and famous people, to the more loose, free-form poetry of the Romantics, which focused more on everyday folks. The \"Elegy\" was probably inspired in part by Gray's sadness at the death of his friend Richard West. It's not just about death, but how people are remembered after they're dead (if that's a theme that interests you, you should check out \"Afterwards\" by Thomas Hardy). Gray muses about what happens after people die, and in the final stanzas of the poem, he admits his own fear of dying. It's a powerful and evocative poem. Even if the \"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard\" were the only poem Gray ever wrote, Gray would deserve a place of pride in the literary history books, even alongside heavy hitters like Alexander Pope. Why Should I Care? Ever lost somebody that you cared about? No? Well, then you've probably at least experienced the loss of someone who moved far away. Still no? Well, not to bum you out, but chances are that you will—someday. And when that happens, you might find Thomas Gray 's \"Elegy Written in a Coun", "The Rape Of The Lock English Literature Essay The Rape Of The Lock English Literature Essay Published: Last Edited: 23rd March, 2015 This essay has been submitted by a student. This is not an example of the work written by our professional essay writers. CAROL ELIZABETH A/P A G LEON The Rape of the Lock is a mock epic poem written by Alexander Pope who was one of the most influential writers of the eighteenth century. Alexander Pope was one of the best satirist of the Augustan age who also aims to educate and entertain readers at the same time. The Rape of the Lock was first published in the year 1712 with only two cantos. In the year 1717 however the final form of this poem was published and it had five cantos and in heroic couplet too. The poem is based on a true story about two feuding aristocratic families, the Petres and the Fermors. “The young lord Petre had cut a lock of hair from the head of Arabella Fermor, a fashionable young society lady, and both she and her family had taken offence. Pope had been told of the incident by his catholic friend John Caryll who asked if he could write a poem to make a jest of the division between the two families and laugh them together again” (scribd). The epic poem also known as the heroic poem tells a story of a hero whose actions are of great importance and have a national significance too. It is usually a long narrative poem written in a grand style to suit its important subject matter. Some of the examples of the heroic poems are Homer's Iliad, John Milton's Paradise Lost, King Arthur by Richard Blackmore, Joan of Arc by Robert Southey and Hyperion by Keats. Mock epic poem on the other hand is the parody of the serious epic poems. It uses the structure of an epic poem where the language is grand but on miniature scale and the meaning of the subject is trivial. Mock-heroic poetry combines the characteristics of various discourses such as epic, comedy, parody and satire. Alexander pope uses the mock heroic style in The Rape of the Lock is not to ridicule the heroic genre but to mock and satirize the fashionable society of his time. In the beginning of an epic poem, the writer usually invokes and prayers the muse to afford him with divine encouragement to tell the tale of a great hero. Usually the writer calls upon one of the “nine daughters of Zeus[1]” (homepage) to sanctify his poetry. The hero of an epic poem is always a grand figure of national importance or even cosmic significance. “He often has superhuman or divine traits. He has an imposing physical stature and is greater in all ways than the common man” (homepage). However in The Rape of the Lock, Alexander Pope invokes his catholic friend John Caryll instead, as a muse to provide him with blessings to narrate a story of not a great hero but a rich, vain woman called Belinda. Alexander Pope uses Belinda and the Baron as his main characters in his poem to poke fun at the men and women of the aristocratic families. Belinda is not a powerful hero but a beautiful young woman from a fashionable society who has no other responsibilities but looking presentable in front the society every day. For instance Belinda only wakes up around twelve o'clock, has a lapdog and servants to dress her for every occasion. “Sol thro' white Curtains shot a tim'rous Ray, And op'd those Eyes that must eclipse the Day; Now Lapdogs give themselves the rowzing Shake, And sleepless Lovers, just at Twelve, awake: Thrice rung the Bell, the Slipper knock'd the Ground, And the press'd Watch return'd a silver Sound. Belinda still her downy Pillow prest” (Pope). Hence it is clear that Pope is satirizing the fashionable society for not being responsible and doing things as they please. They waste money for they were rich and even needed maids to look after them as though they were infants. Next, in an epic poem a hero will get well prepared for a great battle by armoring himself with chain mail, shield, sword, axes, daggers, bow and arrows. These weapons and armor will not only protect a hero but also make his enemy", "Alexander - Meaning And Origin Of The Name Alexander | NAMEANING.NET FakeName Alexander Meaning : Derived from the Old Greek meaning 'defender of men', the name was first borne by Paris the prince of Troy, who was given the nickname by herdsmen whom he had defended., Defender Of The People, Defender of the People, To defend; man warrior, Name Number: 3 Meaning: Communication, Interaction, Friendship, Joy, Lightness, Humor, Art, Positivity, Optimism Additional information Alexander: Alexander Hamilton, American statesman. From the Latin form of Greek name Alexandros, comprised of 'to defend' and 'man warrior', Alexander became very popular in the post-classical period. Usage is largely derived from the fame of Alexander the Great, King of Macedon. Swedish Meaning: The name Alexander is a Swedish baby name. In Swedish the meaning of the name Alexander is: Defender of man. American Meaning: The name Alexander is an American baby name. In American the meaning of the name Alexander is: Defender of man. Greek Meaning: The name Alexander is a Greek baby name. In Greek the meaning of the name Alexander is: Defender of men. Alexander the Great was a 4th century Macedonian king for whom the Egyptian city of Alexandria is named. Eight popes and three Russian emperors have been named Alexander. Biblical Meaning: The name Alexander is a Biblical baby name. In Biblical the meaning of the name Alexander is: One who assists men. Shakespearean Meaning: The name Alexander is a Shakespearean baby name. In Shakespearean the meaning of the name Alexander is: Henry VI, Part 2' Alexander Iden, a Kentish gentleman. 'The History of Troilus and Cressida' Servant to Cressida. Both classic and trendy, Alexander comes from the Latin form of the Greek Alexandros, which breaks down into “to defend” (alexo) and “man/warrior” (ander). The meaning is pretty perfect for the name’s most famous bearer -- Alexander the Great, the fourth century B.C. king and conqueror from Macedonia who spread his Greek empire from Asia Minor to Egypt and India. Since then, the name’s been pretty popular -- it’s been used by tons of popes, emperors, kings, and other rulers and has variations in just about every language. In the US, it was mildly popular at the end of the nineteenth century, then took a dip until the ’70s and has been in the top 25 since ’92. Right now, it’s as popular as ever. There are tons of nickname options beyond the obvious Alex -- Xander, Sasha, Alek, and so on -- though you can’t really go wrong with the original. Despite its popularity, Alex has retained its classic but slightly edgy appeal, thanks in part to the trendy “x” ending. Not a bad choice at all. Latinized form of the Greek name Αλεξανδρος (Alexandros), which meant \"defending men\" from Greek αλεξω (alexo) \"to defend, help\" and ανηρ (aner) \"man\" (genitive ανδρος). In Greek mythology this was another name of the hero Paris, and it also belongs to several characters in the New Testament. However, the most famous bearer was Alexander the Great, King of Macedon. In the 4th century BC he built a huge empire out of Greece, Egypt, Persia, and parts of India. Due to his fame, and later medieval tales involving him, use of his name spread throughout Europe. The name has been used by kings of Scotland, Poland and Yugoslavia, emperors of Russia, and eight popes. Other notable bearers include English poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744), American statesman Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804), Scottish-Canadian explorer Sir Alexander MacKenzie (1764-1820), Russian poet Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837), and Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922), the Scottish-Canadian-American inventor of the telephone. Definition funny of Alexander: Usually a very very very goodlooking straight gentleman that has great taste in women. He has a crazy side to him but only shows it infront of true friends. Has great style, is hilarious, amazing, caring, sweet and will make you smile. You will always have a good time with an Alexander, so if you got a friend named Alexander count yourself one of the luckiest people in the world! W", "'Fools rush in where angels fear to tread' - the meaning and origin of this phrase Famous Last Words Browse phrases beginning with: Fools rush in where angels fear to tread more like this... The rash or inexperienced will attempt things that wiser people are more cautious of. Origin 'Fool' is now a more derogatory insult than it was when this proverb was coined, in the early 18th century. At that time a fool wasn't a simpleton, lacking in intelligence, simply someone who had behaved foolishly. 'Fools rush in...' has a precise derivation, in that it is a quotation from the English poet Alexander Pope's An essay on criticism, 1709: Such shameless Bards we have; and yet 'tis true, There are as mad, abandon'd Criticks too. The Bookful Blockhead, ignorantly read, With Loads of Learned Lumber in his Head, With his own Tongue still edifies his Ears, And always List'ning to Himself appears. All Books he reads, and all he reads assails, From Dryden's Fables down to Durfey's Tales. With him, most Authors steal their Works, or buy; Garth did not write his own Dispensary. Name a new Play, and he's the Poet's Friend, Nay show'd his Faults - but when wou'd Poets mend? No Place so Sacred from such Fops is barr'd, Nor is Paul's Church more safe than Paul's Church-yard: Nay, fly to Altars; there they'll talk you dead; For Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread. The 'fools' that Pope targetted there were the literary critics of the day. The line has been taken up by a string of notable writers since: - Edmund Burke, in Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790: What ought to be the heads, the hearts, the dispositions that are qualified or that dare, not only to make laws under a fixed constitution, but at one heat to strike out a totally new constitution for a great kingdom, and in every part of it, from the monarch on the throne to the vestry of a parish? But — \"fools rush in where angels fear to tread\". - Thomas Hardy, in The Woodlanders, 1887: \"He felt shy of entering Grace's presence as her reconstituted lover - before definite information as to her future state was forthcoming; it seemed too nearly like the act of those who rush in where angels fear to tread.\" - E. M. Forster - the title of his first novel - Where Angels Fear to Tread, 1905. - James Joyce, in Ulysses, 1922: \"And later on at a propitious opportunity he purposed (Bloom did), without anyway prying into his private affairs on the 'fools step in where angels' principle, advising him to sever his connection with a certain budding practitioner.\"", "Project MUSE - “A Relic from the Cave of Pope”: Drawings of the Grotto in an Extra-Illustrated Plan of Mr. Pope’s Garden in the Huntington Library “A Relic from the Cave of Pope”: Drawings of the Grotto in an Extra-Illustrated Plan of Mr. Pope’s Garden in the Huntington Library J. Vanessa Lyon (bio) abstract Alexander Pope’s Twickenham grotto was one of the most famous in England. The poet continuously renovated and expanded his “sacred cave” from 1725 until his death in 1744. But while the grotto’s picturesque Thames-side exterior was widely reproduced in prints and paintings throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, only a handful of images depicting the site’s fictively ruinous interior are known today. This essay proposes an addition to the visual culture of Popeiana in the form of six previously unpublished period drawings. The images are examined in light of their proto-gothic qualities as well as the Catholic poet’s pastoral retirement, artistic connections, and possible Jacobite leanings. keywords eighteenth-century landscape design, architectural drawings, gothicism and neoclassicism, Jonathan Richardson, William Kent an intriguing set of what appear to be eighteenth-century drawings of the grotto of Alexander Pope promises to enrich our understanding of the appearance and allure of this ingenious feature of the poet’s Twickenham villa and garden. Unsigned and, to my knowledge, published here for the first time, five of the six careful but confidently executed drawings ( figs. 1 – 6 ) depict individual, cave-like structures, while the sixth shows double doors in an elaborate surround surmounted by a large urn. Although the drawings primarily depict the faces of the dark, rough-hewn interiors to which they provide variable degrees of visual access, none of the sheets is labeled, nor are the entrances explicitly rendered as individual components of a larger architectural project. Nonetheless, due to their structural differences and stylistic similarities, one might sensibly assume that the drawings are first thoughts or preliminary sketches undertaken of or for the same site. From this perspective it is possible to read them not so much as variations on a theme (or practically speaking, multiple potential design [End Page 441] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Unattributed drawing bound in Huntington Library, 106623, an extra-illustrated copy of John Serle, Plan of Mr. Pope’s Garden (London, 1745). Click for larger view Unattributed drawing bound in Huntington Library, 106623. [End Page 442] Unattributed drawing bound in Huntington Library, 106623. Click for larger view Unattributed drawing bound in Huntington Library, 106623. [End Page 443] schemes proposed for the same single location) as independent if interrelated architectural solutions for various parts of a larger, decidedly eclectic, whole. Despite the drawings’ anonymous status, there are good reasons to surmise that they are rare interior views of Pope’s grotto either as it was or as he envisioned it could be during some stage of its re/construction from 1725 to 1744. Click for larger view Figure 5. Unattributed drawing bound in Huntington Library, 106623. The six unattributed drawings are bound in the Huntington Library’s extra-illustrated copy of the Plan of Mr. Pope’s Garden (1745), written and illustrated by the poet’s longtime gardener, John Serle. The book’s binding dates from the late nineteenth century. 1 But the “extra” elements added to Serle’s text suggest a keen interest in some lesser-known features of Pope’s famously artful garden and his grotto in particular. An avid collector of extra-illustrated books, Henry E. Huntington acquired Serle’s Plan at the highly publicized 1911–12 sale of the library of Robert Hoe. The American bibliophile’s famed collection of exceedingly rare, largely English books and manuscripts also included the Gutenberg Bible on vellum, for which Huntington paid $50,000—at [End Page 444] Click for larger view Unattributed drawing bound in Huntington Library, 106623. [End Page 445] the t", "Horace Essay - Horace (Poetry Criticism) - eNotes.com Horace Essay - Horace (Poetry Criticism) Navigate Study Guiderows link Link Horace 65 b.c.-8 b.c. (Full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus) Roman satirist, lyric poet, literary critic, and essayist. See also See also Horace Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism. Most well known for his Odes, Epistles, Epodes, and Satires, Horace is thought to be one of the most accomplished lyric poets to have written in Latin. His poetry is important because it provides a glimpse of peacetime in the Roman empire after years of civil war. Horace's poetry is known for its wit, and his Ars Poetica became a style manual for poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and was required reading in British schools. Biographical Information Horace was born Quintus Horatius Flaccus in southern Italy in 65 b.c., the son of a freedman. Thanks to a father who recognized his talent early, Horace was educated in Rome, studying under Orbilius (a grammarian), and later in Athens where he encountered the Greek poets who profoundly influenced his work. On the heels of Julius Caesar's assassination in 44 b.c., Horace joined Brutus's forces, traveling to Asia Minor and rising to the rank of tribune despite his humble background. His military exploits were short-lived, however, and he returned to Rome after Brutus's defeat at Philippi in November 42 b.c. Although the move to Rome garnered him a position in the Roman treasury, this was more importantly the time during which he began to write poetry. The poetry written during this period impressed Virgil and other Roman poets, who eventually introduced Horace to Maecenas, with whom he formed a lasting friendship. Between 35 and 30 b.c., Maecenas is thought to have given Horace a small estate in the Sabine Hills. The area is often mentioned in his poetry and he remained there (and in Rome) until his death in November 8 b.c. Major Works Horace's life, and hence his works, cover a crucial historical period; his poetry reflects the changing conditions and moods of those times and their events. These works include Satires Books I and II (c. 35 and 30 b.c.), Epodes (c. 29 b.c.), Odes Book I-III and Book IV (c. 23 and 13 b.c.), Epistles Books I and II (c. 20 and 15 b.c.), the Ars Poetica (c. 19 b.c.), and Carmen Saeculare (c. 17 b.c.). The Odes and Epodes are most indebted to the Greek poets, especially those of the sixth and seventh centuries and those of the Hellenistic period, including Archilochus, Hipponax, Alcaeus, and Pindar. The Odes Books I-III include eighty-eight poems in Greek meter and concern philosophy and personal relationships. The Epistles, excellent examples of Horace's casual, conversational approach, deal with the poet's concerns with respect to living a moral life. Epistles Book I includes twenty poems and gives the reader a window on Horace the man. One sees the change—a more melancholy mood—that took hold of the poet after the Satires. He is more concerned with finding answers to personal spiritual and moral questions and the ethos is decidedly philosophical. Epistles Book II, although it includes only three poems, is more intricate than Epistles Book I. It is a montage of examples, anecdotes, and vivid imagery that further the reader's understanding of the poet as a man. The Ars Poetica is perhaps the poet's best-known work. Structured as a conversational collection of thoughts on a number of literary matters, it became a significant influence on a diverse group of authors including Ben Johnson, Dante, St. Augustine, and Alexander Pope. Critical Reception Horace's work has gone through periods of interest and neglect. During his lifetime his work was honored and studied at academies, followed by a period of critical neglect and a rebirth of interest during the Renaissance and continuing through the nineteenth century. Current interest unfortunately lies primarily in the academic and scholarly communities, a result of the decrease in Latin courses offered in recent times. Critical study of Horace has included Horace's use of Greek met", "Full text of \"Alexander Pope\" See other formats ENGLISH 3WEN OF EDITED BY JOHN MORLET <ALEXANT>ER POPE MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO ENGLISH ^MEN OF LETTERS ALEXANDER POPE BY LESLIE STEPHEN , H MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1911 First published 1880 Rtprintcd 1883, 1888, 1896, 1900, 1902, 1908 Library Edition 1902. Reprinted ign Pock ft Edition 1909 1 1 PREFATORY NOTE. THE life and writings of Pope have been discussed in a literature more voluminous than that which exists in the case of almost any other English man of letters . biographer, however, has produced a definitive or exhaus- tive work It seems therefore desirable to indicate the main authorities upon which such a biographer would have to rely, and which have been consulted for the purpose of the following necessarily brief and imperil sketch. , i -L The first life of Pope was a catchpenny book, by William Ayre, published in 1745, and remarkable chiefly as givin^ the first version of some demonstrably erroneous statements, unfortunately adopted by later writers Ii 1751 Warburton, as Pope's literary executor, published the authoritative edition of the poet's works with notes containing some biographical matter. In 1769 appeared a life by Owen Ruff head, who wrote under Warburton s in- spiration. This is a dull and meagre performance, and much of it is devoted to an attack-partly written by War- burton himself upon the criticisms advanced in the fi volume of Joseph Warton's Essay on Pope. Warton s first volume was published in 1756; and it seems that the dread of Warburton's wrath counted for something in the delay of the second volume, which did not appear till 1782 The Essay contains a good many anecdotes ol interest. Warton's edition of Pope the notes in which are chiefly drawn from the Essay-was Published in 1797. The Life by Johnson appeared in 1781 ; vi PEEFATOEY NOTE. admirable in many ways; but Johnson had taken the least possible trouble in ascertaining facts. Both Warton and Johnson had before them the manuscript collections of Joseph Spence, who had known Pope personally during the last twenty years of his life, and wanted nothing but literary ability to have become an efficient Boswell. Spence's anecdotes, which were not published till 1820, give the best obtainable information upon many points, especially in regard to Pope's childhood. This ends the list of biographers who were in any sense contem- porary with Pope. Their statements must be checked and supplemented by the poet's own letters, and innumerable references to him in the literature of the time. In 1806 appeared the edition of Pope by Bowles, with a life pre- fixed. Bowles expressed an unfavourable opinion of many points in Pope's character, and some remarks by Camp- bell, in his specimens of English poets, led to a con- troversy (18191826) in which Bowles defended his views against Campbell, Byron, Eoscoe, and others, and which incidentally cleared up soine disputed questions. Eoscoe, the author of the Life of Leo X., published his edition of Pope in 1824. A life is contained in the first volume, but it is a feeble performance; and the notes, many of them directed against Bowles, are of little value. A more complete biography was published by E. Garru- thers (with an edition of the works), in 1854. The second, and much improved, edition appeared in 1857, and is still the most convenient life of Pope, though Mr. Carruthers was not fully acquainted with the last results of some recent investigations, which have thrown a new light upon the- poet's career. The writer who took the lead in these inquiries was the late Mr. Dilke. Mr. Dilke published the results of his investigations (which were partly guided by the discovery of a previously unpublished correspondence between Pope and his friend Caryll), in the Athenaeum", "Kahn's Corner: 1961: The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone They know his architecture: St. Peter's Basilica So how do you tackle the life of one of the greatest artist's in history? Well, The Agony and the Ecstasy is extremely well-researched. Stone went so far as to have all of Michelangelo's surviving letters translated into English, besides living in Italy and immersing himself in Michelangelo's world. The novel follows Michelangelo from his early adolescence, a son of the nearly destitute, once noble Florentine, Buonarroti family, as he decides to defy his father and become an artist. From there, we have his life story: his training, the patronage of the Medici's, his conflict with the Pope. The novel's greatest strength is also its greatest flaw. Stone provides a huge amount of information, which is frequently overwhelming. When trying to blend the conventions of the biography and the novel, he frequently swings too far on the biography side, providing information that would be interesting and useful for a non-fiction (e.g. details about the fashions and foods of the day, long passages of Florentine history, etc.) but turn into clunky dead-ends in a work of fiction. I would be remiss if I didn't mention a point that is brought up by critics of this book, that it overlooks Michelangelo's sexuality. There are numerous extant love poems and letters written by Michelangelo to other men. While I feel this is alluded to in the novel, it's kept completely tucked away between the lines. Stone gives us a vision of Michelangelo as a man with a very clear ambition from the start, to be a great sculptor, but whose life and work are incredibly complex. Even with any omissions about Michelangelo's personal life, we have a very dense and well documented work. This is the only novel I've ever read to include a works cited bibliography, which in this case spans ten pages. A question many have asked is, if there is so much research, why write a novel instead of a biography. Stone answered this question himself, saying: \"I know from experience that biographies have a limited audience. We have thousands of readers who love [the biographical novel] and are thrilled by it, who'd never get near a conventional biography.\" Like other of Stone's popular novels, The Agony and the Ecstasy was adapted for the screen. The 1965 film version starred Charlton Heston as Michelangelo and Rex Harrison as Pope Julius II and was nominated for five Academy Awards. The question I ask myself when giving recommendations is \"who is this book for?\" If you are an avid history/art buff, you'd probably be better off with a biography than a biographical novel. If you are interested in the subject, but don't have the background in it, The Agony and the Ecstasy would be a good choice. Best Sellers of 1961: 1. The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone 2. Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger 3. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 4. Mila 18 by Leon Uris 5. The Carpetbaggers by Harold Robbins 6. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller 7. Winnie Ille Pu by Alexander Lenard (a Latin translation of Milne's Winnie the Pooh) 8. Daughter of Silence by Morris West 9. The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor 10. Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck Also Published in 1961: Jorge Luis Borges - Ficciones (first translated in English) Roald Dahl - James and the Giant Peach Robert Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land Joseph Heller - Catch-22 Norton Juster - The Phantom Tollbooth Stanislaw Lem - Solaris Muriel Spark - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Kurt Vonnegut - Mother Night", "Untitled Page Latin is abolished in the English courts. Government England passes the Molasses Act, which places heavy taxes on molasses, rum and sugar imported to the colonies. Government James Oglethorpe (1696-1785) founds the last of the 13 colonies, named Georgia in honor of King George II; he also founds the city of Savannah. Medicine Epidemic: The first serious outbreak of influenza sweeps through New York City and Philadelphia; about three-fourths of the population is affected. Inventions John Kay (1704-c.1764) patents a flying shuttle loom. Inventions Chester Moor Hall (1703-1771) invents the achromatic lens refracting telescope. Education Charter schools for Protestants only are founded in Ireland. Arts and Letters Essay: Alexander Pope (1688-1744) writes his \"Essay on Man,\" including the words, “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.” Ideas Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire’s (1694-1778) \"Letters Concerning the English Nation\" is written, helping to define the liberal spirit of the Enlightenment. Daily Life The Society of Freemasons establishes its first American lodge in Boston. Daily Life The first polar bear is exhibited in America, in Boston. Daily Life Newspapers: The New York \"Weekly Journal\" is published by John Peter Zenger (1697-1746), opposing policies of the colonial government. Religion The Corporation for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England is founded. Religion First Great Awakening: Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) preaches on “The Great Awakening” in New England—a religious revival that emphasizes man’s sinful nature. 1734 Presidents: John Adams (1735-1826), 2nd President of the U.S., is born on October 30, in Massachusetts. Science Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778), Swedish botanist, devises a classification method for plants and animals. Inventions George Hadley (1685-1768), English meteorologist, invents the Hadley Cell, a model of the Earth’s wind circulation. Arts and Letters Opera: The first opera performed in the colonies, “Flora,” opens in Charleston, South Carolina. Daily Life Newspapers: The “Evening Post” begins publishing in Boston. Daily Life Women’s status in the colonies changes due to increasing wealth. Newspapers tell of runaway wives and elopements. Daily Life Newspapers: John Peter Zenger (1697-1746), printer and publisher of the \"New York Weekly Journal,\" is acquitted of seditious libel in a landmark trial for freedom of the press. Religion John Wesley (1702-1791) writes his “Journals.” Religion The first Moravian (United Brethern) community is established at Savannah, Ga. Reform Temperance Movement: The sale of spirits (liquor) is prohibited in Georgia (until 1742). 1736 English statutes against witchcraft are repealed. Science Anders Celsius (1701-1744) shows that the Earth’s poles are somewhat flat. Medicine The first accurate and detailed description of scarlet fever is given. Medicine Claudius Aymand (1660-1740) performs the first successful operation for appendicitis. Arts and Letters Charles Theodore Pachelbel (1690-1750) gives organ concerts in New York City, brings the Bach tradition to the New World. Economics French engraver and type founder Pierre-Simon Fournier (1712-1768) sets up a foundry in Paris. Economics Transportation: Regular stagecoach line service begins between Boston and Newport, RI. Religion Pope Clement XII (1652-1740) condemns Freemasonry. Religion The first Protestant missions are established at the Cape Colony in South Africa. Social Issues Maria Agnesi (1718-1799), publishes essays on science and philosophy. Science Joseph Breintnall, a member of Franklin's Library Company, describes the aurora borealis. Science Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782) examines fluid flow in \"Hydrodynamica.\" Medicine John Lining (1708-1760) records daily weather observations and theorizes that weather affects—and may cause—certain diseases. Medicine Epidemic: A smallpox epdemic begins in South Carolina. Inventions The bottle opener is invented. Arts and Letters Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) writes the \"B minor Mass.\" Ideas Voltaire (1694-1778) brings the ideas of", "Baroque Literature Essay (3) Baroque Literature Essay (For a more comprehensive listing see Middle Baroque Literature Grids .) John Milton 1608-1674 Renowned English Puritan poet, dramatist and master of polemical prose famous for his great Christian blank verse epic Paradise Lost (1665) and his brilliant prose argument for freedom of the press, Areopagitica (1644). [Both works are in Encyclopedia Britannica's \"Great Books of the Western World\" along with Simon Agonistes and a selection of poems.] Some authorities consider Milton the greatest English poet after Shakespeare and Paradise Lost the grandest of all English narrative poems. Perhaps only Virgil 's Aeneid and Dante 's Divine Comedy approach it in scope. Milton was the preeminent spokesman in poetry of 17th-century Puritanism just as Bunyan was its chief spokesman in prose. Even Milton's early poems show his enormous literary gifts: On the Death of a fair Infant (1626), written after the death of his sister's first child, On the Morning of Christ's Nativity (1629), written while at Cambridge, and his companion poems, L'Allegro and Il Penseroso (1631), juxtaposing the cheerful, celebratory man with the contemplative, melancholy man. Milton's masque Comus (1634), his first poem in blank verse (set to music by Henry Lawes ), deals with the triumph and superiority of chastity over revelry. (Some difficulty in his first marriage made him change his mind!) Lycidas (1637), a highly esteemed pastoral elegy, deals with the fear of premature death and unfulfilled ambition in some of the purest and most perfect poetry ever written. Milton toyed with the idea of entering the church but gave it up to devote himself to studying the classics, tutoring and writing. He published pamphlets against the episcopacy, e.g., Of Reformation Touching Church Discipline in England (1641), The Reason of Church-government Urg'd against Prelaty (1642), and on divorce, e.g., The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643), Tetrachordon: The Four Chief Places of Scripture Which Treat of Marriage (1645). Milton's divorce pamphlets were prompted by the refusal of his 17-year-old wife, Mary Powell, the daughter of a Royalist whom he married in 1642, to return to him after a visit to her family. (Mary did eventually return in 1645.) In The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce Milton argued that it just might be the case that those who sowed a few wild oats might end up more happily married than some of those who were chaste and \"chained together\" in loveless marriages because of a \"contrariety of mind.\" Suffice it to say, the Presbyterians became enraged and a parliamentary committee, dominated by Presbyterians, threatened to prosecute. Milton replied with his most famous prose work, Areopagitica: a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc'd Printing (1644), a protest against censorship staunchly arguing for the freedom of the press. [The Areopagus was the supreme court of ancient Athens.] \"He who destroys a good book, kills reason itself....Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.\" Ever interested in freedom, Milton was the most important republican English Baroque writer just as Hobbes was the most important royalist English Baroque philosopher. Dr. Johnson called him \"an acrimonious and surly republican.\" (Most historians consider this a fair description, but then again, Dr. Johnson was a Tory!) Milton, the polemical champion of the revolution and the official apologist for the Commonwealth , defended the execution of Charles I in The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649). He argued that a people had the right to depose and punish tyrants. \"No man who knows aught, can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were born free.\" Milton also attacked the Presbyterians, whom he saw as a growing threat to freedom ever since their attack on his divorce pamphlets. The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth (1660), written on the eve of the Restoration, was Milton's last attempt at preserving a republic. Milton became", "Glossary of Poetry Terms Glossary of Poetry Terms accent The prominence or emphasis given to a syllable or word. In the word poetry, the accent (or stress) falls on the first syllable. alexandrine A line of poetry that has 12 syllables. The name probably comes from a medieval romance about Alexander the Great that was written in 12-syllable lines. alliteration The repetition of the same or similar sounds at the beginning of words: “What would the world be, once bereft/Of wet and wildness?” (Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Inversnaid”) anapest A metrical foot of three syllables, two short (or unstressed) followed by one long (or stressed), as in seventeen and to the moon. The anapest is the reverse of the dactyl. antithesis A figure of speech in which words and phrases with opposite meanings are balanced against each other. An example of antithesis is “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” (Alexander Pope) apostrophe Words that are spoken to a person who is absent or imaginary, or to an object or abstract idea. The poem God's World by Edna St. Vincent Millay begins with an apostrophe: “O World, I cannot hold thee close enough!/Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!/Thy mists that roll and rise!” assonance The repetition or a pattern of similar sounds, especially vowel sounds: “Thou still unravished bride of quietness,/Thou foster child of silence and slow time” (“Ode to a Grecian Urn,” John Keats). ballad A poem that tells a story similar to a folk tale or legend and often has a repeated refrain. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is an example of a ballad. ballade A type of poem, usually with three stanzas of seven, eight, or ten lines and a shorter final stanza (or envoy) of four or five lines. All stanzas end with the same one-line refrain. blank verse Poetry that is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Shakespeare wrote most of his plays in blank verse. caesura A natural pause or break in a line of poetry, usually near the middle of the line. There is a caesura right after the question mark in the first line of this sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” canzone A medieval Italian lyric poem, with five or six stanzas and a shorter concluding stanza (or envoy). The poets Petrarch and Dante Alighieri were masters of the canzone. carpe diem A Latin expression that means “seize the day.” Carpe diem poems urge the reader (or the person to whom they are addressed) to live for today and enjoy the pleasures of the moment. A famous carpe diem poem by Robert Herrick begins “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may…” chanson de geste An epic poem of the 11th to the 14th century, written in Old French, which details the exploits of a historical or legendary figure, especially Charlemagne. classicism The principles and ideals of beauty that are characteristic of Greek and Roman art, architecture, and literature. Examples of classicism in poetry can be found in the works of John Dryden and Alexander Pope, which are characterized by their formality, simplicity, and emotional restraint. conceit A fanciful poetic image or metaphor that likens one thing to something else that is seemingly very different. An example of a conceit can be found in Shakespeare's sonnet “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?” and in Emily Dickinson's poem “There is no frigate like a book.” consonance The repetition of similar consonant sounds, especially at the ends of words, as in lost and past or confess and dismiss. couplet In a poem, a pair of lines that are the same length and usually rhyme and form a complete thought. Shakespearean sonnets usually end in a couplet. dactyl A metrical foot of three syllables, one long (or stressed) followed by two short (or unstressed), as in happily. The dactyl is the reverse of the anapest. elegy A poem that laments the death of a person, or one that is simply sad and thoughtful. An example of this type of poem is Thomas Gray's “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.” enjambment The continuation of a complete idea (a sentence or clause) from one line or couplet of a poe", "jack and Jill | The Haunted Palace The Haunted Palace ~ History, Reviews and the Supernatural Search: ≈ 1 Comment Tags Abbot Whiting , Alexander Pope , Ambrose Philips , baa baa black sheep , Bloody Mary , dissolution of the monasteries , french revolution , Glastonbury Abbey , great wool tax , jack , jack and Jill , Kitty Fisher , knave , Little Jack Horner , Lucy Locket , nursery rhymes , origins , Richard Whiting , thomas horner Image: public domain(?) We all grow up learning nursery rhymes but how many of us know of the darker, underlying meanings behind some of our most popular and seemingly innocent poems. I remember asking my mother to sing “Seesaw Margery Daw, Johnny shall have a new master, He shall earn but a penny a day, Because he can’t work any faster” not knowing that we were actually laughing about child slave labour in workhouses [1] . Nowadays we have only to open up a newspaper or turn on the television to be confronted with images or articles on social inequality, religious intolerance or political discontent but go back six hundred years and it was a whole different ballgame. It is nearly impossible to stop people from venting their grievances especially when faced with deep injustice but fear of the consequences did shape how they expressed them. One such way was through the composition of punchy verses which on the surface seemed nonsensical but which often contained hidden or barely veiled criticism of prominent figures or institutions which if expressed openly could have had serious repercussions for the teller such as loss of status, property, goods, freedom or life. Nursery rhymes also served another purpose, the catchy tunes were easy to remember and enabled a largely illiterate population to learn and pass on stories from generation to generation creating and expanding an important oral tradition. Ballad singer. image source unknown. The meanings of some nursery rhymes were ascribed in the nineteenth century; others have verified historical roots whilst the origins of many have been lost due to the passage of time. Despite the disputed background of some of the rhymes, what is not in doubt is that nursery rhymes are one of the most fascinating but neglected body of work in the English language. Sinister undertones: A look at four nursery rhymes Ba Ba Black Sheep Bah, Bah, a black Sheep, Have you any Wool? One for the Little Boy That lives in the lane (First written version known from Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book, c.1744) Image by Dorothy M Wheeler 1916. Via Wikimedia. This popular nursery rhyme has suffered a bit of a black lash in recent times. In the 80s and 90s the rhyme was under attack by critics who accused it of having racist connotations. Despite the rhyme’s supporters calling it political correctness gone mad, many groups jumped on the bandwagon insisting that the word ‘black’ should be replaced with other adjectives such as little, big, hopping, pink and happy [2] . In actual fact the poem has no connections with racism at all but is believed to refer to the Great Wool Tax of 1275 which saw the crown for the first time implement a taxation system on what had been up to that point free trade. Wool was probably the most important commodity exported in England at that time and the tax would have dealt a serious financial blow to the small tenant farmers and merchants. The tax per sack of exported wool was set at 6s 8d and the property confiscated of anyone found evading the charge [3] . Illustration for the rhyme from Mother Goose’s Melody, first published c. 1765 In the rhyme ‘master’ refers to the tax given to the king and ‘dame’ to the church. Experts disagree with whether ‘black’ wool was a positive or negative term, as on one hand black wool could not be dyed and so limited its market but on the other hand it had value as it could be made into made into clothing or furnishings immediately without the need for the lengthy dyeing process. The last line refers to the small amount of money (i.e. about 1/3 of the overall profits) that was left for the farmers or shepherds. Interesting", "Amazon.com: Troilus and Cressida (9781420932201): William Shakespeare: Books Troilus and Cressida Why is ISBN important? ISBN This bar-code number lets you verify that you're getting exactly the right version or edition of a book. The 13-digit and 10-digit formats both work. Scan an ISBN with your phone Use the Amazon App to scan ISBNs and compare prices. Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon Add to List Sorry, there was a problem. There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. Please try again. Sorry, there was a problem. List unavailable. Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1 This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading. Editorial Reviews Review \"I cannot recommend too highly the whole series to all theatre lovers, theatregoers, theatre practicioners, and anybody who enjoys Shakespeare.\" Robert Tanitch, What's On in London \"This edition is one to which I will turn to again and again. It should appeal to anyone who believes that production history offers an especially vibrant kind of interpretation. Its composite portrait of Troilus and Cressida is of a play that has indeed come into its own in the modern world.\" - David Bevington, University of Chicago --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition. Read more Review 'A triumphant addition to our times.' - Fiona Shaw, The Times --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition. Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here , or download a FREE Kindle Reading App . New York Times best sellers Browse the New York Times best sellers in popular categories like Fiction, Nonfiction, Picture Books and more. See more Product Details Publisher: Digireads.com (January 1, 2009) Language: English Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.3 x 9 inches Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces VINE VOICE on June 13, 2008 Format: Paperback Verified Purchase Amazon seems to be including all the reviews of different editions and translations of Chaucer's \"Troilus and Criseyde\" on the same page. If you read the reviews here you will be very confused. Some refer to an original language edition (either the one made by R. A. Shoaf or Stephen Barney's Norton Critical edition), and some refer to a translation, at least one to the translation done by Nevill Coghill. The reader needs to pay careful attention to what edition is actually on the screen when making a selection. If you want to read the original text, I would recommend Stephen Barney's edition. Barney is the editor who made the critical edition for the Riverside Chaucer, and his Norton Critical edition includes ten excellent critical essays in addition to Chaucer's poem, Giovanni Boccaccio's \"Il Filostrato\" (Chaucer's source), and Robert Henryson's \"Testament of Crisseid.\" Shoaf's edition is also good, but twice as expensive, and it does not have as much contextual material. Coghill is a fine translator of Chaucer, and for the reader who does not want to tackle the Middle English he will provide an adequate experience. But beware: His smooth couplets sound more like Alexander Pope than the vigorous medieval writer he is translating.", "Topsy-Turvy (1999) - The Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection Spine #558 The world of Gilbert and Sullivan comes to vivid life in director Mike Leigh’s extraordinary dramatization of the staging of the duo’s legendary 1885 comic opera The Mikado. Jim Broadbent and Allan Corduner brilliantly inhabit the roles of the world-famous Victorian librettist and composer, who, along with their troupe of temperamental actors, must battle personal and professional demons while mounting this major production. A lushly produced epic about the harsh realities of creative expression, featuring bravura performances and Oscar-winning costume design and makeup, Topsy-Turvy is an unexpected period delight from one of contemporary cinema’s great artists. Cast Disc Features DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION Director-approved digital transfer, supervised by cinematographer Dick Pope, with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition Audio commentary featuring director Mike Leigh New video conversation between Leigh and musical director, Gary Yershon Leigh’s 1992 short film A Sense of History, written by and starring actor Jim Broadbent Deleted scenes Featurette from 1999 including interviews with Leigh and cast members Theatrical trailer and TV spots PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by film critic Amy Taubin New cover by Yuko Shimizu Current Posts Topsy-Turvy: Great Performances By Amy Taubin March 28, 2011 Topsy-Turvy is both an anomaly among the films of Mike Leigh and, contrary as it may seem, a Rosetta stone. On the one hand, it is Leigh’s only costume picture and only biopic—a far cry from the . . . Read more » Three Reasons Topsy-Turvy: Great Performances By Amy Taubin March 28, 2011 Topsy-Turvy is both an anomaly among the films of Mike Leigh and, contrary as it may seem, a Rosetta stone. On the one hand, it is Leigh’s only costume picture and only biopic—a far cry from the . . . Read more » Press Notes: The Mikado and Topsy-Turvy April 13, 2011 Critics are whistling a happy tune about our twin Gilbert and Sullivan releases on DVD and Blu-ray: the 1939 Victor Schertzinger Technicolor adaptation of The Mikado and Topsy-Turvy, Mike Leigh’ . . . Read more » Film Essays Topsy-Turvy: Great Performances By Amy Taubin March 28, 2011 Topsy-Turvy is both an anomaly among the films of Mike Leigh and, contrary as it may seem, a Rosetta stone. On the one hand, it is Leigh’s only costume picture and only biopic—a far cry from the . . . Read more » Interviews Dressing for Leigh: An Interview with Lindy Hemming By Sam Wasson March 24, 2011 Costumer Lindy Hemming began her decades-long collaboration with Mike Leigh at London’s Hampstead Theater Club, where the director, with his now legendary method of extended improvisation, was . . . Read more » Three Reasons", "by Dale Ahlquist I’ve heard the question more than once. It is asked by people who have just started to discover G.K. Chesterton. They have begun reading a Chesterton book, or perhaps have seen an issue of Gilbert, or maybe they’ve only encountered a series of pithy quotations that marvelously articulate some forgotten bit of common sense. They ask the question with a mixture of wonder, gratitude and…resentment. They are amazed by what they have discovered. They are thankful to have discovered it. And they are almost angry that it has taken so long for them to make the discovery. “Who is this guy…?” Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) cannot be summed up in one sentence. Nor in one paragraph. In fact, in spite of the fine biographies that have been written of him, he has never been captured between the covers of one book. But rather than waiting to separate the goats from the sheep, let’s just come right out and say it: G.K. Chesterton was the best writer of the 20th century. He said something about everything and he said it better than anybody else. But he was no mere wordsmith. He was very good at expressing himself, but more importantly, he had something very good to express. The reason he was the greatest writer of the 20th century was because he was also the greatest thinker of the 20th century. Born in London, G.K. Chesterton was educated at St. Paul’s, but never went to college. He went to art school. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly. (To put it into perspective, four thousand essays is the equivalent of writing an essay a day, every day, for 11 years. If you’re not impressed, try it some time. But they have to be good essays – all of them – as funny as they are serious, and as readable and rewarding a century after you’ve written them.) Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology. His style is unmistakable, always marked by humility, consistency, paradox, wit, and wonder. His writing remains as timely and as timeless today as when it first appeared, even though much of it was published in throw away papers. This man who composed such profound and perfect lines as “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried,” stood 6’4″ and weighed about 300 pounds, usually had a cigar in his mouth, and walked around wearing a cape and a crumpled hat, tiny glasses pinched to the end of his nose, swordstick in hand, laughter blowing through his moustache. And usually had no idea where or when his next appointment was. He did much of his writing in train stations, since he usually missed the train he was supposed to catch. In one famous anecdote, he wired his wife, saying, “Am at Market Harborough. Where ought I to be?” His faithful wife, Frances, attended to all the details of his life, since he continually proved he had no way of doing it himself. She was later assisted by a secretary, Dorothy Collins, who became the couple’s surrogate daughter, and went on to become the writer’s literary executrix, continuing to make his work available after his death. This absent-minded, overgrown elf of a man, who laughed at his own jokes and amused children at birthday parties by catching buns in his mouth, this was the man who wrote a book called The Everlasting Man, which led a young atheist named C.S. Lewis to become a Christian. This was the man who w", "Symphony No. 2 (“To October”) | LA Phil Symphony No. 2 (“To October”) Last Modified: May 14, 2012 Dmitri Shostakovich’s Second and Third Symphonies, composed in the late 1920’s when he was still a graduate student at the Leningrad Conservatory, were never among his better-known works. Both are, on the surface at least, pieces of orthodox patriotism, written for important Soviet holidays. With Shostakovich, of course, nothing is beyond debate, and there is a school of thought that he approached the Second and Third Symphonies with heavy doses of sarcasm and irony. You can find support for such a view in grotesque and humorous passages in both symphonies, but they hardly amount to proof: Shostakovich’s music was always full of grotesque and humorous elements. His composition professor at the Conservatory had complained: \"What is this enthusiasm for the grotesque? … Probably there will be some critic in Leningrad who'll say this is brilliant, this is wonderful, and that will be the end of you!\" Shostakovich has been seen as everything from a loyal party functionary to a closet dissident whose every utterance and every note of music was a protest against the Soviet state. There is not much question that his music sometimes contains a message in a bottle. For example, in the Fifth Symphony, written when he was the target of official attacks, he inserted a quotation from one of his own songs, then unpublished, that makes it clear that he thought history would consign his critics to oblivion. But ascribing similar intent to Shostakovich a decade earlier, in a happier time for both Shostakovich and the Soviet Union, is a dicey proposition. Even Mstislav Rostropovich, who regards Shostakovich’s life work as an anti-Soviet statement, concedes that the young Shostakovich was “taken in” by the promise of the Russian Revolution. The Second and Third Symphonies are very much works of their time, which was a period of great hope between enormous catastrophes. Shostakovich had already lived through a world war that killed millions of Russians, a revolution that caused complete social upheaval, and a long civil war. By 1927, it seemed that a bright future was finally arriving. This was particularly true for the composer, who was 21 years old and riding very high. He was hailed as a genius after the premiere of his First Symphony the previous year, and had fallen in with the Leningrad avant-garde literary and theater crowd. Soviet art in 1927 was a far cry from what it would be a decade later. Even as Stalin was gradually establishing himself as a dictator and the government was collectivizing land, artists were able to experiment with all kinds of modernist trends and engage in freewheeling debate about what sort of art was appropriate in a socialist state. Shostakovich was occasionally criticized for being bourgeois, decadent, modernist, or insufficiently in tune with proletarian sensibility, but he was still a national treasure, the first bona fide musical genius who was a child of the Revolution. (It is no accident 1936, when the government finally imposed complete control over the arts, it signaled the takeover with a withering attack on Shostakovich, letting everyone know that even the favored son of Soviet music had to conform.) In March 1927, the Propaganda Department of the State Publishing House asked Shostakovich for a symphonic work for that year’s tenth-anniversary celebrations of the “October Revolution” (which, by the Western calendar, happened in November), in which the Communists had finally seized power. Shostakovich responded with what he first called a “symphonic poem” to words by Alexander Bezymensky. There is ample evidence that Shostakovich disliked the poem and found it difficult to work with, but it isn’t clear whether he disagreed with its sentiments, had an intellectual’s distaste for displays of patriotism, or just found it literarily inept. The Second is, at different points, both a consciously “modernist” work, with newfangled sounds and compositional devices, and a harking back to the past.", "Plays | Interesting Literature | Page 2 Interesting Literature Posted by interestingliterature Today, 23 April, is World Book Night (sometimes known, confusingly, as World Book Day). It is also the birthday (according to convention; nobody knows for sure) of William Shakespeare, and also the date on which he died, in 1616. On different calendars, Miguel de Cervantes (author of Don Quixote) and William Wordsworth also died on this day, in 1616 and 1850 respectively. In honour of this literary event, we thought we’d compile 23 literary facts about the world of books, poetry, plays, novels, and other bookish delights for you to revel in and share today. We hope you enjoy them! The first detective novel in English is often said to be The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1868). However, The Notting Hill Mystery (which, sadly, doesn’t feature Hugh Grant in Victorian gaiters going around on a killing spree) got there first, in 1862-3. The author of this – the bona fide first detective novel – is unknown, but it was published under the pseudonym Charles Felix. The novel came back in print last year, for its sesquicentenary . Aesop’s fables gave us the phrases ‘to cry wolf’ and ‘sour grapes’. Some lesser-known fables by Aesop include ‘The Mouse and the Oyster’, ‘The Man with Two Mistresses’, and ‘Washing the Ethiopian White’ – this last has led scholars to propose that Aesop may have been an African slave. He may also have been disabled, if he ever existed. Never mind protesting in the London streets: if you really want to voice your displeasure with the Government, take a leaf out of the Roman poet Virgil’s book. He is rumoured to have held a lavish funeral for a house-fly, which he claimed was his pet, in protest at the government’s plans to confiscate the lands of the rich to give to war veterans. The first novel in English is often held to be Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719). But many dispute this: some claim that Aphra Behn’s short ‘novella’ Oroonoko (1688), about a ‘royal slave’ from West Africa transported to South America, takes the honour. The debate continues. One of the greatest English poems of the thirteenth century was The Owl and the Nightingale, an anonymous poem which treats, among other things, the subject of toilet training. The three most famous stories from the Arabian Nights – Aladdin, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and the voyages of Sinbad the Sailor – don’t actually come originally from the 1001 Nights, but are ‘orphan tales’ which were added to the volume by Antoine Galland, the first French translator of the tales, in the eighteenth century. Scholar Stephen Greenblatt has claimed, in his book The Swerve, that the start of the Renaissance can be traced back to the moment when a librarian discovered the manuscript of a classical Latin poem, De rerum natura (‘On the nature of things’) by Lucretius. This poem inspired many of the key figures in the Renaissance, and was ‘how the world became modern’. Sir Thomas Elyot, ancestor to the poet T. S. Eliot, was the compiler of one of the earliest English dictionaries. He also coined the words encyclopedia, democracy, and education. The girls’ name Pamela was invented by the poet Sir Philip Sidney in the sixteenth century. Poet Fulke Greville (1554-1628), friend and biographer of Philip Sidney, was stabbed to death by a disgruntled servant while doing up his breeches as he returned from the toilet. Playwright James Shirley died of shock following the Great Fire of London in 1666. Poet Robert Herrick kept a pet pig which he trained to drink from a beer tankard. Isaac Newton’s famous phrase, ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’, was actually a cliché even when he wrote it. The phrase has been found as early as the early twelfth century, and is credited to Bernard of Chartres. It is famous for adorning the £2 coin in the UK, and as the title of an album by rock band Oasis. Three of the moons of Uranus are named after characters from Pope’s 1712 poem The Rape of the Lock. The other 24 are named after Shakespeare characters. Horace Walpole wrote the first ever Gothic", "The Waste Land - The British Library All 20th century works The Waste Land The Waste Land, a long poem by the American writer T S Eliot , is one of the most famous works of literary modernism. Across the poem’s five sections – ‘The Burial of the Dead’, ‘A Game of Chess’, ‘The Fire Sermon’, ‘Death by Water’ and ‘What the Thunder Said’ – Eliot presents a bleak picture of the landscape of the contemporary world and its history; ‘the most important personage’, as he put it, is ‘the old man with wrinkled dugs’ Tiresias, a hermaphroditic character from Greek mythology who is blind, but can see into the future. Rather than a single dramatic monologue, like ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ (1915), woven throughout The Waste Land is a rich array of voices. This includes numerous literary and cultural references from sources as diverse as Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare , Blake, Conrad, ancient Sanskrit, and First World War trench slang. In addition, the poem contains a variety of musical references: Wagner, music hall, ragtime and nursery rhyme; and these sit alongside the sounds of children sledging, horns and motor cars, pub chatter and the rattle of bones. Eliot had the idea for the poem in 1914, but a breakdown brought on by his father’s death in 1919 precipitated its completion, and it has largely been read as a comment on the bleakness of post-war European history. The pervasive metaphor of dryness is generally read as expressive of spiritual emptiness. The poem itself was heavily edited by Ezra Pound, another American expatriate poet living in London at this time. Eliot gave Pound a copy of the 1922 edition with a handwritten dedication to ‘il miglior fabbro’ – Italian for ‘the better craftsman’ – and added it to the 1925 printed edition in his Poems 1909–1925. Yet looking back, Eliot felt it ended up overshadowing his other work, and described it not so much as ‘an important bit of social criticism’, but as ‘the relief of a personal and wholly insignificant grouse against life; it is just a piece of rhythmical grumbling’. These rhythms are indeed intensely of the time, and include hints of jazz and popular song. The Waste Land was first published in 1922 in Criterion, a magazine edited by Eliot, then a few days later in the magazine The Dial, and later that year, as a book by Boni & Liveright in New York. This latter edition included ‘Notes’ explaining some of the vast range of references contained in the poem, and its particular basis on the legend of the Holy Grail, and the vegetation ceremonies in The Golden Bough (1890; expanded 1906–1915), a comparative study of world mythology by J G Frazer. However, in ‘The Frontiers of Criticism’, in 1956, Eliot described these notes as ‘a remarkable exposition of bogus scholarship’, which he had only written to make the text long enough for book publication. Creator:", "Tu ne quaesieris (Odes, Book 1, Poem 11) - Horace - Ancient Rome - Classical Literature Back to Top of Page �Tu ne quaesieris� (�Do not ask�) is the most famous of the odes of the Roman lyric poet Horace , published in 23 BCE as Poem 11 in the first book of Horace�s collected �Odes� or �Carmina�. The poem takes the form of a short rebuke to a woman, Leucono�, who is worrying about the future, and uses agricultural metaphors to urge us to embrace the pleasures available in everyday life rather than relying on remote aspirations for the future. The poem is often also known as �Carpe Diem� for the famous phrase in the final line, or sometimes as �Ad Leuconoem� for its initial dedication. Synopsis Back to Top of Page The poet advises Leucono� not to question what fate the gods have in store for her, nor to rely on astrological predictions as the ancient Babylonians used to. Rather, she should just submit and make the best of whatever years are granted us, drinking wine and living life to the full with no thought for the future, because, even as she reads the poem, valuable time is passing. Analysis Back to Top of Page Horace developed his �Odes� in conscious imitation of the short lyric poetry of Greek originals such as Pindar , Sappho and Alcaeus. His genius lay in applying these older forms, largely using the ancient Greek Sapphic and Alcaic metres, to the social life of Rome in the age of Augustus. The first three books of the �Odes�, including this one, were published in 23 BCE, with the earliest positively-dated poem in the collection ( �Nunc est bibendum� ) dating from around 30 BCE. We have no exact date for the writing of this particular poem. It is addressed to Leucono�, an unknown younger female companion (probably not her real name, as it translates as something like �empty head�). It seems likely from hints in the poem that, at the time of its writing, Horace and Leucono� were together in a villa on the shores of the Bay of Naples (the �Tyrrhenian Sea�) on a wild winter�s day. There is a definite music in the poem, especially when read aloud, and Horace manages to conjure vivid imagery in the sparest, most economical phrases. It closes with the famous line �carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero� (�seize the day, trusting tomorrow as little as possible�). Resources", "The Georgics - Vergil - Ancient Rome - Classical Literature Back to Top of Page �The Georgics� (Gr: �Georgicon�) is a didactic poem, in the tradition of Hesiod , by the Roman poet Vergil ( Virgil ). It was Vergil �s second major work, published in 29 BCE, after �The Bucolics� ( �Eclogues� ), and the ostensible subject of the verses is rural life and farming. Part farming manual, part hymn of praise, part allegory, it contains some of Vergil 's finest descriptive writing, with patriotic overtones and rich mythological allusions. Synopsis Back to Top of Page Book 1 deals with the raising of crops and the signs of the weather, ending emotionally with a description of the horrors suffered by Italy as a consequence of the murder of Julius Caesar (514 lines). Book 2 covers the growing of trees, chiefly the olive and the vine, and also contains magnificent praise of Italy (542 lines). Book 3 deals with the rearing of cattle, concluding with a notable description of the cattle-plague in the Alps (566 lines). Book 4 describes bee-keeping, treating the bees with affectionate irony as exemplars of the ideal citizen body (�little Romans�). The work ends with an account of Aristaeus (a minor god, credited with the discovery of bee-keeping), together with the story of Orpheus and his attempt to rescue Eurydice from the underworld (566 lines). Analysis Back to Top of Page Vergil spent the years from around 37 to 29 BCE (after the completion of his �Bucolics� ) working on the poems. Written during this period of political instability and chronic civil war, the work inevitably reflects Vergil �s dark and often pessimistic outlook on human nature. Although it was written in Latin, Vergil gave his poem the title �Georgicon�, Greek for �agriculture� or �working the earth� (hence �The Georgics� in English). �The Georgics� is clearly influenced by �Works and Days� by the Greek poet, Hesiod , who is regarded as the first didactic poet of any note, but it also draws to some extent on the Roman poet and philosopher, Lucretius, as well as the Hellenistic poets, Aratus and Nicander. Vergil also derived some factual information from Varro's prose handbook �De Re Rustica� (�On Farming�), which was published in 37 BCE, and he was perhaps also influenced by that book�s moral and patriotic tone. The work contains 2,188 hexametric verses in total, divided into four books. Books One and Two deal with agriculture (field crops, legumes, trees and small woodland creatures, as well as truffle hogs). Book Three is concerned with the rearing of cattle and other livestock, including rams, boars and horses, and Book Four largely focuses upon beekeeping, and the lives of bees, wasps and hornets. Although farming and the land is its apparent theme, it was probably not intended as a functional manual, even in its own time, and any farmers who could read Latin would almost certainly have preferred to resort to prose manuals. However, behind the ostensible subject matter, the poem also has an explicit political dimension. It makes several references to Octavian, who would become Emperor Augustus in 27 BCE, and Vergil 's patron Maecenas (in whose honour the poem was written) was a confidant and advisor to Octavian. According to the Roman historian Suetonius, Vergil and Maecenas read �The Georgics� to Octavian while he was ill in the summer of 29 BCE, which suggests that the poem probably does not contain any severe criticism of Octavian, although there is some debate about whether or not the work contains hidden criticism. From a political point of view, it was essential to the progress of the Roman nation at that time that farming be seen as a worthy and patriotic occupation for soldiers returning from military campaigns, and Vergil �s work glorifies many aspects of country life. Despite the admitted possibility of setbacks and potential suffering, it presents a rather idealized picture of the Italian farmer's life: frugal and austere, lived in harmony with nature and with the divine scheme of things; based on hard work, the basis of Italy's greatness; morally satisf", "W. H. Auden | Poetry Foundation Poetry Foundation Poet Details 1907–1973 English poet, playwright, critic, and librettist Wystan Hugh Auden exerted a major influence on the poetry of the 20th century. Auden grew up in Birmingham, England and was known for his extraordinary intellect and wit. His first book, Poems, was published in 1930 with the help of T.S. Eliot . Just before World War II broke out, Auden emigrated to the United States where he met the poet Chester Kallman who became his lifelong lover. Auden won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948 for The Age of Anxiety. Much of his poetry is concerned with moral issues and evidences a strong political, social, and psychological context. While the teachings of Marx and Freud weighed heavily in his early work, they later gave way to religious and spiritual influences. Some critics have called Auden an “antiromantic”—a poet of analytical clarity who sought for order, for universal patterns of human existence. Auden’s poetry is considered versatile and inventive, ranging from the tersely epigrammatic to book-length verse, and incorporating a vast range of scientific knowledge. Throughout his career, he collaborated with Christopher Isherwood and Louis MacNeice , and also frequently joined with Chester Kallman to create libretti for musical works by Benjamin Britten, Igor Stravinsky, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Auden was born and raised in a heavily industrial section of northern England. His father, a prominent physician with an extensive knowledge of mythology and folklore, and his mother, a strict Anglican, both exerted strong influences on Auden’s poetry. Auden’s early interest in science and engineering earned him a scholarship to Oxford University, where his fascination with poetry led him to change his field of study to English. His attraction to science never completely waned, however, and scientific references are frequently found in his poetry. While at Oxford, Auden became familiar with modernist poetry, particularly that of T. S. Eliot . It was also at Oxford that Auden became the pivotal member of a group of writers called the “Oxford Group” or the “Auden Generation,” which included Stephen Spender , C. Day Lewis, and Louis MacNeice . The group adhered to various Marxist and anti-fascist doctrines and addressed social, political, and economic concerns in their writings. Auden’s first book of poetry, Poems, was privately printed by Stephen Spender in 1928. Critics have noted that Auden’s early verse suggests the influences of Thomas Hardy , Laura Riding, Wilfred Owen , and Edward Thomas . Stylistically, the poems are fragmentary and terse, relying on concrete images and colloquial language to convey Auden’s political and psychological concerns. Auden’s poems from the second half of the 1930s evidence his many travels during this period of political turmoil. “Spain,” one of his most famous and widely anthologized pieces, is based on his experiences in that country during its civil war of 1936 to 1939. Journey to War, a book of the period written by Auden with Christopher Isherwood, features Auden’s sonnet sequence and verse commentary, “In Time of War.” The first half of the sequence recounts the history of humanity’s move away from rational thought, while the second half addresses the moral problems faced by humankind on the verge of another world war. It was Auden who characterized the thirties as “the age of anxiety.” His 1947 poem by that title, wrote Monroe K. Spears in his Poetry of W.H. Auden, was a “sympathetic satire on the attempts of human beings to escape, through their own efforts, the anxiety of our age.” Auden struck a chord in readers with his timely treatment of the moral and political issues that directly affected them. Harold Bloom suggested in the New Republic that “Auden [was] accepted as not only a great poet but also a Christian humanist sage not because of any conspiracy among moralizing neo-Christian academicians, but because the age require[d] such a figure.” Some critics have suggested that Auden’s unusual writing style germinated in the s", "Cannes Check 2014: Mike Leigh’s ‘Mr. Turner’ Cannes Check 2014: Mike Leigh’s ‘Mr. Turner’ EMAIL Sony Classics Welcome back to Cannes Check, In Contention's annual preview of the films in Competition at this year's Cannes Film Festival, which kicks off on May 14. Taking on different selections every day, we'll be examining what they're about, who's involved and what their chances are of snagging an award from Jane Campion's jury. Next up, the first of two British veterans in the lineup: Mike Leigh's “Mr. Turner.” The director: Mike Leigh (British, 71 years old). Few filmmakers have essayed the mundane woes (and occasional joys) of Britain's working-to-middle classes with the vivid specificity of Mike Leigh, though given his distinctive vernacular and customarily heightened sense of the everyday, it's not quite accurate to classify him as a kitchen-sink realist. Either way, as both a playwright and filmmaker, he's as significant and influential a figure on the UK cultural lanscape as John Osborne or Alan Bennett. A RADA acting student turned art school graduate, he worked as an assistant director at the Royal Shakespeare Company before turning to the screen. He directed his first theatrical feature, “Bleak Moments,” in 1971, but worked predominantly in television for the following 15 years, making his name in particular with the satirical teleplay “Abigail's Party.” He returned to cinemas with 1988's “High Hopes”; two years later, “Life is Sweet” won a number of US critics' awards. The real breakthrough, of course, came with 1996's Palme d'Or winner and Best Picture Oscar nominee “Secrets and Lies.” Bar a moderate reaction to follow-up film “Career Girls,” Leigh's reputation hasn't slipped since, while he's racked up seven Oscar nominations. Leigh is arguably most famous for his unique workshopping process, whereby his scripts are developed in rehearsal with his actors, who aren't always privy to the larger narrative; it's what accounts for the lived-in energy and frequently fluid verbality of his films, though it's often erroneously described as pure improv. That theatrical grounding is also evident in his loyal company of recurring actors, “Mr. Turner” stars Timothy Spall and Lesley Manville among them. The talent: Spall was a mid-period Leigh regular — featuring in “Life is Sweet” and “Secrets and Lies” — the director and actor haven't collaborated since 2002's “All or Nothing,” but the title role here marks a prominent return. In the supporting cast are Ruth Sheen and Lesley Manville, the two leading ladies of Leigh's film “Another Year”; other Leigh alumni in the ensemble include Peter Wight and Sylvestra Le Touzel. Roger Ashton-Griffiths also stars as Alfred Hitchcock in Cannes opener “Grace of Monaco.” Leigh, as usual, takes the screenplay credit. Most of his regular below-the-line team is in place, including cinematographer Dick Pope (an Oscar nominee for a few years back for “The Illusionist”), editor Jon Gregory and composer Gary Yershon, who worked on Leigh's last two films. Jacqueline Durran, who won an Oscar last year for “Anna Karenina,” has been Leigh's regular costume designer since 2002, but has a larger showcase here than his work usually affords her. New to the feature crew (having worked on Leigh's 2012 Olympic short “A Running Jump”) is production designer Suzie Davies, who similarly has much to work with here. The pitch: Leigh returns to heritage cinema, after a fashion, with “Mr. Turner,” his first period piece since “Vera Drake,” and only his second non-fiction feature after 1999's “Topsy-Turvy.” Like that Gilbert & Sullivan-focused romp, this is a biopic of a British cultural giant, and has been Leigh's passion project for decades — he has described it as his most expensive and visually extravagant film to date. As it would need to be when the “Mr.” in question is 18th/19th-century Romantic landscape painter J.M.W. Turner, perhaps Britain's most celebrated artist and famously dubbed “the painter of light.” In private, Turner was a difficult, eccentric figure: Leigh's film examines the last 25 yea", "Major Baroque Composers - Music of the Baroque music of the baroque Major Baroque Composers Italy Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643): A student of Marc’Antonio Ingegneri in Cremona, Claudio Monteverdi quickly established himself as one of the most significant composers of his time. In 1592 he was appointed suonatore di vivuola (viol and/or violin player) to Duke Vincenzo I of Mantua; his third book of madrigals, published in 1592, shows the strong influence of Giaches de Wert, the maestro di cappella in Mantua. Although the several journeys Monteverdi made with the duke in the 1590s seem to suggest that his importance at court was growing, Benedetto Pallavicino was offered de Wert’s post upon its vacancy in 1596. Increasingly dissatisfied with the his situation in Mantua, Monteverdi left the court after the Duke’s death, accepting the position of maestro di cappella of St. Mark’s in Venice in 1613. Monteverdi wrote some of the most influential compositions of the early baroque, including the famous 1610 Vespro della Beate Vergine (Vespers of the Blessed Virgin) and nine books of secular madrigals published between 1587 and 1651. Monteverdi also composed the earliest operas still performed today, including Orfeo (1607) and L'incoronazione di Poppea. In addition to writing some of the most important music of his day, Monteverdi unwittingly elucidated perhaps the most critical tenet of the baroque era during the so-called “Monteverdi-Artusi controversy.” In 1600, Giovanni Maria Artusi published his L'Artusi, ovvero, Delle imperfezioni della moderna musica, which attacked the “crudities” and “license” of some of Monteverdi’s then-unpublished madrigals (including the well known “Cruda Amarilli”). Monteverdi responded to Artusi in the preface to his Fifth Book of Madrigals (1605), dividing musical practice into prima prattica (first practice), in which rules of harmony and counterpoint took precedence over the text, and seconda prattica (second practice), in which the meaning of the words drove the harmony. Back to Top Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583–1643): Born in Ferrara, Girolamo Frescobaldi was a student of the organist and madrigalist Luzzasco Luzzaschi; he was also likely influenced by the maverick composer Carlo Gesualdo, who was also in Ferrara at the time. Frescobaldi was a famous keyboardist, and served as the organist at the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome before assuming the same post at St Peter's in 1608, which he held until his death. During this time he also held several other influential positions, including that of organist at the Medici court in Florence from 1628 to 1634. Frescobaldi composed a small amount of vocal music, but it was his compositions for the keyboard—which included a number of toccatas, canzonas, ricercars and capriccios—that influenced composers well into the 18th century—particularly J. S. Bach , who owned his collection of organ works for performance during Mass entitled Fiori musicali (1635). Back to Top Arcangelo Corelli (1653–1713): Born in Fusignano, Arcangelo Corelli studied composition and violin in nearby Bologna. After 1675 Corelli worked for some of the most important musical patrons in Rome, including Queen Christina of Sweden, for whom he directed concerts. He also formed a close bond not typical between patron and composer with Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (later Pope Alexander VIII), at whose palace he lived for some time. Corelli enjoyed a stellar reputation both in Rome, where he was accepted in the highest aristocratic circles, and in much of Europe. His six published collections of concertos, sonatas and other works for violin were extremely popular, and made him the first composer to gain an international reputation solely on the basis of his instrumental music. Because his music uses many of the harmonic progressions that came to form the basis of modern tonality, his works are sometimes used as early examples of this newly emergent tonal system. Along with his stature as a composer, Corelli was considered to be one of the preeminent violin virtuosos of his day. As one", "The My Hero Project - Alexander Pushkin ALEXANDER PUSHKIN by Jerrilyn Jacobs Aleksandr Pushkin (1799-1837) Alexander Pushkin (Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin) is known as Russia's greatest poet. During a time when most great literature was being written in French and English, Pushkin revolutionized Russian literature with narrative poems, love poems, political poems, short stories, novels, plays, histories, and fairy tales. Pushkin's skeptical mind and sense of irony helped him capture what it means to be Russian, winning the hearts of his countrymen. His writing style has distinctive rhythmic patterns that are nearly impossible to translate, so non-Russian speakers have not always been able to appreciate the true power and beauty of his work. Alexander Pushkin was born [June 6th], 1799 in Moscow, Russia. His nobleman father was active in politics, following a 600-year tradition in that family. His great-grandfather on his mother's side, Abraham Petrovich Hannibal, was the son of an African prince in Eritrea, North Africa. He had been kidnapped as a child and brought to Turkey as a slave. Peter the Great selected him for his intelligence and brought him to Russia, where Hannibal became the czar's personal valet. Pushkin was proud of his noble heritage. He was educated at home, mostly by nannies, and later at a school for the privileged children of the nobility. At school he didn�t care for any subjects except French and Russian Literature. He began writing poetry when he was very young and had his first poem published when he was 14. One of several postage stamps honoring Pushkin As a nobleman in the early 1800's, Pushkin led a reckless and generally nonproductive life, typical of noblemen, while on the staff of the ministry of foreign affairs. Because his salary was small and his family wouldn't support him, Pushkin turned to poetry as a way of making money, becoming Russia's first professional poet. Worse than the lack of money was his lack of freedom. Russians at this time lived at the mercy of a despotic state, and Pushkin used his writing as a way of expressing the agony and suppression of the Russian people. He wrote about 130 poems between 1814 and 1817, which got him in trouble for being outspoken in their political views. His first narrative poem, Ruslan and Lyudmila, is a fantasytic adventure told with humor and irony. Before it could be published the Czar, Alexander I, exiled Pushkin to the south of Russia because of the political ideas in his 1820 poem \"Ode to Liberty.\" Later Pushkin was fired and exiled to his family home. Here he listened to his old nurse, Arina Rodionovna, tell him folk tales from the peasantry. When Alexander�s brother, Nicholas I, came to power in 1825, he invited Pushkin back to the capital, gave him a government post. However, Nicholas acted as his personal censor, making sure that Pushkin didn't publish anything that would hurt the government. They opened his mail, had spies follow him, and cut out whole stanzas from Pushkin's manuscripts. In the fall of 1830 Pushkin left the capital to visit a small estate his father had left him. It was there, free from the pressures of life in the city, that Pushkin did some of his best writing. including finishing \"Eugene Onegin,\" his most famous narrative poem. After 1830 he wrote less poetry and began to focus on the short story. Pushkin's stories unfold quickly and with straightforward narration. The short story \"The Queen of Spades,\" written in 1834, is a narrative masterpiece. Many of Pushkin's works provide the basis for other works, including the operas \"Boris Godunov\" by Mussorgsky, \"Eugene Onegin\" and the film \"Amadeus\" based on Pushkin's play \"Mozart and Salieri.\" When he was almost 30 years old, Pushkin married Nathalie Goncharova, on January 19, 1831. They had three children, but were not a happy couple. She was very beautiful and a favorite at court, and encouraged the attention of other men. Pushkin frequently thought himself dishonored and was a compulsive duelist. Pushkin was wounded in a duel and died on January", "Joseph Addison facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Joseph Addison Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. ADDISON, JOSEPH (1672–1719) ADDISON, JOSEPH (1672–1719), English poet, essayist, and critic. Addison helped to elevate the literary status of English prose while holding important political offices for the Whig party. He was born in 1672 at Milston, Wiltshire. His father, the Reverend Launcelot Addison, was the dean of Lichfield, Staffordshire, and Addison attended Lichfield Grammar School and then, in 1686, Charterhouse School in London, where he met Richard Steele. Addison's study of classical poetry and his Latin poems at Queen's College, Oxford, won him a demy (scholarship) in the 1690s to Magdalen College, where he took his M.A. and was a fellow from 1697 to 1711. His classical scholarly knowledge, especially on the Roman idea of citizenship, informs the moral beliefs in his writing. Addison's passionate interest in and deep knowledge of Roman poetry and history are evident in his early prose works evaluating the best Roman poets, his translations of such poets as Virgil and Ovid (1694 and 1717), and his own highly praised imitations of Latin poets such as Horace . He modeled his own prose style after the formal elegance and familiar diction of Latin poetry, which he praised. After writing a celebratory poem on John Dryden—\"To Mr. Dryden\"—he wrote an introductory essay on Virgil for Dryden's translation of the Georgics in 1697. Addison's own translations provided English readers with an accessible text through adding explanatory commentaries and replacing obscure allusions with familiar ones. Eight of Addison's Latin poems were included in an anthology he edited at Oxford in 1699, Musarum Anglicarum Analecta (An assembly of English muses). One poem, \"Pax Gulielmi Auspiciis Europae Reddita\" (Peace returned to Europe under William's auspices), compliments William III's ability as a monarch and celebrates the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick, which ended the War of the Grand Alliance. A partisan of Protestantism and the Whigs, Addison in his earliest poetry supported the Protestant succession of William of Orange and Mary. \"Poem to his Majesty\" was dedicated to John Somers, an important Whig, and \"William's Peace\" was dedicated to Charles Montagu, Lord Halifax, the Whig treasurer. Montagu became Addison's patron and secured him a pension of £200 to undertake a grand tour on the Continent between 1699 and 1704. Addison toured several countries and studied French neoclassical literary theorists; his itinerary, particularly to places of classical literary interest, is recorded in Remarks upon Several Parts of Italy, published in 1705. Addison's eulogy on John Churchill, duke of Marlborough's victory over the French at Blenheim in his poem \"The Campaign\" in 1704 secured him a position as excise commissioner of appeals and brought him increasing popularity. His involvement with the Kit-Kat Club, a political and literary society for Whig writers and politicians, renewed his friendship with Steele, and he contributed to Steele's play The Tender Husband (1705). Commissioned to write an English opera to counter the trend for Italian opera, he produced the unsuccessful Rosamond in 1707. Meanwhile, the status of his politically administrative appointments increased because of his anti-Jacobite pamphlets such as \"The Present State of the War.\" He became a prominent spokesman for the Whigs, progressing from undersecretary of state to Charles Spencer, earl of Sunderland, in 1706 to chief secretary to the earl of Wharton, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland , in 1709. Assisting Steele in his editorship of the London Gazette in 1708, Addison then wrote forty-nine issues of The Tatler, the successful periodical established by Steele, moving between England and Ireland in 1709 and 1710. His essays focus on the classics, character types, and natural religion and oscillate between a witty, humorous tone and a moral seriousness, making reference to classical antecedents", "Who Wrote Les Misérables Who Wrote Les Misérables 27 Jan, 2013 who wrote 0 Les Misérables is a French novel first published in 1862. The French version is about 1,900 pages long and it is one of the longest novels ever written. The novel has many subplots, but the main story follows ex-convict Jean Valjean who strives to do good, but struggles to escape his past. Les Misérables is considered to be one of the most important novels of the 19th century. The novel investigates many themes such as; politics, religion, justice, law, love and many more. Although initial critical reaction was mostly negative, it was a great commercial success throughout the world. It has had many adaptations over the years including; musicals, plays, movies and television specials. A recent film adaptation, which was adapted from the musical, has proved to be a major success and shows that the story is still popular with modern audiences. Let’s find out who wrote this important novel and some of the most successful adaptations. Who wrote Les Misérables? Les Misérables was written by the famous French poet, playwright, and author, Victor Hugo. The inspiration for his main character, came from the life of Eugene Vidocq. He had been an ex-convict and eventually become a very successful businessman and philanthropist. Hugo began planning the novel in the 1830’s after being inspired by the French Revolutions of the time. Even though he started his work in the 1840’s his work was not finished and published until 1862. The book was the subject of a massive marketing campaign and the book sold out within hours. It went on to have a massive influence on French society. Musical The famous musical adaptation began in 1980 with the French language lyrics written by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel and the libretto (the spoken portion of a musical) written by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil. The lyrics to the English version of the musical were written by Herbert Kretzmer and James Fenton and the libretto was written by Trevor Nunn and John Caird. The musical went on to become an international sensation and multi award winnner. 2012 film The 2012 film was based on the musical and was scripted by William Nicholson, Boublil, Schönberg and Herbert Kretzmer. Related Articles", "Eliot as Dramatist Essay - 1944 Words T.S. Eliot as a dramatist Introduction American-English poet, playwright, and critic, a leader of the modernist movement in literature. Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1948. His most famous work is THE WASTE LAND, written when he was 34. On one level this highly complex poem descibes cultural and spiritual crisis. \"The point of view which I am struggling to attack is perhaps related to the metaphysical theory of the substantial unity of the soul: for my meaning is, that the poet has, not a 'personality' to express, but a particular medium, which is only a medium and not a personality, in which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected ways.\" (from 'Tradition and the Individual Talent,' 1920) As a Dramatist Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the seventh and youngest child of a distinguished family of New England origin. Eliot's forebears included the Reverend William Greenleaf Eliot, founder of Washington University in St. Louis. Isaac Stearns on his mother's side was one of the original settlers of Massachusetts Bay Colony. Henry, Eliot's father, was a prosperous industrialist and his mother Charlotte was a poet. She wrote among others a biography of William Greenleaf Eliot. Eliot attended Smith Academy in St. Louis and Milton Academy in Massachusetts. In 1906 he went to Harvard, where he contributed poetry to Harvard Advocate. After receiving his B.A. in 1909, Eliot spent a year in France, attending Henri Bergson's lectures at the Sorbonne and studying poetry with the novelist and poet Henri Alain-Fournier. He then returned to Harvard, where he worked on a dissertation on the English idealist philosopher F.H. Bradley. Eliot also studied Sanskrit and Buddhism. In 1915 Eliot made England his permanent home. With Ezra Pound, his countryman and an advocate on literary modernism, he started to reform poetic diction. Pound was largely responsible for getting Eliot's early poems into print, such as THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK in the Chicago magazine Poetry in 1915. The title character is tormented by the uncertainty of his identity and the difficulty of articulating his feelings. Prufrock is a perfect gentleman and tragic in his conventionality. He has heard \"the mermaids singing\" but is paralyzed by self-consciousness - \"I do not think that they will sing to me.\" Denis Donoghue has pointed out in Words Alone (2000) that in his early poems Eliot didn't start with a theme but with a fragment of rhythm, or motif. Prufrock has not the qualities of a person, he is a fragmented voice with a name. \"Eliot's language here and in the early poems generally refers to things and simultaneously works free from the reference. He seems always to be saying: \"That is not what I meant at all. / That is not it, at all.\" When he gives a voice a name—Prufrock, Gerontion—he makes no commitment beyond the naming.\" (from Words Alone) Pound also introduced Eliot to Harriet Weaver, who published Eliot's first volume of verse, PRUFROCK AND OTHER OBSERVATIONS (1917). Eliot taught for a year at Highgate Junior School in London, and then worked as a clerk at Lloyds Bank, where he wrote acticles for the monthly in-house magazine Lloyds Bank Economic Review on foreign currency movements. A physical condition prevented his entering in 1918 the US Navy. Eliot's second book, ARA VOS PREC (published in the U.S. as POEMS), which appeared in 1919, was hand-printed by Virginia and Leonard Woolf at the Hogath Press. In an early essay, 'Tradition and the Individual Talent' (1919), Eliot propounded the doctrine, that poetry should be impersonal and free itself from Romantic practices. \"The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.\" Eliot saw that in this depersonalization the art approaches science. With his collection of essays, THE SACRED WOOD (1920), and later published THE USE OF POETRY AND... Eliot Essay ...represented in literature through symbolic and not realistic form\". In \"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufr", "Hymn of the Month There is a Green Hill Hymn of the Month There is a Green Hill There is a green hill by Cecil Francis Alexander 1818-1895 There is a green hill far away, Without a city wall, Where the dear Lord was crucified, Who died to save us all We may not know, we cannot tell, What pains He had to bear; But we believe it was for us He hung and suffered there. He died that we might be forgiven, He died to make us good, That we might go at last to heaven, Saved by His precious blood. There was no other good enough To pay the price of sin; He only could unlock the gate Of heaven and let us in. O dearly, dearly has He loved, And we must love Him, too, And trust in His redeeming blood, And try His works to do. Cecil Frances Alexander was born at Redcross, County Wicklow, the second daughter of a British Army Major. She was a devout Christian who came under the influence of the Oxford [high Church] Movement. From an early age she showed a great aptitude for writing. When she was just twenty five she published her Hymns for Little Children [1848] with an introductory note by the celebrated Revd. John Keble. Dedicated to her ‘little godsons’ the book was written to illustrate and explain the Church Catechism. The hymnal also contained other well known hymns, among them, All things bright and beautiful and Once in Royal David’s City, written to celebrate the credal statements, Creator of heaven and earth and born of the Virgin Mary. Two years after the publication she married the Revd. William Alexander. He was six years her junior and the marriage caused quite a stir within her own family. It is said that her father arranged, for the sake of propriety, for her birth date to be altered in the registers. [In some old hymn books her year of birth is given as 1823]. The two enjoyed a blissfully happy marriage and her husband later became Bishop of Derry and Archbishop of Armagh. Her poetical works were much admired and came to the attention of Alfred Lord Tennyson. The composer Charles Gounod once remarked that There is a green hill was ‘the most perfect hymn in the English language because of its charming simplicity.... the lyrics seemed to set themselves to music.’ She is rightly regarded as one of the greatest of British women hymn writers. There is a green hill was written to illustrate the words of the creed, ‘Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried.’ Mrs Alexander begins the first verse by painting a picture. As a skilled teacher she knew that her first task was to capture a child’s imagination. In the second line she originally wrote ‘without’ a city wall, but changed it to ‘outside’ to remove any ambiguity. The second verse celebrates the mystery of the cross, ‘We may not know, we cannot tell....’ The passion of Jesus, though difficult to comprehend, is something he endured for us and for our salvation. This is celebrated in the next two verses, ‘He died that we might be forgiven, he died to make us good... There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin.’ The noted New Testament scholar, Professor A. H. Hunter, once wrote, ‘It was given to an Irish woman, in a hymn she wrote for little children, to express better than many a learned tome the purpose, the necessity and the challenge of that sacrifice which has in principle redeemed our prodigal race.’ The hymn ends with a call for us to ‘love as he has loved us.’ Though written for children this is a classic hymn for young and old. It sets the scene of our Lord’s passion and celebrates the mystery, the purpose, the necessity and the challenge of the cross. It is usually sung to the tune Horsley, written by Willam Horsley [1774-1858]. Mrs. Alexander devoted her life to Christian education, to the care of the young and the poor. All the profits from the sale of her writings were donated to a home for deaf children. She was widely respected as a writer and many of her poems were published posthumously by her husband who survived her by sixteen years. She was buried in her beloved Derry, outside the city walls.", "Larkin Loss Of Ideals In Marriage In Whitsun Weddings English Literature Essay Larkin Loss Of Ideals In Marriage In Whitsun Weddings English Literature Essay Published: Last Edited: 23rd March, 2015 This essay has been submitted by a student. This is not an example of the work written by our professional essay writers. In a pocket diary note, Philip Larkin stated: \"At 1.45 am let me remember that the only married state I know (i.e. that of my parents) is bloody hell. Never must it be forgotten.\" Larkin expresses a loss of beliefs and ideals in marriage prominently in The Whitsun Weddings (TWW) and The Less Deceived (TLD) by examining the ideas that marriage signifies imprisonment and leads to a loss of identity, as well as that all marriages are banal and similar. However, there are notions of the idea that perhaps not all is lost, and this is summed up best in Larkin's famous words from \"An Arundel Tomb\", \"What will survive of us is love.\" Whether these words actually mean what they say is debatable - either the romantic idea that love triumphs death or the realistic view that the couple in the poem had not actually intended to be eternally faithful to each other. Nevertheless, it is clear that Larkin holds a certain disbelief regarding the existence of a happy marriage through his observations of ordinary people, his use of regular structure and the straightforwardness of his writing. Philip Larkin seems to have shared Russell's views, as he rejected the idea of marriage and committed himself to bachelorhood, as he says, \"I see life more as an affair of solitude diversified by company than as an affair of company diversified by solitude\" (Hirsch, p.114). According to Edward Hirsch, Larkin \"never recovered from his parents' cramped, loveless marriage, a 'bloody hell' he vowed never to repeat\" (p.118). His parents' marriage also led him to believe that \"Two can live as stupidly as one.\" Larkin enjoyed several sexual relationships without ever getting married, showing that he clearly did not agree with public institutions in the 1950s and 60s, but was more representative of the ideas of independence and freedom of choice of the common man. 525 WordsTWW was published in 1964, and \"brought [Larkin] a remarkable measure of popular esteem\" (Swarbrick, p.5). In this anthology, Larkin explores the various forms that love can take and what it meant to him. Andrew Swarbrick explains that \"love and death remain at the centre of TWW\" (p.92). This consolidates the overall theme existing in most of his poems - loss and death. However, Larkin's biographer, Andrew Motion, chose to look at it from a different point of view: \"Reading his poems in chronological sequence, it is clear that his obsession with death is inextricable from his fascination with love and marriage.\" (Hirsch, p.120) This suggests that Larkin's constant fixation with death in TWW and TLD, published in 1955, is actually shadowed by an interest in the inner workings of marriage. Hirsch clarifies, \"What Motion calls 'fascination' is more accurately described as fascinated revulsion.\" (p.120) Even though Larkin made no secret of his aversion towards marriage (he thought of it as a \"revolting institution\"), he actually presents a diverse range of feelings towards marriage in his poems. \"Love Songs in Age\" explores how an older woman feels about love, or the loss of love, when she recovers her faded sheet music that had vanished in the daily frenzy of marriage and family. Only once she enters \"widowhood\" is she given a chance to pause and reminisce about her youthful feelings about love, \"that hidden freshness\". Motion identifies the widow in the poem as Larkin's mother (Swarbrick, p.108). In Stanza 2, Larkin seems to adopt a tone of optimism, expressing the vivacity of youthful energy with the use of the simile, \"spread out like a spring-woken tree\", implying that the widow had moved from the winter to the spring of her life, if only for that moment when she plays her love songs. This optimism seems to carry on to the next stanza, where Larkin describes love as \"that much", "Hamlet Character Essay - 1198 Words Hamlet Character Essay Please sign up to read full document. Text Preview The Troubled Prince: An Analysis of Hamlet “To be, or not to be: That is the question”(3.1.58). This is probably the most famous quote in all of Shakespearean literature and was uttered by the main character, Hamlet, of the play “Hamlet” written by Shakespeare. It demonstrates his instability and suicidal thoughts. Throughout the play he comes off as a very unpredictable and complex character. He makes many rash decisions, but at the same time often takes a lot of time to contemplate many of his choices. Through Hamlet’s language and voice, we can examine what type of character Shakespeare created. Hamlet acts differently towards people in contrast to his actual thoughts, which are projected through his soliloquies. Due to the insanity caused by his father’s death, Hamlet becomes a very complex and surprising character, which is apparent through Hamlet’s actions and words. The feelings presented by Hamlet in his soliloquies gives insight into his forever-troubled mind. A soliloquy is when a character in a play says out loud what they are thinking and nobody in the room can hear it. Throughout this story, the majority of the soliloquies were said by Hamlet, who used them to project his deep emotions and feelings that would have never been spoken to other characters. However, they also demonstrated his insanity. The first of these was near the beginning of the story. Hamlet’s father has just died and his uncle has just married his mother, there is much troubling him. Hamlet says, “O that this too too solid flesh would melt” in the first line of his first soliloquy (1.2.129). This immediately shows how dramatic a character Hamlet is and is an example of how he often uses figurative language to present his emotions. In the same soliloquy he says how his father love his mother so much he prevented the “winds of heaven” from blowing on her too hard (1.2.144). In his most famous soliloquy he begins with, “to be, or not to be” he ironically uses the most basic words... Please sign up to read full document. YOU MAY ALSO FIND THESE DOCUMENTS HELPFUL Essay on Characters in Hamlet ...Hamlet Seminar Discussion Questions Act 1 1. What is the purpose of the two discussions of the crowing of the cock, Horatio’s pagan one (1.1.130-37) and Marcellus’ Christian one (1.1. 138-45)? (1.1.) 2. What is Claudius telling the court in the first part of his speech (1.2.1-16)? What does he say about young Fortinbras and his uncle the king of Norway (1.2.17-41)? How is Claudius responding to the threat? (You may also want to keep in mind that the name “Claudius”... 2007 Words | 6 Pages Characters in Hamlet Essay ...Quotes: Quote #1: P. 31 (Hamlet I: ii, 129- 132) Quote #1 is spoken by Hamlet. Hamlet was just criticized in public by the king for still being sad about the king’s death two months later. Hamlet tells the audience how he truly feels about his father’s death and his mother’s marriage. He wants to die. He would commit suicide if God wouldn’t have a rule against it. If you commit suicide you go straight to hell. Quote number one is... 930 Words | 3 Pages Characters in Hamlet Essay ...Essay By Enika-Jevgenia Lauri The theme of love and friendship in Hamlet. ( A-act S-scene ) I find, that ones of the main themes in tragedy ,,Hamlet,, by Shakespeare are love and friendship. Abhorring and treachery neighbour with them , what makes the play so exciting. The whole plot of the work is based upon the Hamlet,s love for his father King Hamlet. Son avenges his murder, goes against the ruler ,risking all. The... 785 Words | 2 Pages Characters in Hamlet Essay ...William Shakespeare uses various elements, themes and connections between them to present ideas of enduring value in ‘Hamlet. His character development in Hamlet &Claudius and use of dramatic techniques present values in ‘Hamlet’ those of which are timeless. These enduring values include guilt, corruption and life & death. Shakespeare has used various dramatic techniques" ]

[ "SEATTLE (Reuters) - Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla Inc, has said little about how he plans to turn his prototype electric truck into reality.\nBut Reuters has learned that Tesla is collaborating with Anheuser-Busch, PepsiCo and United Parcel Service Inc to build on-site charging terminals at their facilities as part of the automaker’s efforts to roll out the vehicle next year.\nDetails of the partnerships, which have not been disclosed previously, are still being hammered out, but include design and engineering from Tesla, the companies said. They declined to disclose what portion of the building costs, if any, Tesla would pay, or whether Tesla would be compensated for its work.\nThe firms are among nine major corporations that have placed pre-orders for Tesla’s truck, dubbed the Semi.\nWith questions swirling over whether Tesla can make good on its aggressive timetable, news of the collaboration is a sign that corporate customers are taking the effort seriously, and that Tesla is working to solve one of the biggest impediments: keeping the big-rigs powered.\nCompanies that spoke with Reuters said the first step is to install charging equipment on their own premises. The Semis would be limited to routes that would get them back to home base before the batteries are spent, the firms said.\nPepsiCo, which has reserved 100 Tesla trucks, said it may eventually explore sharing facilities and costs with other companies. The food conglomerate has held multiple meetings with Tesla to discuss the recharging effort, said PepsiCo executive Mike O‘Connell.\n“We have a lot of in-house capability around energy and engineering ... and certainly Tesla brings their expertise to the table on energy and charging,” said O‘Connell, senior director of supply chain for Frito-Lay North America, PepsiCo’s snack-food unit.\nSeparately, in a high-tech twist on the traditional truck stop, Tesla is moving ahead with plans for its own stations to sell electricity to truckers who pull up for a charge, according to customers and transportation industry executives who have discussed the matter with the Silicon Valley automaker.\nTesla already operates more than 1,100 “supercharger” stations globally for drivers of its passenger cars. Musk has spoken publicly of doing something similar for its heavy-duty trucks by installing a network of solar-powered “megachargers” that could juice up a Semi battery in 30 minutes.\nBut just how quickly Tesla could build a robust network of electric filling stations for commercial truckers is not clear. The company is already stretched thin and burning cash. Tesla has struggled to ramp up production of its new Model 3 sedan, which has been plagued by delays. Some analysts and trucking executives doubt that Tesla can deliver the Semi in 2019, much less a vast charging infrastructure to support it.\nA Tesla spokeswoman confirmed that the Fremont, California-based company is working closely with large customers to build Semi charging stations. She declined to comment further on the arrangements or Tesla’s plans for its own truck-charging terminals.\nAnheuser-Busch is evaluating installing its own charging equipment for its 40 Tesla Semis at large breweries and other key locations, according to James Sembrot, senior director of supply chain for the St. Louis-based beer maker.\n“What was important to us was to make a big investment in this cutting-edge technology and secure our place in line,” Sembrot said.\nUPS, too, expects to work closely with Tesla on building on-site charging stations, according to Scott Phillippi, global engineering director for the parcel delivery behemoth. The Atlanta-based company pre-ordered 125 Semis in December.\nGrocery chain Loblaw Companies Ltd will likely use solar power to juice charging stations for the 25 Semis that it has pre-ordered from Tesla, according to spokeswoman Catherine Thomas. She said Loblaw was considering Tesla as well as “a few other companies” for technology and design.\nNone of the companies would disclose cost estimates for building their own charging infrastructure.\nFILE PHOTO: Tesla's new electric semi truck is unveiled during a presentation in Hawthorne, California, U.S., November 16, 2017. REUTERS/Alexandria Sage/File Photo\nU.S. transit agencies that operate electric buses provide some clues. A “fast charger” terminal serving six electric buses would cost $249,000, according to a 2016 report from the California Air Resources Board.\nBut analysts and automotive industry executives said the price tag for commercial truck facilities could easily reach into the millions of dollars, depending on factors such as the number of big-rigs to be recharged, the energy source for the electricity and existing energy infrastructure in a given area.\nAUTOMAKER OR ENERGY SUPPLIER?\nTesla in November unveiled its prototype Semi with the aim of upending the trucking industry. At a splashy event in Hawthorne, California, Musk said the sleek, battery-powered cab could achieve up to 500 miles on a single charge, and be faster, cleaner and cheaper to operate than conventional diesels.\nBase prices range from $150,000 to $200,000, according to Tesla’s website, compared to $120,000 for a typical diesel. Companies including Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Sysco Corp plunked down deposits, getting plenty of public relations mileage in the process.\nBut Tesla’s most obvious potential customers - major U.S. trucking firms - have not jumped on board.\nFILE PHOTO: Tesla's new electric semi truck is unveiled during a presentation in Hawthorne, California, U.S., November 16, 2017. REUTERS/Alexandria Sage/File Photo\nWerner Enterprises Inc, YRC Worldwide Inc, Daseke Inc and Old Dominion Freight Line are among the transport companies holding off pre-orders of the Tesla for now, citing doubts about the Semi’s promised recharge time, range, price and payload capabilities.\nDerek Leathers, chief executive of Werner, said he is not among the “naysayer crowd” that doubts Tesla’s ability to produce a viable electric truck.\n“I think it’ll happen, I just think their timeline is extremely aggressive,” Leathers said.\nStill, a dearth of publicly available charging infrastructure makes electrics impractical for long-haul trucking in the United States and elsewhere.\nThat is something Tesla’s Musk has sought to address with his plans for solar-powered “megacharger” stations. But he has provided few specifics. At the November Semi unveiling, Musk said “we’re guaranteeing” a 7 cents per-kilowatt-hour price for electricity at the facilities.\nThat is at the low end of cost figures cited by the U.S. government. Solar power for commercial use costs 9-12 cents per kilowatt hour, or 6-8 cents with a federal subsidy, according to a 2017 report from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory.\nCustomers and industry executives said Tesla intends to buy cheap excess solar power off the U.S. energy grid, store it in enormous battery banks, then profit from selling it to drivers of Semis.\nBut that strategy carries risks, experts said.\n“It’s a departure from being a vehicle manufacturer to being an energy supplier,” said Darren Gosbee, vice president of engineering at Navistar International Corp, which is working to launch an electric medium-duty truck by late 2019.\nIan Wright, a Tesla co-founder who now runs his own company making electric powertrains for industrial trucks, is skeptical that truck charging stations can be a big money maker for Tesla.\nHe estimated the capital costs for batteries alone would be $15 million for a single station.\n“I am not seeing any profit in the energy brokering for Tesla,” said Wright, whose Wrightspeed powertrain venture is based in Alameda, California." ]

[ "Tesla CEO Elon Musk reportedly told workers to stop performing a critical brake test on Model 3 cars as the company rushed to meet a self-imposed milestone of 5,000 cars produced per week.\nAs electric-car manufacturer Tesla rushed to meet their self-imposed milestone of 5,000 Model 3 cars produced per week, CEO Elon Musk reportedly told workers to stop performing a critical brake test on cars. According to Business Insider, Musk told employees working on Model 3 cars in the company’s factory in Fremont, California, to stop performing a “brake and roll” test on the cars.\nA Tesla insider stated that testing was shut down before 3:00 a.m. on June 26, but was not aware of how long the test was halted for or why it was halted in the first place. An industry insider told Business Insider that the brake and roll test is a critical part of vehicle testing which ensures that the car’s wheels are correctly aligned and that brakes are functioning properly.\nTesla representative Dave Arnold told Business Insider that every Tesla car goes through “rigorous quality checks” but when asked if Elon Musk had ordered the shutdown of brake tests himself, Arnold stated: “I don’t have anything further beyond the statement.”\nBusiness Insider included a photo of Tesla’s internal production system, which can be seen below:\nBusiness Insider notes:\nThe far-left column shows what step the car has reached in the manufacturing process and what tasks must be done there. The two key columns here are the ones labeled “critical” and “blocking.” According to an employee at the company, they show it is apparently no longer necessary for the car to undergo this test before it leaves this step of the manufacturing process. On the far right are all the descriptions of the tasks that should be performed at this station. However, since the criticality and blocking are off, the car can leave the station whether those tasks are performed or not, the employee said. It’s not clear how many cars, if any, have left the station without doing this test.\nA Tesla employee also disputed the company’s claim that they had produced 5,000 Model 3’s in one week, claiming that the company likely reached its goal by finishing cars that had been taken off the production line the week previously but were held back for rework, and then preparing those cars for factory gating and counting them towards the 5,000 Model 3’s produced that week.\nArnold disagreed with the employee’s claims saying: “A small number of cars are built during a week but factory-gated the following week, just as a small number of cars built the prior week may not be factory-gated until the following week. Both of those points are true for this last week of production, just as it is true every week. We are reporting our production numbers the same way as we always have.”", "Tesla’s controversial Autopilot driver-assistance system has been implicated in another crash with a parked emergency vehicle, this time a police SUV in southern California.\n“This morning a Tesla sedan driving outbound Laguna Canyon Road in ‘autopilot’ collides with a parked @LagunaBeachPD unit,” Laguna Beach police tweeted Tuesday.\nThe police vehicle was unoccupied at the time, and the Tesla driver received minor injuries, police said, adding that the crash was reported to the department around 11 a.m.\nThe Tesla in photos posted by police appears to be a Model S.\nTesla, asked about the accident, noted that drivers are not supposed to rely exclusively on Autopilot.\nGet tech news in your inbox weekday mornings. Sign up for the free Good Morning Silicon Valley newsletter.\n“When using Autopilot, drivers are continuously reminded of their responsibility to keep their hands on the wheel and maintain control of the vehicle at all times,” a spokesperson for the Palo Alto electric car maker said.\n“Tesla has always been clear that Autopilot doesn’t make the car impervious to all accidents, and before a driver can use Autopilot, they must accept a dialogue box which states that ‘Autopilot is designed for use on highways that have a center divider and clear lane markings.'”\nThe crash represents at least the third time this year that a Tesla reported to be on Autopilot has hit a parked emergency vehicle. In January, a Model S slammed into the back of a fire truck parked on a freeway in Culver City at an accident scene. The local firefighters union tweeted that the driver said the car was on Autopilot at the time of the collision.\nEarlier this month in Utah, a Model S on Autopilot hit a parked fire truck after reportedly speeding up before the impact. Tesla said the driver in the Utah accident had her hands off the wheel repeatedly during her trip, and hadn’t touched the wheel for more than a minute before the crash. Police said she’d admitted that she was looking at her phone. The Utah driver received a broken foot.\nIn two other crashes involving Autopilot, drivers of the vehicles have died. Walter Huang died in March on Highway 101 in Mountain View when his Model X on Autopilot veered into a barrier. His family has claimed he had taken the SUV into a dealer several times, complaining about Autopilot and saying it kept veering toward the same barrier. Tesla has said Huang had received a number of warnings from the car to keep his hands on the wheel, and that they were off the wheel for six seconds before the collision.\nIn 2016, a Model S driver was killed in Florida when the car crashed into a semi-truck. Federal officials blamed the truck’s driver for failing to yield, on the driver for relying too heavily on Autopilot, and on Elon Musk-led Tesla: Autopilot contributed to the crash by allowing lengthy disengagement from the driving process, on a roadway unsuitable for the semi-autonomous-driving system, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. Also, the Autopilot technology that monitors whether a driver has hands on the steering wheel isn’t a good way to tell if the driver is paying attention, the board said.", "news\nChris Lattner, a former Apple developer, spent nearly six months leading Tesla's Autopilot software team in 2017. He left the company last June.\nOn Friday, Lattner criticized the software's current state on Twitter.\nHe said he was \"sad\" at the lack of progress he has perceived since he left the company.\nThe Autopilot feature gives Tesla vehicles semi-autonomous capabilities in some situations.\nTesla's Autopilot feature has become the subject of controversy again after a Model S that was possibly using the feature crashed into a fire truck on January 22. The feature gives Tesla vehicles semi-autonomous capabilities but is not meant to replace a human driver.\nNow, Chris Lattner, the former Apple legend who spent nearly six months leading Tesla's Autopilot software team in 2017, has expressed his disappointment at the software's current state.\nIn a post on Twitter, Lattner shared a short review of the Model 3, Tesla's first mass-market electric car.\n\"The hardware is truly great (a big step up from my Model S) but the software is unfinished and buggy,\" he wrote. \"I'm also sad how little progress HW2 Autopilot has made since I last drove it in June...\"\nLattner had a strained relationship with Elon Musk\nAfter working for Apple for 11 years and drawing praise for developing Swift, the company's popular programming language, Lattner became Tesla's vice president of Autopilot software in January 2017. He spent almost six months in the position before leaving the company after having a reportedly strained relationship with CEO Elon Musk.\nLattner's departure was a mutual decision, Business Insider reported at the time. It made him the third Autopilot executive to leave Tesla in a period of seven months. Lattner was hired by Google in August 2017 to work on Google Brain, the company's major artificial intelligence project.\nTesla released the last major update for Autopilot in June 2017. The update gave Tesla vehicles the ability to park perpendicularly without driver assistance and removed the speed limit on the Autosteer feature, which allows a vehicle to steer itself in some conditions.\nMusk has said that Tesla vehicles have the necessary hardware for fully autonomous driving once the necessary software and regulatory conditions are introduced. The company is competing with tech companies and traditional automakers like Apple, Google's Waymo, Uber, Ford, and General Motors to develop and introduce autonomous vehicles to the general public.\nDespite a series of production delays, the Model 3 has begun to arrive at Tesla showrooms. Early reviews have been positive.", "Benjamin Zhang/Business Insider\nTesla CEO Elon Musk ordered his employees to stop putting nearly finished Model 3s through a critical test before leaving the company's factory in Fremont, California, according to an internal document viewed by Business Insider.\nIt's called the brake-and-roll test, and it ensures the car is correctly aligned.\nAn industry expert told Business Insider that every automaker does this test to ensure quality and function.\nTesla CEO Elon Musk appears to have asked engineers at Tesla's factory in Fremont, California, to remove a standard brake test, called the brake-and-roll test, from the tasks Model 3 cars must complete to move through production, according to internal documents seen by Business Insider.\nThe test was apparently shut down before 3 a.m. on June 26, according to a person familiar with the matter. It's unclear why this particular test was halted or for how long.\nAccording to an industry expert, the brake-and-roll test is a critical part of the car manufacturing process, taking place during its final stages. The test ensures that the car's wheels are perfectly aligned and checks the brakes and their function by taking the vehicle's engine up to certain revolutions per minute and observing how they react on diagnostic machines.\nIn a statement, a Tesla representative, Dave Arnold, told Business Insider that every car goes through \"rigorous quality checks,\" including brake tests.\nWhen pressed on whether Musk himself gave the order to remove the brake-and-roll test, Arnold said, \"I don't have anything further beyond the statement.\"\nThis is what the brake-and-roll test's step looks like in Tesla's internal production system.\nBusiness Insider\nThe far-left column shows what step the car has reached in the manufacturing process and what tasks must be done there.\nThe two key columns here are the ones labeled \"critical\" and \"blocking.\" According to an employee at the company, they show it is apparently no longer necessary for the car to undergo this test before it leaves this step of the manufacturing process.\nOn the far right are all the descriptions of the tasks that should be performed at this station. However, since the criticality and blocking are off, the car can leave the station whether those tasks are performed or not, the employee said.\nIt's not clear how many cars, if any, have left the station without doing this test.\nQuality issues\nRon Harbour, a consultant at Oliver Wyman who founded and writes \"The Harbour Report,\" a worldwide guide to manufacturing, told Business Insider that after everything is installed in a car during the manufacturing process, a manufacturer would have to be very lucky for everything on a car to be in alignment.\n\"If you just abandon [the test], you could potentially have a lot of quality issues with your customers,\" he said. \"Every plant does that ... It's part of finishing the build of the car.\"\nHarbour told Business Insider he was unaware of any test that could adequately replace the brake-and-roll test on a manufacturing line.\n\"To be extremely clear, we drive *every* Model 3 on our test track to verify braking, torque, squeal, and rattle,\" Arnold said in a statement. \"There are no exceptions.\"\nMusk has for weeks been in a race against time, trying to ramp up production of the company's much-anticipated Model 3 to 5,000 cars a week. On Monday, Tesla announced it had \"factory gated\" 5,000 cars the week before, reaching its goal.\nThe employee Business Insider spoke with said the factory-gate distinction is important. They said it means the company most likely reached its goal by finishing cars that had already been through the production line the previous week but were held back for rework, then readying them for factory gating.\nArnold disputed that notion, saying Tesla has been consistent in how it reports its numbers.\nHe said: \"A small number of cars are built during a week but factory-gated the following week, just as a small number of cars built the prior week may not be factory-gated until the following week. Both of those points are true for this last week of production, just as it is true every week. We are reporting our production numbers the same way as we always have.\"\nTesla also announced that it made 28,578 Model 3s in the second quarter. However, Business Insider has viewed internal documents showing that as of last Wednesday the company had planned to hit 36,020 Model 3s in the second quarter. Tesla declined to comment on this figure.\nAt that point, the carmaker had made fewer than 11,000 of the cars in June and just under 26,000 in the second quarter, putting it on track to fall below a plan of 36,020.\nIf you are a Tesla employee or customer who has a story to share about their car or experience with the company, give me a shout at llopez@businessinsider.com.", "The company’s fate rides on the answers to three unresolved questions about the auto industry’s future: driven or self-driving? Electric or gas? Private or shared?\nAs Tesla surged past Ford and General Motors last week to become the most valuable car company in the United States, here was the brusque assessment of Bruce Greenwald, a professor at Columbia Business School: “It’s nuts.” And, in a way, it is nuts. Particularly, if you ignore the Elon Musk mythology and look at the numbers. Tesla sold 80,000 cars last year. GM sold 10 million, meaning it exceeded Tesla’s annual vehicle sales every three days, on average. Despite the fanfare, Musk’s company lost $780 million in 2016. Ford made $11 billion. But Tesla is a mountain of superlatives, as the auto industry’s most successful upstart, run by the “greatest living inventor” selling the greatest story of any publicly-traded tech company. Stock prices are, like everything else in life inflected by psychology, more about expectations of the future than about present circumstances. And that’s the metric where Tesla is beating its rivals into the ground. The company’s sales are growing 70 percent annually while the domestic car market has plateaued.\nTesla’s valuation isn’t nuts if, as some investors surely hope, cars are the new smartphones and Musk is the next Steve Jobs. In 2007, when the iPhone debuted, it was in a position much like Tesla, selling just 4 million units in a year when Nokia sold more than 400 million, as Vox’s Tim Lee writes. But 10 years later, Apple is the world’s most valuable company—with 20 percent of the world’s smartphones sales, and the vast majority of the industry’s profits—while Nokia has sold off its cell phone business. Apple and Amazon got so big because they piggy-backed off of larger movements in tech and culture—the shift of attention to mobile and the shift of retail to the Internet—that created enormous new markets for them to dominate. Investors expect Tesla to dominate the electric future of cars the way Apple gobbles up smartphone profits and Amazon dominates e-commerce. But the future of cars is a riddle within an enigma, as the industry sits at a crossroads facing several divergent futures—driven vs. self-driving, private vs. shared, gas vs. electric. Here are three questions that will shape the future of cars. 1. Will people drive cars, or will the cars drive themselves? The self-driving revolution is like a massive West Coast earthquake—experts claim it’s practically inevitable, but nobody can say for sure when or what it will look like. Business Insider Intelligence predicts there will be 10 million self-driving cars on the road in three years. In 10 years, about a quarter of miles driven in the United States could be in self-driving electric cars, according to Boston Consulting Group.\nIf this self-driving future never fully materializes, legacy car companies will probably benefit from the lack of disruption. But is it so obvious that they would also lose, even in the self-driving scenario? To be sure, investors are betting against them. The price-earnings ratio—a company’s share price divided by its earnings per share—is a barometer of investors’ optimism in future profit growth. The average P/E for the S&P 500 is in the mid-20s. But the ratios for car companies, like Ford, GM, and Toyota, are all around 10, which suggests that investors aren’t confident that their profits will last. (Tesla has no P/E ratio, since it has no E.) Musk is preparing for the autonomous future by installing self-driving hardware in all of his new cars. This way, when Tesla finally acquires or develops the software for fully autonomous driving, cars bought this year can be retrofitted to drive themselves. Earlier this month, Navigant Research published a report that declared the worldwide leader in self-driving tech is Ford, followed by GM, Renault-Nissan, Daimler, and Volkswagen—all car companies. Tesla finished 12th. One research report isn’t gospel. But it suggests that the “Tesla Is Apple, and Cars Are Smartphones” thesis has some serious limitations. In 2007, Apple’s competitors thought the iPhone was a terrible idea. But in 2017, almost all of Tesla’s competitors are engaged in a global race to build electric and autonomous vehicles, and some of them are arguably ahead of Musk in software and distribution capacity.\n2. Is the future of cars electric, or something else? The simplest story about Tesla goes like this: It has the best technology, by far, and strongest brand, by far, in the auto market’s largest growth sector. Indeed, the company already makes the two best-selling electric cars in the U.S.—the Model S sedan and the Model X SUV. Its most promising product, the Model 3, a relatively affordable sedan ($35,000, before government incentives), debuts later this year. Then there’s Tesla biggest tech advantage: its battery technology. Facing a shortage of high-quality and affordable lithium-ion batteries required in electric cars, Musk built his own proprietary “Gigafactory” in Nevada to produce state-of-the-art batteries that could cement a permanent advantage, the way Apple’s hardware has upheld the company reign over smartphone profits. Lithium-ion batteries, which are used in electric and hybrid cars, in addition to everything from spacecraft to smartphones and e-cigarettes. Several automakers, like General Motors and Honda, are dabbling in other clean energy, like fuel-cell systems. But hydrogen fueling stations cost about $2 million to build and there are only 34 in the United States today, with more than half in one state—California. Given the technology’s questionable viability, Musk has called fuel-cell systems “mind-bogglingly stupid.” Still, several things stand in the way of Tesla’s dominance in electric vehicles. First, its technology might be best-in-class, but it’s not one-of-a-kind. Sales of General Motor’s Chevrolet Volt are up 40 percent so far this year, a faster rate of annual growth than sales of Tesla’s Model S sedan. Ford, Nissan, and BMW all make electric vehicles that sold more than 5,000 units last year. It’s too early to say whether Tesla’s technology edge is like Apple’s, a truly wide moat, or like Whole Foods’, whose high-end revolution in groceries inspired competitors, like Kroger and A&P, that easily crossed the river to take back marketshare.\nSecond, an enduring era of cheap gas might prevent some on-the-fence households from springing for electric. Average gas prices have been under $3.00 a gallon since 2015. In the last three years, Americans have regained their mid-aughts habits, by moving to sunny, cheap suburbs and buying small trucks. Sales of cars are declining in the U.S., while SUVs and pickups are the bright spots in the domestic auto market. This story even holds for Tesla: Ninety percent of its growth in unit sales so far this year came from the Model X SUV. Tesla is expecting big things with its Model 3 car unveiling later this year, but the vast majority of Americans might be happy with bigger SUVs and trucks powered by cheap gas for a long time. Percent Change in Sales by Vehicle Type, January-March 2017 Source: WSJ data Third, Tesla currently benefits from significant subsides. For each electric car sold today, Washington offers a $7,500 tax credit, and some states offer even more. This is a well-meaning, but ultimately regressive, subsidy, since Tesla’s cars are, for now, a luxury product. “The top income quintile has received about 90 percent of all credits” for electric vehicles, according to research by the economists Severin Borsenstein and Lucas W. Davis. One can desire very fervently to save the planet and still find that statistic a bit insane. If the Trump administration, or certain states, change this incentive structure, it might discourage Tesla’s growth among upper-middle-class buyers who are the target market for the Model 3, and indirectly promote gas-hybrid cars, like the Toyota Prius, at Tesla’s expense.", "news\nTesla has posted some crazy fast 0-60 numbers for its Model S, raising comparisons with supercars.\nBut there's more to supercars that straight-line speed.\nFerrari CEO Sergio Marchionne helpfully pointed this out.\nThe Tesla Model S P100D, with \"Ludicrous Mode\" acceleration, can go from 0-60 mph in a mind-boggling 2.3 seconds. This has led to declarations that this all-electric four-door, a family sedan for the future, is secretly a supercar.\nThat 0-60 speed might be faster than what some of the world's proper supercars can achieve, but the CEO of one of those supercar brands isn't having any of it.\nAfter Ferrari reported solid full-year 2017 earnings Thursday, Sergio Marchionne spoke with analysts on a conference call and took questions about a rumored all-electric supercar. At the Detroit auto show in January, Marchionne said, \"If there is an electric supercar to be built, then Ferrari will be the first,\" and his impromptu remarks at the unveiling of the Jeep Cherokee implied that the prancing horse was aiming to take on Tesla.\nOn Thursday, it became clear that Marchionne doesn't think Tesla has created a real supercar (even though Tesla did unveil a new Roadster last November that, when built, will be the fastest thing on the road, with a predicted 0-60 time of 1.9 seconds and styling that's anything but stodgy).\nHe reiterated his \"Ferrari will be first\" comment, in the process taking a shot at the handling characteristic of electric vehicles. They aren't great. The P100D is stunning in a straight line, but that makes it more of an electric muscle car than a flashy European go-around-corners demon, like, say, a Ferrari 488 GTB.\nHe also took a shot at Tesla, citing an earlier 0-60 time.\n\"I have read some interesting analyst reports that suggest that that now that Tesla has done a car that does 0-60 mph in 2.7 seconds and there is no room for supercars,\" he said.\n\"Well, I would challenge anybody who's driven an electric car to try and drive at the same way we drive a Ferrari and you’d recognize immediately that the handling characteristics of the car are totally different. So whenever Ferrari will express itself in a fully electric vehicle, it will do so by making sure that both sound and handling are reflective of Ferrari's heritage.\"\nMarchionne has a point. I've driven the Model S in Ludicrous Mode, and while it is certainly fast, I've also driven the Ferrari 488, and there's no reasonable comparison. You can take a stock 488, rig it up for racing, and run it in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. You can take a Model S to the drag strip. Apple, meet orange.\nZero-to-60 performance makes headlines because it's a neat way to deliver the \"fast\" message, but those in the know about performance cars understand that acceleration is but one piece of the puzzle. A useful piece, but simply a piece nonetheless. For example, the huge electric batteries that EVs have to lug around present a bigger challenge for handling than the internal-combustion components of a Ferrari, which can be moved around the vehicle's frame to optimize balance.\nUltimately, Tesla and other EV brands might produce \"their\" Ferraris. But for now, Ferrari thinks they have some work to do — and is convinced that its electric supercars, should they ever exist, will still be not just Ferrari-good, but Ferrari-better.", "Benjamin Zhang/Business Insider\nTesla CEO Elon Musk appears to have asked engineers at Tesla's factory in Fremont, California, to remove a standard brake test, called the brake-and-roll test, from the tasks Model 3 cars must complete to move through production, according to internal documents seen by Business Insider.\nThe test was apparently shut down before 3 a.m. on June 26, according to a person familiar with the matter. It's unclear why this particular test was halted or for how long.\nAccording to an industry expert, the brake-and-roll test is a critical part of the car manufacturing process, taking place during its final stages. The test ensures that the car's wheels are perfectly aligned and checks the brakes and their function by taking the vehicle's engine up to certain revolutions per minute and observing how they react on diagnostic machines.\nIn a statement, a Tesla representative, Dave Arnold, told Business Insider that every car goes through \"rigorous quality checks,\" including brake tests.\nAdvertisement\nWhen pressed on whether Musk himself gave the order to remove the brake-and-roll test, Arnold said, \"I don't have anything further beyond the statement.\"\nThis is what the brake-and-roll test's step looks like in Tesla's internal production system.\nBusiness Insider\nThe far-left column shows what step the car has reached in the manufacturing process and what tasks must be done there.\nThe two key columns here are the ones labeled \"critical\" and \"blocking.\" According to an employee at the company, they show it is apparently no longer necessary for the car to undergo this test before it leaves this step of the manufacturing process.\nAdvertisement\nOn the far right are all the descriptions of the tasks that should be performed at this station. However, since the criticality and blocking are off, the car can leave the station whether those tasks are performed or not, the employee said.\nIt's not clear how many cars, if any, have left the station without doing this test.\nQuality issues\nRon Harbour, a consultant at Oliver Wyman who founded and writes \"The Harbour Report,\" a worldwide guide to manufacturing, told Business Insider that after everything is installed in a car during the manufacturing process, a manufacturer would have to be very lucky for everything on a car to be in alignment.\n\"If you just abandon [the test], you could potentially have a lot of quality issues with your customers,\" he said. \"Every plant does that ... It's part of finishing the build of the car.\"\nHarbour told Business Insider he was unaware of any test that could adequately replace the brake-and-roll test on a manufacturing line.\nAdvertisement\n\"To be extremely clear, we drive *every* Model 3 on our test track to verify braking, torque, squeal, and rattle,\" Arnold said in a statement. \"There are no exceptions.\"\nMusk has for weeks been in a race against time, trying to ramp up production of the company's much-anticipated Model 3 to 5,000 cars a week. On Monday, Tesla announced it had \"factory gated\" 5,000 cars the week before, reaching its goal.\nThe employee Business Insider spoke with said the factory-gate distinction is important. They said it means the company most likely reached its goal by finishing cars that had already been through the production line the previous week but were held back for rework, then readying them for factory gating.\nArnold disputed that notion, saying Tesla has been consistent in how it reports its numbers.\nHe said: \"A small number of cars are built during a week but factory-gated the following week, just as a small number of cars built the prior week may not be factory-gated until the following week. Both of those points are true for this last week of production, just as it is true every week. We are reporting our production numbers the same way as we always have.\"\nAdvertisement\nTesla also announced that it made 28,578 Model 3s in the second quarter. However, Business Insider has viewed internal documents showing that as of last Wednesday the company had planned to hit 36,020 Model 3s in the second quarter. Tesla declined to comment on this figure.\nAt that point, the carmaker had made fewer than 11,000 of the cars in June and just under 26,000 in the second quarter, putting it on track to fall below a plan of 36,020.\nIf you are a Tesla employee or customer who has a story to share about their car or experience with the company, give me a shout at llopez@businessinsider.com.", "FILE PHOTO: A Tesla model S car with an electric vehicle charging station is displayed during a media preview day at the Frankfurt Motor Show (IAA) September 10, 2013. The world's biggest auto show is open to the public September 14 -22. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo\nFRANKFURT Tesla executive Klaus Grohmann was ousted last month after a clash with Chief Executive Elon Musk over the strategy of Grohmann's firm, which Tesla had acquired in November, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.\nThe Silicon Valley luxury electric carmaker is counting on Grohmann Engineering's automation and engineering expertise to help it ramp up production to 500,000 cars per year by 2018.\nAt the time of the purchase, it described Klaus Grohmann and the company he founded as a \"world leader in highly automated manufacturing\".\nTesla planned to keep Grohmann on, and Grohmann wanted to stay, but the clash with Musk over how to treat existing clients resulted in his departure, the source said.\nGrohmann disagreed with Musk's demands to focus management attention on Tesla projects to the detriment of Grohmann Engineering's legacy clients, which included Tesla's direct German-based rivals Daimler and BMW, two sources familiar with the matter said.\nReached by phone, Klaus Grohmann declined to comment on the circumstances of his leaving, citing confidentiality clauses.\n\"I definitely did not depart because I had lost interest in working,\" Grohmann said, without elaborating.\nA Tesla spokesman, asked about Grohmann's departure, praised him for building an \"incredible company\" and said:\n\"Part of Mr Grohmann's decision to work with Tesla was to prepare for his retirement and leave the company in capable hands for the future. Given the change in focus to Tesla projects, we mutually decided that it was the right time for the next generation of management to lead.\"\nTwo sources familiar with the matter said Tesla's plans to ramp up production with the help of the company now renamed Tesla Grohmann Automation remain on track.\nThe management layer below Klaus Grohmann is continuing his work, they told Reuters. But they said parts of the workforce felt insecure about becoming so dependent on one client after the founder's departure.\nLast year, Tesla had said: \"Under the continued leadership of Mr Grohmann, several critical elements of Tesla's automated manufacturing systems will be designed and produced in Pruem, to help make our factories the most advanced in the world.\"\n\"Our factories are so important that we believe they will ultimately deserve an order of magnitude more attention in engineering than what they produce. At very high production volumes, the factory becomes more of a product than the product itself,\" Tesla said at the time.\nTesla started out as a client of Grohmann Engineering, a small unlisted company based in Pruem, near the Luxembourg border, that helped companies design highly automated factories, a source familiar with the company told Reuters.\nAs pressure grew to increase production volumes at Tesla, Musk decided to buy Grohmann Engineering and make Pruem a base for Tesla Advanced Automation.\nAs well as BMW and Daimler, Grohmann counted the auto parts maker Bosch [ROBG.UL], chip maker Intel, and pharmaceutical firms Abbott Laboratories and Roche among its clients.\nNegotiations have started with some of the clients about how to compensate them for lack of resources devoted to their projects, one of the sources said.\nThe German labor union IG Metall has demanded that Tesla's management formalize multi-year job guarantees and increase salaries as a way to provide assurance amid management turmoil.\n(Reporting by Edward Taylor; Editing by Kevin Liffey)", "Tom Krisher, The Associated Press\nDETROIT - A wireless update of antilock braking software improved the stopping distance of Tesla's electric Model 3, prompting Consumer Reports to reverse course and give the car its “Recommended Buy” rating.\nThe magazine said Wednesday that the update cut 19 feet off the car's stopping distance from 60 miles per hour. A previous test - the results of which were released a little more than a week ago - found that it took 152 feet for the Model S compact car to stop from 60, the longest braking distance of any modern car the magazine has tested.\nThe improved braking raised the car's score high enough for it to receive the coveted recommendation. But Consumer Reports still has concerns over wind noise, a stiff ride, and the touch-screen controls that could distract a driver.\nAfter the first round of testing was made public, Tesla CEO Elon Musk promised to fix the problem within days. Consumer Reports says it was told by Tesla that the software helps the brakes adapt to variations in how they are used and how they respond in different environmental conditions.\nOn Twitter Wednesday, Musk wrote that he appreciates the “high-quality critical feedback” from Consumer Reports and said that noise and ride comfort already had been addressed. Another software update will address the controls, he wrote, without elaborating.\nMusk told the magazine last week that Tesla had already made production changes to address wind noise, the harsh ride and an uncomfortable rear seat, Consumer Reports said in a statement. Consumer Reports said it will rent another Model 3 from Tesla to check on the changes and will report back on the results. The magazine bought a Model 3 for the first test and said it doesn't normally rent test vehicles.\nThe Model 3 is Tesla's first attempt to appeal to mass-market buyers. The car that starts at $35,000 but can run as high as $78,000 has been plagued by production delays.\nTesla's software update was done either via the car's cellular connection or a wireless internet link, depending on how the owner configures the car, according to Tesla.\nJake Fisher, Consumer Reports' director of auto testing, said that in 19 years of work for the magazine he has not seen a car's track performance improve with a wireless update.\nMusk pledged in a tweet last week that the braking improvements would make the Model 3 best in its class. But Consumer Reports said the stopping distance was not class leading and the further updates may be necessary.\nThe magazine also said nearly all of the Model 3's controls are on a centre touch screen direction with no gauges on the dashboard and few buttons inside the car. This forces drivers to take several steps to do simple tasks and can cause driver distraction, the magazine said.\nConsumer Reports also said it got a record 350 miles of range per charge with a long-range version of the Model 3 when it's set on a high mode to recharge batteries with energy from braking.", "Cool car, not an SUV. Bryan Logan/Business Insider\nTesla has always tried to sell sedans when the market wants SUVs.\nThe Model 3 is a four-door, and we'll have to wait until at least 2020 for the Model Y SUV.\nIt would be smart for Tesla to get a compact SUV to market as soon as possible.\nOne of the big stories in the car business is the decline of the sedan and the ascent of the SUV.\nOne of the other big stories is Tesla. Genius CEO, first new American car company in decades, electric vehicles, self-driving technology, sky-high stock price — you get the idea.\nInterestingly, if there's a carmaker that's bucking the SUV takeover of the nation's roadways, it's ... Tesla. With 400,000 pre-orders for its behind-schedule Model 3 and people flocking to Tesla stories to see the vehicle in person as if it were a shiny new Apple product, Tesla is singlehandedly arguing that the four-door isn't over.\nUnfortunately, Tesla is going to ultimately lose that argument.\nThe sedan isn't a total goner just yet, but it will be\nChevy launched its Bolt EV as a small hatchback. Hollis Johnson\nHonda and Toyota are still selling plenty of Accords and Camrys. If fact, those automakers recently designed both vehicles. But the segment is weaker than it has been, well, ever. And most companies, Honda and Toyota included, are rolling out new and revamped SUVs at a furious pace.\nTesla, meanwhile is selling two sedans and only one SUV. Sure, the Model S and the Model 3, with their additional cargo space thanks to the lack of an engine bay, have SUV-like versatility. But the Model 3 isn't yet available with all-wheel-drive, and the Model S is still a luxury four-door, not a suburban family hauler.\nThe decline is passenger-car sales in the US is looking more and more like a permanent shift. Carmakers that had solid SUV lineups — I'm talking about you, Fiat Chrysler and the Jeep brand — have printed money over the past three years of booming sales.\nTesla, meanwhile, has largely missed out. The Model X arrived late to the game, and while it has amassed decent sales since 2016, it's also playing at the upper end of the market. Logically, the Model 3 wouldn't have been a sedan — it would have been a compact SUV. But Tesla didn't go that route. And now there are rumors that the company is gearing up to start production of the Model Y — and SUV version of the Model 3 — but not until 2020.\nThat's a long to wait for a vehicle that probably wouldn't just sell as robustly as the Model 3 could — it would sell better.\nTesla's Semi arrived before the Model Y. Alexandria Sage/Reuters\nTesla can't stay immune to market dynamics forever\nTesla has been somewhat immune to the dynamics of the rest of the auto market, but that can't last forever, and it's worth remembering that Tesla's entire big story of the past seven years, post-IPO, has taken place during a massive surge in US sales, with records and near-records set in 2015, 2016, and 2017.\nSo Tesla has gotten away with having the wrong car at the wrong time, and given that the US market is unlikely to tank in the next year or two, it could ride out the period between the Model 3 hitting full-production in 2019 and the Model Y launching in 2020.\nThe risk is that it will launch the Model Y just as the market is either seriously declining or stalling. Numerous other EVs will be on the scene by then, as well, so some of Tesla familiar monopoly power over the electric-car space will have eroded.\nAnd to top it all off, EV sales probably aren't going to be all that much bigger in 2020 than they are today. If the global market doubles, EVs will be 2% of total sales. If the US market doubles, that means 2.5% of the total will be EVs.\nTesla will need an SUV to capture its share of those sales — and not a $100,000 ute with crazy gull-wing doors. In fact, Tesla would ideally have three SUVs: a full-size, three-row product, a mid-size, and a small, entry-level vehicle. Instead, Tesla will have a pair of luxury cars — S and X — the Model 3, the new Model Y, and maybe a pickup and a semi-truck.\nIt will be, without a doubt, a super cool lineup. But it might not be what the market is buying.\nThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Business Insider.", "Tesla's Model 3 has earned a recommendation from Consumer Reports. Hollis Johnson/Business Insider\nA wireless update of antilock braking software improved the stopping distance of Tesla's electric Model 3, prompting Consumer Reports to reverse course and give the car its \"Recommended Buy\" rating.\nThe magazine said Wednesday that the update cut 19 feet off the car's stopping distance from 60 miles per hour. A previous test — the results of which were released a little more than a week ago — found that it took 152 feet for the Model S compact car to stop from 60, the longest braking distance of any modern car the magazine has tested.\nThe improved braking raised the car's score high enough for it to receive the coveted recommendation. But Consumer Reports still has concerns over wind noise, a stiff ride, and the touch-screen controls that could distract a driver.\nAfter the first round of testing was made public, Tesla CEO Elon Musk promised to fix the problem within days. Consumer Reports says it was told by Tesla that the software helps the brakes adapt to variations in how they are used and how they respond in different environmental conditions.\nAdvertisement\nOn Twitter Wednesday, Musk wrote that he appreciates the \"high-quality critical feedback\" from Consumer Reports and said that noise and ride comfort already had been addressed. Another software update will address the controls, he wrote, without elaborating.\nMusk told the magazine last week that Tesla had already made production changes to address wind noise, the harsh ride and an uncomfortable rear seat, Consumer Reports said in a statement. Consumer Reports said it will rent another Model 3 from Tesla to check on the changes and will report back on the results. The magazine bought a Model 3 for the first test and said it doesn't normally rent test vehicles.\nThe Model 3 is Tesla's first attempt to appeal to mass-market buyers. The car that starts at $35,000 but can run as high as $78,000 has been plagued by production delays.\nTesla's software update was done either via the car's cellular connection or a wireless internet link, depending on how the owner configures the car, according to Tesla.\nJake Fisher, Consumer Reports' director of auto testing, said that in 19 years of work for the magazine he has not seen a car's track performance improve with a wireless update.\nAdvertisement\nMusk pledged in a tweet last week that the braking improvements would make the Model 3 best in its class. But Consumer Reports said the stopping distance was not class leading and the further updates may be necessary.\nThe magazine also said nearly all of the Model 3's controls are on a center touchscreen direction with no gauges on the dashboard and few buttons inside the car. This forces drivers to take several steps to do simple tasks and can cause driver distraction, the magazine said.\nConsumer Reports also said it got a record 350 miles of range per charge with a long-range version of the Model 3 when it's set on a high mode to recharge batteries with energy from braking.", "Robert Taylor was a federal bureaucrat, but he was also a visionary who used his position and government money to change the world.\nMr. Taylor, who died last week at 85, could be called the father of the internet.\nWhen he went to work in 1966 at the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, Mr. Taylor had to use three terminals on three separate networks to communicate with his three computer research projects. He thought there should be one network to link all of them.\nSo he went to his boss, who gave him $1 million from the ballistic missile defense budget to establish the Arpanet, which eventually became the internet. He continued to support and encourage the expanding of the original nodes of the internet, adding more universities, including Carnegie Mellon.\nEven before that, in 1961, Mr. Taylor, then a project manager at NASA, heard about Douglas Engelbart’s study of human-computer interaction. He guided money to the project and the result was the computer mouse.\nAfter he left federal employ, he joined the new Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC, in California, working on graphics-based personal computing. Mr. Taylor’s team built a prototype personal computer called the Alto, which pioneered the form of the personal computer to come.\nHe then created and ran the Digital Equipment Systems Research Laboratory, which helped create one of the first search engines, AltaVista.\nMr. Taylor and J.C.R. Licklider, a psychologist and computer scientist, wrote a paper in 1968, “The Computer as a Communications Device,” which outlined how computer networks might transform society.\nMr. Taylor helped to make our modern world what it is today.\n$2 billion charge. As part of its settlement of the emissions scandal, Volkswagen has agreed to invest $2 billion in a “nationwide 150 kW+ fast-charging network” for electric cars in 11 U.S. cities, according to the Chicago Tribune newspaper.\nTaser rack included. Tesla CEO Elon Musk says his company will unveil its electric tractor-trailer truck in September and an electric pickup truck in 18 to 24 months.\nNot friendly. A third-party extension for Google’s Chrome browser, the “Drop United” tool, blocks United Airlines flights from showing up in results for several major travel search engines. It is a result of the outrage over a viral video of a passenger being dragged from a flight.\nWrapping up the problem. Bandages that can detect how a wound is healing and send messages back to doctors could be in trials within the next 12 months, BBC.com reported. The bandages would use 5G technology to determine treatment and track a patient’s activity levels. The work is being led by Swansea University’s Institute of Life Science in the U.K.\nProblem solved. A Republican lawmaker who voted to eliminate internet privacy rules gave an interesting answer at a recent town hall meeting. U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., was hosting a meeting when a person in the audience disputed the argument that internet service providers shouldn’t face stricter rules than websites such as Facebook on selling a user’s information.\nThe questioner said he doesn’t have to use Facebook but does need an ISP. Mr. Sensenbrenner answered, “Nobody’s got to use the internet.”\nSend comments, contributions, corrections and condemnations to pgtechtexts@gmail.com." ]

[ "William Wordsworth" ]

[ "Murder She Wrote", "Who", "the Who", "Who?", "Who Made Who", "The Who by Numbers", "the HTC Butterfly", "The Who's Tommy", "Betty Who", "who is singing", "Who Dat", "Dr. Who", "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire", "The Guess Who", "Who's Sorry Now", "Who You Are", "The Man Who Was Thursday", "Who Is Fancy", "Who's That Girl", "The Girl Who Died", "Who You Selling For", "He who pours", "The Man Who", "who is and who is not a New Zealand citizen", "a player who is not a starter", "Who We Are", "individuals who are in transit", "Who's on First?", "The Man Who Laughs", "She who weeps", "Who Were We", "Who's Your Daddy?" ]

[ "Robinsoniella peoriensis is a Gram-positive, strictly anaerobic, spore-forming, rod-shaped organism. Here, we report the draft genome of R. peoriensis 6600698, initially classified as Clostridium difficile due to growth on selective agar, a fecal gdh PCR-positive result, and clinical symptoms. R. peoriensis is a potential confounder of C. difficile diagnosis." ]

[ "ABSTRACT Here, we report the draft genome of Clostridium sp. strain W14A, isolated from the anaerobic, cellulolytic biofilm of a cotton string sample incubated in a landfill leachate microcosm. The draft genome comprises 131 contigs, 3,823,510 bp, 51.5% G+C content, and 4,119 predicted coding domain sequences.", "ABSTRACT Here, we present the draft genome sequence of Burkholderia pseudomallei PHLS 6, a virulent clinical strain isolated from a melioidosis patient in Bangladesh in 1960. The draft genome consists of 39 contigs and is 7,322,181 bp long.", "We report the draft genome sequence of Mycobacterium elephantis strain Lipa from a sputum sample of a patient with pulmonary disease. This is the first draft genome sequence of M. elephantis, a rapidly growing mycobacterium.", "ABSTRACT Here, we present the draft genome sequence of Defluviimonas indica 20V17T, which was isolated from a deep-sea hydrothermal vent chimney sample in the southwest Indian Ocean. The draft genome sequence contains 4,268,338 bp, with a G+C content of 66.33%.", "Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is now recognised as the main cause of healthcare associated diarrhoea. Over the recent years there has been a change in the epidemiology of CDI with certain related strains dominating infection. These strains have been termed hyper-virulent and have successfully spread across the globe. Many C. difficile strains have had their genomes completely sequenced allowing researchers to build up a very detailed picture of the contribution of horizontal gene transfer to the adaptive potential, through the acquisition of mobile DNA, of this organism. Here, we review and discuss the contribution of mobile genetic elements to the biology of this clinically important pathogen.", "A 1947 base pair (bp) fragment of the toxin A gene of Clostridium difficile was sequenced. A continuous open reading frame was found, which contained 4 distinct groups of repeat nucleotide sequence with 88 to 100% identity within each group. The arrangement of the groups (A, 81 bp, B, C and D, 63 bp) was ABCCCDABCDDABCCCDABCCDABCDABC. Based on nucleotide sequence data from the C repeat group, a pair of oligonucleotide primers were synthesised and used in the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to amplify fragments from the toxin A gene. Several products of multiples of 63 bp length were amplified for all 33 toxigenic C. difficile strains tested in contrast to the 12 non-toxigenic strains tested which failed to amplify any product. This rapid technique is of potential use in the specific identification of toxigenic C. difficile strains in mixed culture and from clinical specimens.", "In this report, we present a draft genome sequence of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens strain B-1895. Comparison with the genome of a reference strain demonstrated similar overall organization, as well as differences involving large gene clusters.", "ABSTRACT Hybrid de novo assembly of Illumina/Nanopore sequence data produced a complete circular sequence of the chromosome for a Clostridioides difficile ribotype 255 (RT255) isolate from an elderly patient with recurrent C. difficile infection (CDI). This provides a high-quality representative sequence for the RT255 lineage.", "ABSTRACT We report the complete genome sequence of Clostridium beijerinckii SA-1, derived by directed evolution from C. beijerinckii NCIMB 8052, selecting for enhanced solvent tolerance. This sequence allows for accurate placement of SA-1 as C. beijerinckii, permits functional analyses of mutant phenotypes, and suggests methods for distinguishing SA-1 from its parent.", "ABSTRACT Here, we report the 7.4-Mb draft genome sequence of Paenibacillus sp. strain GM2FR, an endophytic bacterium isolated from aerial plant tissues of Festuca rubra L. Genome analysis revealed 6,652 coding gene sequences and several gene clusters involved in plant growth promotion, such as that for the siderophore bacillibactin.", "ABSTRACT We report the draft genome sequence of Monascus purpureus GB-01, an industrial strain used as a food colorant. De novo assembly of long reads resulted in 121 chromosomal contigs and 1 mitochondrial contig, and sequencing errors were corrected by paired-end short reads. This genome sequence will provide useful information for azaphilone pigments and mycotoxin citrinin biosynthesis.", "ABSTRACT Here we report the draft genome sequence of Streptomyces toyocaensis strain NRRL 15009 which is the producer of the glycopeptide antibiotic A47934. The genome sequence is predicted to harbor a total of 26 secondary metabolite biosynthetic gene clusters including the A47934 cluster.", "We report the draft genome sequence of \"Candidatus Methanomethylophilus alvus\" Mx1201, a methanogen present in the human gut. It was enriched from human feces under anaerobic conditions with methanol as the substrate. Its circular genome, of around 1.7 Mb, contains genes needed for methylotrophic methanogenesis from methanol and tri-, di-, and monomethylamine.", "Burkholderia plantarii is the causal agent of rice seedling blight. Here, we report the draft genome sequence of B. plantarii, which contains 8,020,831 bp, with a G+C content of 68.66% and a predicted 7,688 coding sequences. The annotated genome sequence will provide further insight into its pathogenicity.", "Clostridium difficile is a major cause of chronic antibiotic-associated diarrhea and a significant health care-associated pathogen that forms highly resistant and infectious spores. Spo0A is a highly conserved transcriptional regulator that plays a key role in initiating sporulation in Bacillus and Clostridium species. Here, we use a murine model to study the role of the C. difficile spo0A gene during infection and transmission. We demonstrate that C. difficile spo0A mutant derivatives can cause intestinal disease but are unable to persist within and effectively transmit between mice. Thus, the C. difficile Spo0A protein plays a key role in persistent infection, including recurrence and host-to-host transmission in mice.", "ABSTRACT Tuberculosis remains a major infectious disease in Taiwan. Here we present the draft genome sequence of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis C2 strain, belonging to the Latin American–Mediterranean lineage. The draft genome sequence comprises 4,453,307 bp with a G+C content of 65.6%, revealing 4,390 coding genes and 45 tRNA genes.", "ABSTRACT We report draft genome sequences of Bacillus subterraneus MITOT1 and Bacillus cereus MIT0214 isolated through enrichment of samples from geologic sequestration sites in pressurized bioreactors containing a supercritical (sc) CO2 headspace. Their genome sequences expand the phylogenetic range of sequenced bacilli and allow characterization of molecular mechanisms of scCO2 tolerance.", "ABSTRACT Clostridium aceticum DSM 1496 is a Gram-negative anaerobic chemolithoautotrophic acetogenic bacterium that is capable of producing commodity chemicals from syngas fermentation. In this study, we report the draft genome sequence of the C. aceticum DSM 1496 strain (4.16 Mb) to elucidate the syngas fermentation metabolic pathway.", "ABSTRACT The moderately thermophilic bacterium Chelatococcus sambhunathii strain HT4T was isolated from hot spring sediment. Based upon the draft genome sequence, the genome is 4.4 Mb and encodes 4,147 proteins.", "ABSTRACT Here, we report the draft genome of cyanobacterium Leptolyngbya sp. KIOST-1 isolated from a microalgal culture pond in South Korea. The genome consists of 13 contigs containing 6,320,172 bp, and a total of 5,327 coding sequences were predicted. This genomic information will allow further exploitation of its biotechnological potential for alimentary purposes.", "Here is reported the draft genome sequence of Methanobacterium formicicum DSM 3637, which was isolated from the methane-producing amoeba Pelomyxa palustris. This bacterium was determined to be an endosymbiont living in the cytoplasm of P. palustris and the source of methane; however, the global characteristics of its genome suggest a free-living lifestyle rather than an endosymbiotic one.", "ABSTRACT The genome of the intimin (eae)-harboring Escherichia albertii strain MBT-EA1, isolated from lettuce in Germany, was sequenced. Sequence analysis showed the assembled draft genome size to be 4,560,948 bp, containing a predicted total of 4,414 protein-encoding genes, 11 rRNAs, and 82 tRNAs. Furthermore, three plasmid sequences were found.", "We report here the draft genome sequence of the CTX-M-166-harboring O6:H16 sequence type 48 (ST48)-fimH34 Escherichia coli strain recovered from a Gallus gallus broiler. Sequence analyses revealed the presence of an IncI1/ST103-ISEcp1-blaCTX-M-166-orf477 plasmid region and of diverse antibiotic resistance and virulence-acquired genes.", "ABSTRACT Here, we describe the draft genome sequence and annotation of Lactobacillus plantarum strain Lp90, the first sequenced genome of a L. plantarum strain isolated from wine. This strain has a noticeable ropy phenotype and showed potential probiotic properties. The genome consists of 3,324,076 bp (33 contigs) and contains 3,155 protein coding genes, 34 pseudogenes, and 84 RNA genes.", "Abstract Objective To assess a new immunochromatography (ICT) test that detects glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) antigen and Clostridium difficile toxin A/B simultaneously, and to propose an algorithm for the diagnosis of C. difficile infection (CDI) based on this test. Methods We analysed 970 stool samples. Discrepant results between GDH and toxin A/B were resolved using toxigenic culture as the reference. Results This test enabled us to obtain a conclusive result in Conclusion This test has a high sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis of CDI.", "Here, we report the draft genome sequences of 36 Enterococcus faecalis and 7 Enterococcus faecium isolates recovered from a beef processing facility and retail ground beef. The beef processing facility samples were collected from beef carcasses, conveyor belts, and ground product.", "Clostridium difficile is an emerging enteropathogen of humans and domestic animals. The bacterium was recently confirmed to be present in foals and dogs in Brazil, with some recent studies suggesting that C. difficile is one of the most important causes of piglet diarrhea in the country. Moreover, some reports also suggest the transmission of this microorganism between animals and humans, raising the possibility that C. difficile is a zoonotic disease. Therefore, the aim of the present review is to describe the main features of C. difficile infection in domestic animals and outline the occurrence of the disease in horses, dogs and pigs in Brazil.", "ABSTRACT Bifidobacterium aesculapii DSM 26737T was isolated from feces of baby common marmoset. Here, we report the draft genome sequence of this organism. This paper is the first published report of the genomic sequence of B. aesculapii.", "Here, we report the draft genome sequences of two methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) clinical isolates, hospital-associated perirectal isolate 32S (ST 239) from a colitis tracheostomy patient and community-associated MRSA isolate 42S (ST 772) from a hepatic-splenomegaly patient in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.", "Objective ::: The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a risk prediction model that could identify patients at high risk for Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) before they develop disease.", "Summary: Due to the availability of new sequencing technologies, we are now increasingly interested in sequencing closely related strains of existing finished genomes. Recently a number of de novo and mapping-based assemblers have been developed to produce high quality draft genomes from new sequencing technology reads. New tools are necessary to take contigs from a draft assembly through to a fully contiguated genome sequence. ABACAS is intended as a tool to rapidly contiguate (align, order, orientate), visualize and design primers to close gaps on shotgun assembled contigs based on a reference sequence. The input to ABACAS is a set of contigs which will be aligned to the reference genome, ordered and orientated, visualized in the ACT comparative browser, and optimal primer sequences are automatically generated. ::: ::: Availability and Implementation: ABACAS is implemented in Perl and is freely available for download from http://abacas.sourceforge.net ::: ::: Contact: ku.ca.regnas@4as", "ABSTRACT We report the draft genome sequence of the purple photosynthetic bacterium Rhodovulum sulfidophilum. The photosynthesis gene cluster comprises two segments—a unique feature among photosynthesis gene clusters of purple bacteria. The genome information will be useful for further analysis of bacterial photosynthesis." ]

[ "Ordering stuff online instead of driving to the mall might not be reducing traffic congestion after all, but adding to it, as Amazon vans and UPS trucks delivering those goods clog our streets." ]

[ "Holiday shoppers aren't just snapping up bargains in stores this weekend — they're prowling the Internet, too. Online shopping traffic was up 10 percent on Black Friday, according to Nielsen Online — a good initial sign for retailers in a shaky economy. Shopping online is still nowhere near as popular as shopping in stores. But it's been growing fast over the past decade — about 20 percent a year. This year, with the weak economy, some predictions called for no growth at all. \"So 10 percent is actually a pretty good number in the grand scheme of things,\" says Ken Cassar, an analyst with Nielsen Online. Nielsen tracked visits to 120 online retailers. Data on visits that resulted in orders won't be available for awhile, but Cassar says that even if the number of orders is up, each order may be for a smaller amount than last year. The real kickoff for online sales, though, is not Black Friday, but Cyber Monday. \"Consumers get back to work after either relaxing or going to brick-and-mortar stores during the holiday season,\" Cassar says. \"And we do see a material uptick in sales.\" Online shoppers have become accustomed to reduced or free shipping during the holiday season — and sometimes, reduced prices if they wait. Cassar says they can expect shipping discounts again this year. As for holding out — that might work if it's not a superhot item. \"If you're looking to buy a Wii, for example, you might not want to play games,\" he says. \"Whereas if you're looking for something like a flat-panel television, the consumer may have a little bit more ability to win that game of brinksmanship.\" Online shopping typically increases as the days go on, until the busiest online day — the third Monday after Thanksgiving. This year, that's Dec. 15 — pretty close to the last day shoppers can place an order and be sure it arrives by Christmas.", "The holidays are upon us, which means you might be scrambling to order some last-minute gifts online. But that doesn&#8217;t just mean Amazon anymore. But are companies investing too much in delivery because of overblown fears about how online shopping will kill brick-and-mortar retail? KQED&#8217;s Sam Harnett (@SamWHarnett) reports.", "Even more people are shopping online for the holidays this year. NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to <em>Washington Pos</em>t columnist Michelle Singletary about how to avoid online scams.", "Which is it? -- \"Cyber Monday\" is \"mostly a marketing gimmick.\" -- Or, \"Cyber Monday\" is \"one of the biggest online shopping days of the year\" and is expected to \"ramp up\" this year. Both stories are on CNN.com this morning. They don't quite contradict each other -- the second story doesn't make the claim that today will be the biggest online shopping day of the year because of the post-Black Friday online specials that many retailers are offering. But they certainly do leave a reader thinking very differently about whether Cyber Monday is or isn't a a big deal. As is usually the case, it helps to pay close attention to the sources. The organization making the case that Cyber Monday is mostly a myth is comScore, which monitors Internet traffic. The group pitching the it's-a-big-deal angle is the National Retail Federation, \"the voice of retail worldwide.\"", "There are all sorts of ways people save money on clothes: comparing prices, using coupons and membership club discounts, shopping online, buying used. But there&#8217;s one cost-cutting strategy that doesn&#8217;t get a lot of attention even though a lot of people are doing it. From the Here & Now Contributors Network, Taylor Quimby of New Hampshire Public Radio confesses he&#8217;s among the many adults buying kids XL-size clothing instead of adult size smalls. \nRead more on this story via NHPR\n Are you among the many adults who sometimes wear kids&#8217; clothes? Do you do it for the lower prices, or because you can&#8217;t find adult clothes that fit? Tell us on Facebook or in the comments. Reporter\n\nTaylor Quimby, producer for the show &#8220;Word of Mouth&#8221; at New Hampshire Public Radio. He tweets @TaylorQuimby1.", "Black Friday is typically the busiest shopping day of the year, but the economy is tanking and many people are expected to shop online due to the pandemic. Small businesses are hurting the most, with 75% saying they won&#8217;t survive into next year if holiday shopping doesn&#8217;t stay at normal levels. Here & Now&#8216;s Peter O&#8217;Dowd speaks with Mike Regan, senior editor for Bloomberg News, about how the holiday shopping season might look different this year. This article was originally published on WBUR.org.", "Commentator Marit Haahr is a little unnerved by the growth of dot-com companies that provide service to your doorstep, like Kozmo.com. She says it's spontaneous human contact, as in video stores, that keeps us all from becoming shut-ins.", "Online shopping is reputedly the wave of the future. Commentator Jon Wilson likes to shop online as much as the next guy. But he wonders about all our society could lose when people stop leaving their houses don't mingle with actual people.", "NPR''s Jon Hamilton reports on a new margarine product that claims to reduce cholesterol levels and the dispute between the American company that wants to market it and the Food and Drug Administration. The margarine product, called Benecol, is made in Finland. McNeil Consumer Healthcare says it doesn''t need FDA approval to sell it in the U.S., because it''s a dietary supplement. The FDA disagrees, saying it''s a food. The two parties will meet tomorrow to discuss the matter.", "Shoppers who have to juggle holiday cooking and other errands are counting on online shopping to make their lives less stressful. Internet sales are expected to rise again this year. NPR's Jack Speer reports.", "This morning, at least 36 people were confirmed dead in Friday&#8217;s devastating Oakland warehouse fire, as firefighters continue combing through what&#8217;s left of the building. Oakland Fire Battalion Chief Melinda Drayton said Monday that firefighters believe they&#8217;ve found the area of the building where the fire started, but they don&#8217;t yet know what caused it. But they do know that the warehouse was not zoned for residential use, it didn&#8217;t have a sprinkler system, a staircase inside the building had been built out of wooden pallets and there were only two exits &#8212; all factors that likely contributed to the high death toll. Here & Now&#8216;s Jeremy Hobson talks with Jim Pauley (@JimPauley), president of the National Fire Protection Association, about fire prevention and protection in the wake of the Oakland fire. Interview Highlights On the factors that create a higher risk of danger &#8220;I think the key in really all of the things that you mentioned really gets back to complacency that we all have, as the public, around fire. We&#8217;ve done a great job over the decades of reducing the instance of fire, and that&#8217;s made people more complacent as &#8216;Well, I&#8217;ll never have a fire, it will never happen to me.&#8217; And so, the actions that necessarily get taken don&#8217;t reflect the fact that when a fire does happen, you need to have appropriate exits, you need to have appropriate fire systems that are in place. And so that issue of complacency is one that we at NFPA are talking a lot about and how do we continue to educate people around the risk associated with fire and making sure they take the appropriate actions.&#8221; &#8220;Whether it was people that were staying or living there, whether it was being used as a night club, whether it was simply being used as a warehouse, I think all of those of the factors are gonna have to be sorted out. And any of those occupancies that it might have been, if you were doing that building specifically for that occupancy, there are sets of rules and regulations and fire codes that go into place to say &#8216;these are the things that you need.'&#8221; On addressing fire hazards across the country &#8220;I think that fire services in many cities are having to deal with these new type of environments that are coming up, and, in many cases, you have things that are being changed in the building and then nobody knows except the occupants or the people that are in that building. The government officials don&#8217;t know, the enforcement community doesn&#8217;t know, the fire department doesn&#8217;t know, and how often that&#8217;s occurring, one of the concerns can certainly be as older spaces and cities are being used for different uses, that may actually be climbing in some of these cities.&#8221;", "Traditional retailers see ho-hum sales during the 2002 holiday season, but online merchants report record numbers. Yet there are also signs that the growth of Internet commerce may be peaking. NPR's Michele Norris talks with Carrie Johnson, an analyst with Forrester Research.", "As you sit down at your computer this holiday season, think twice before you click on just any shopping Web site. If you're on the perennial hunt for a distinctive gift for that special someone — something handmade? something that just says \"wow!\" — you might want to try to find a \"niche\" site instead of one of the big boys. That's where Maggie Mason comes in. Her two-year-old shopping blog, MightyGoods.com, points the way to sites that offer that self-watering flower pot your mother didn't know she needed. Or a Wonder Woman costume for Fido. Or a personal potato chip fryer. Or a map of the history of all civilization. You get the picture. Mason, who works out of San Francisco, says inventory and space limitations prevent brick-and-mortar stores from offering crazier or kickier items. The shelves are arranged to match the taste of the average customer. In some cases, major retailers offer products that are only available online — where they can afford to offer a riskier selection. But the beauty of online shopping — niche or otherwise — is that it allows shoppers to cover a lot of ground in a hurry. Mason gives Andrea Seabrook some tips on finding just the right thing.", "New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to give a temporary job to every inmate leaving city jails after serving a sentence of a year or less. It&#8217;s his new &#8220;Jails to Jobs&#8221; initiative, and the plan is to have it in place by the end of the year. The $10 million program is part of a broader effort to reduce recidivism and cut back on the inmate population, so the city can build smaller jails to replace its huge Rikers Island. Here & Now&#8216;s Robin Young speaks with one of the plan&#8217;s supporters, Stanley Richards (@Stan_Fortune), executive vice president of The Fortune Society, and one of its critics, Elias Husamudeen, president of the Correction Officers&#8217; Benevolent Association. Interview Highlights On making a case for the program Stanley Richards: &#8220;So, here&#8217;s what we know, right? We spend $2.4 billion each year, New York City taxpayers, to create the machine called Rikers Island. What the mayor is proposing to do is to say, &#8216;Wait a minute. Let&#8217;s do smart investments. We know what doesn&#8217;t work. We know mass incarceration doesn&#8217;t work. We know isolation doesn&#8217;t work. We know being punished, punishing people for their entire life doesn&#8217;t work. Let&#8217;s try investing in people.&#8217; And what we know at The Fortune Society is if you invest in people, people build back, they build into their communities, their communities are safer, and we know it works. So, the mayor&#8217;s proposing a pretty bold plan that&#8217;s consistent with the Lippman report that we came out with that says we need to close Rikers and reduce our footprint with regard to incarceration, and the Jails to Jobs program is one program that will do that.&#8221; On the counterargument that people should not be rewarded for going to jail SR: &#8220;This isn&#8217;t about rewarding people for being incarcerated. This is about being smart: building healthier and safer communities, investing in how people come home. If someone who is looking for a job, who doesn&#8217;t have an employment, and needs employment, they can walk into any Workforce 1 Center right now in New York City and get access to jobs and don&#8217;t deal with the barriers people with criminal records deal with.&#8221; Array On how a job helped Stanley Richards after his release from jail SR: &#8220;I mean, I was cycling in and out of prison all my life. And I thought prison was the way my life was gonna be. It wasn&#8217;t until my last incarceration that I went to school, I got my GED, I went to college, I graduated college and I started to begin to believe that my life could be different if I only believed in myself. And I started to believe in myself, and I came home and I applied for jobs and I was rejected. And I knew as long as I never gave up on myself, that things in my life could be different. And I was hired as a counselor at Fortune Society in 1991, and, today, I&#8217;m able to give back. I&#8217;m able to say to people, &#8216;Incarceration doesn&#8217;t have to be your life choice. You have other options.There are people out here who are willing to support you to help you build back your life.&#8221; On working with employers SR: &#8220;Fortune Society runs a transitional work program. We have great results. And part of what we do is we say, &#8216;Hey, put your stereotypes to the side and work with our people. Let them show you who they are in terms of how they show up.&#8217; And you get to see they&#8217;re good employees, you will make the investment. And so what we&#8217;ve seen, and what this program will do is give an opportunity for employers &#8212; low risk to the employer because the only thing they&#8217;re offering is an opportunity for them to work at their business. The financial piece of it will be paid for by the city. And what we hope and what we&#8217;ve seen at Fortune is that after the exposure, they end up hiring the individual.&#8221; On pushback against the program Elias Husamudeen: &#8220;I mean anything that&#8217;s going to improve the quality of life in New York City, I&#8217;m a fan of. The problem that I have is why is the mayor not proactive? The program they&#8217;re discussing affects approximately about 1,300 inmates. And, these people, some of them are doing 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, and the problem is, why not offer them this job training program before they go to jail? Most of them are unemployed. They don&#8217;t have any type of certificates or degrees or diplomas, and to me this is like saying, &#8216;We know you&#8217;re out there, and you may be trying to do the right thing, but we prefer that you get in trouble, that you get arrested and that you get sentenced before we offer you the type of assistance that we, as the mayor, should be offering you. &#8220;There&#8217;s no knock to The Fortune Society, they do a lot of work. But at the end of the day, I think they&#8217;re being disingenuous, because there are a lot of inmates in our system w", "Some states and cities put their single-use plastic bag bans on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, as grocery stores banned reusable shopping bags. But science doesn&#8217;t support fears — and the plastic industry&#8217;s claims — that reusable bags are more likely to spread the coronavirus than single-use plastics. Julie Grant of The Allegheny Front reports. This article was originally published on WBUR.org.", "A study by MIT finds that the Internet, where customers can easily comparison shop, is actually less price competitive than traditional store retailers. The researchers spent 15 months gathering 8,000 online price comparisons of books and music CDs. Barbara Mantel reports.", "President Trump&#8217;s recent statement that President Andrew Jackson could have prevented the Civil War sent people back to their history books. It was the latest in a string of comments that have caused historians and others to question Trump&#8217;s knowledge about America&#8217;s past. Here & Now&#8216;s Jeremy Hobson asks historian Julian Zelizer (@julianzelizer) of Princeton University&#8217;s Woodrow Wilson School how much presidents&#8217; knowledge of history matters. Interview Highlights On President Trump&#8217;s comments about Andrew Jackson and the Civil War &#8220;I think a lot of historians didn&#8217;t agree with what he said, both from the notion that he necessarily had a big heart, but more importantly, that he would have been able or willing to end or prevent the Civil War from happening. It obviously happens after his death. And I think most historians agree with the overall power of the problem of slavery in dividing this nation.&#8221; On what he thinks was behind Trump&#8217;s comments &#8220;Some of it might be that he doesn&#8217;t understand it. Some of it might be he heard bits and pieces about discussions of President Jackson, and then repeated them out of context. Part of it is, he often turns to Andrew Jackson, not to make a point about history but to make a symbolic political point today, using him as a kind of symbol of conservative populism that he himself wants to champion, and also as a symbol of a tough leader. In [Trump&#8217;s] account of the Civil War, a president who is just tough enough and who knew how to make things happen could end this horrific event that happened in our nation&#8217;s history. And he wants to make the argument I think that he could do the same kind of thing, or the same kind of magic, that he imagines Andrew Jackson would have been able to do.&#8221; Array On Jackson&#8217;s presidential legacy &#8220;Well certainly, with many issues like the treatment of Native Americans, he doesn&#8217;t rank very well, and many people have a very different vision of Andrew Jackson &#8212; not just the populist, but someone who was quite repressive. And this is a part, obviously, of Jackson &#8212; as well as his slaveholding past &#8212; that is something very troubling to historians, as is the idea that the Civil War shouldn&#8217;t have happened necessarily, meaning in the end&#8230; one historian said if you view this as a war of liberation that ends this horrendous institution that was part of this country, then the claims by President Trump are even more troubling.&#8221; On how important presidents&#8217; knowledge of history is &#8220;Well, it&#8217;s important, obviously you don&#8217;t want presidents frequently making big mistakes about the kinds of issues that we learn about in school. I think it&#8217;s also fair to say that presidents will make mistakes, and they&#8217;ll make statements that often are inaccurate or incorrect. And we shouldn&#8217;t argue this is necessarily disastrous. So I think a lot of this is the context of the person saying it. If a president seems to have a sense of this country and what made this country, and makes one mistake, I don&#8217;t think everyone will necessarily jump on them. As opposed to a president who doesn&#8217;t seem to have much deep interest in those issues. Then these mistakes are magnified.&#8221; On previous occasions when presidents have gotten history wrong &#8220;There were a lot of famous quotations from Ronald Reagan, who would sometimes mix things up about World War II, for example, that he had seen in films, and talk about them as if they happened in his own life. Gerald Ford made one of the famous gaffes in presidential debates in 1976 against Jimmy Carter, when he said there&#8217;s no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. He meant to say something different, but it sounded like he didn&#8217;t really understand the history of the Cold War, and that was very costly politically.&#8221;", "A sharp increase in online shopping this year means an increased number of things consumers will want to return. But the supply chain made to quickly deliver goods is not so nimble in the reverse.", "Home ownership is believed to be a solid financial investment and is seen as a way to make people better citizens who are active in their communities. In his book, “No Place Like Home: Wealth, Community & Politics of Home Ownership,” Brian McCabe finds that our belief about home ownership as a way to improve civic life doesn&#8217;t necessarily pan out. Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson talks to Brian McCabe, who is an assistant professor of sociology at Georgetown University, about his book. Guest\n\nBrian McCabe, assistant professor of sociology at Georgetown University and author of “No Place Like Home: Wealth, Community & Politics of Home Ownership.”", "NPR's Elaine Korry reports on how brick-and-mortar stores like Williams Sonoma, Barnes and Nobel, and Target are using the Internet to augment their business. Though last season saw dismal on-line services by these types of companies, they've since applied their merchandising and promotional know-how to their own web-sites. Now Internet-only companies are looking toward the traditional retailers to find ways to improve their businesses.", "NPR's Elaine Korry reports from San Francisco on Internet retailers' preparations for the Christmas shopping season. They expect on-line sales to be two-thirds higher than last year. And they're trying to prevent the problems that occurred last year, when websites began crashing; popular merchandise became scarce; and some presents weren't delivered in time.", "This story is part of &#8220;Covering Climate Now,&#8221; a week-long global initiative of over 250 news outlets. Scrolling online to procrastinate sleeping, Allie Seroussi stumbled upon an article her mom’s friend shared on Facebook from a series in The New York Times Magazine called “Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change.” “My entire body went cold when I read it,” she says. The article chronicles the plight of some American scientists, activists and politicians who came close to solving climate change between 1979 and 1989. Even with an understanding of the Earth’s warming temperature and its potential consequences, the climate issue continued to fester. Learning about these failed efforts influenced the 27-year-old from Seattle to make a decision: She doesn’t want to bring a child into a world burdened by the adverse impacts of climate change. “I started to understand it wasn&#8217;t just trash in the ocean. It wasn&#8217;t just melting ice. It was really about a livable future,” she says. “And that was a lot for me to take in.” Seroussi is concerned about how her future child could be impacted by the disastrous impacts of Earth’s temperature reaching two degrees of warming &#8212; so much so, she’s opting out of birthing one. And she’s not alone. In Britain, a group called the BirthStrikers have also decided they can’t bring children into a world predicted to face wildfires, droughts and food shortages. Interview Highlights On why she doesn’t want to have children because of climate change “One of the things we hear a lot about is it&#8217;s predicted that we have about a decade to switch to renewable energy to keep the effects of a changing climate manageable. And that&#8217;s terrifying to me. I&#8217;m 27 years old right now, and I&#8217;m about to go to graduate school. If I think maybe I&#8217;d want to have a baby when I&#8217;m 31 or 32, and that&#8217;s about four or five years from now, to think that kid could be five, and to know that we haven&#8217;t switched to renewables, is just heartbreaking to me.” On how she’s picturing the future “As I&#8217;m picturing it now, I worry that, kind of on the minor end of things, that if I had a kid &#8230; it would be hard in the summer. Maybe there would be too much smoke from wildfires &#8212; which was an issue in Seattle last summer &#8212; and then that would maybe decrease their quality of life. That&#8217;s kind of the smaller things I think about. And then I think about, what if there are wars? What if we&#8217;re fighting wars for resources? That&#8217;s really scary, and I would have to find my child shelter because of climate change.” On if she might regret the decision to abstain from having children “I also think that there are many ways to have a family, and it doesn&#8217;t necessarily mean having one biologically. &#8230; It could mean adopting, it could mean foster care. And I also kind of think of extended family, like extended community family. I have friends with kids. I&#8217;m on a sports team and I&#8217;m part of a great community of people on the sports team who have kids, and I don&#8217;t necessarily think that my decision is one that everyone should be making. I think it&#8217;s something that is highly personal, and that&#8217;s the choice I&#8217;ve kind of made for myself right now.” On delivering children a future burdened by climate change “It makes me really, really sad. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and there are so many beautiful places across the world but I am biased toward the Pacific Northwest, and going on this [cross-country road] trip has shown me the natural and cultural beauty of this country. It&#8217;s painful to think about that we could be losing a lot of that to environmental destruction and climate change.” On that David Wallace-Wells, author of &#8216;The Uninhabitable Earth,&#8217; still had children “Even if you pull the climate crisis away and it doesn&#8217;t exist anymore, I think the decision to have children or not is one that each person, family, couple needs to make on their own. So like I said before, there are people in my life that I care about that have children. I also, just part of general altruism, care about people and children, so they do give me hope. But it&#8217;s not necessarily to say that I feel like I could have my own.” Cassady Rosenblum produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Kathleen McKenna. Allison Hagan adapted it for the web. This article was originally published on WBUR.org.", "Online learning. Can it really replace the learning and community that’s being lost as campuses across the country are closed? Guests Justin Reich, assistant professor in the comparative media studies and writing department at MIT. Faculty associate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. Director of the MIT Teaching Systems Lab. (@bjfr) Christina Morales, senior at the University of Florida. Editor-in-chief of the Independent Florida Alligator, University of Florida’s student newspaper. In June, she’ll begin a one year fellowship at The New York Times. (@Christina_M18) Dr. Amardeep Kahlon, professor of computer studies at Austin Community College. Assistant dean of Distance Learning and External Relations. From The Reading List Ed Surge: &#8220;The Case For Shutting Schools Down Instead of Moving Classes Online&#8221; &#8212; &#8220;Many schools are trying to figure out if they should transition to online or distance learning during a shut down. I agree with the Washington State department of education, which argued that most schools won&#8217;t be able to switch to online; they should just close and pick up in the summer or September. &#8220;A growing body of evidence suggests that online learning works least well for our most vulnerable learners. If you are going online, the number one question is not: &#8216;What tech to use to teach online?&#8217; It should be: &#8216;How will you support your most struggling students?&#8217; &#8220;You may have heard of the &#8216;no significant difference&#8217; phenomenon. That&#8217;s an argument developed in the 1980s that the medium of instruction (whether courses are taught face to face, by radio or TV or via computer) doesn&#8217;t matter; only the quality of the instruction does. MIT: &#8220;Five Research-Informed Principles for Switching to Online Learning&#8221; &#8212; &#8220;Here are five principles, informed by research and experience, for planning a transition to online learning: \nPartner with Students in the Transition\nStrategically Reduce Your Goals\nIdentify and Support Disadvantaged Students\nHelp Students Form Study Groups\nPrioritize Time For Individual Connections\n &#8220;The good news is that research suggests that advanced students with strong self-regulated learning skills&#8212;of which we have many at MIT&#8211;do very well in online learning. That has never been tested in an emergency pandemic, but it seems likely to hold up well. &#8220;The bad news is that online learning research regularly finds that disadvantaged students&#8211; from poverty-impacted neighborhoods, from underrepresented minorities, with low grades/prior achievement consistently suffer an &#8216;online penalty&#8217; relative to face-to-face courses.&#8221; Active History: &#8220;Emergency Remote Teaching: A Post Secondary Reality Check&#8221; &#8212; &#8220;They fell like dominoes throughout the week as the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic became unavoidably clear: first, Laurentian University suspended classes and moved them online on Wednesday, March 11th; by the evening of Friday, March 13th, every university in Ontario had suspended in-person classes and declared that winter term classes would be completed online (or via other alternative means). We are about to see Ontario engage with technology-mediated learning on an unprecedented scale. &#8220;The warning bells are chiming. Some faculty are wary. The Canadian Association of Universities Teachers, for example, warns against workload pressures that would now require &#8216;additional support for staff, such as assigning teaching assistants,&#8217; and cautions that academic bodies &#8216;involved in monitoring the pedagogical effectiveness of temporary online instruction and to decide on adjustments or discontinuance.&#8217; &#8220;Dipping one’s toes into Twitter and you’ll see rhetoric as varied as how this devalues the hard work of online education, that it is an impossible task being given to instructors, and – in conspiratorial tones – how this might just be the first herald of a &#8216;neoliberal&#8217; move towards online education. Naturally, nobody would argue that any of this was ideal.&#8221; The MetroWest Daily News: &#8220;From research labs to car shops: Framingham State, MassBay professors adjust to remote learning&#8221; &#8212; &#8220;When he dismissed his class last week, Framingham State University professor Joseph Adelman realized it was likely the last time they’d meet in person. &#8216;I said goodbye for the semester,&#8217; said Adelman, who teaches history. “It was abrupt and weird and sad.” &#8220;On March 11, the university canceled classes the week following spring break due to the new coronavirus outbreak. The move was initially meant to be temporary, with courses resuming the following week. Now, all learning at Framingham State will be remote beginning Monday, March 30. Classes the week after spring break were canceled to afford instructors time to prepare. &#8220;Throug", "Almost as soon as Harvey made landfall, the questions began: &#8220;Why wasn&#8217;t Houston evacuated?&#8221; Consensus seems to be that the mayor was right not to order residents out of the city to escape flooding, but the decision is never made easily. And even if it is made, it can be hard to get people to follow the order. It doesn&#8217;t just happen during storms and floods. Whether it&#8217;s wildfires or other threats, many people often don&#8217;t want to — or don&#8217;t think they need to — evacuate. How do plans come together to evacuate a city? Who makes the decision? And why do some people not agree? GUESTS Bill King, Former columnist with the Houston Chronicle. Served on a gubernatorial task force designed to make improvements after the deadly evacuations during Hurricane Rita. Brian Wolshon, Professor of civil engineering at Louisiana State University, specializing in roads and traffic. Director of the Gulf Coast Center of Evacuation and Transportation Resiliency. Gail Delaughter, Reporter, Houston Public Media Melvin &#8220;Kip&#8221; Holden, Former mayor of Baton Rouge. Served for 12 years, from 2005 to 2016. For more, visit http://the1a.org. &copy; 2017 WAMU 88.5 &#8211; American University Radio.", "<EM>Slate</EM> correspondent Dan Gross says the television shopping channels business success proves \"t\"-commerce (television) leaves e-commerce in the dust.", "NPR's Larry Abramson reports that high speed Internet connections can still be pretty pokey, and that several companies are marketing software and gadgets to speed up the pace of Internet use.", "Host Alex Chadwick talks with Russell Roberts who studies business at Washington University in St. Louis about the competitive nature of retailing and how the Internet will affect the consumer market. Roberts says although customers can't actually touch merchandise over the computer or have face-to-face contact with merchants, the Internet will destroy some types of retailing.", "Scientists have long known that there are ebbs and flows in the exchange of CO2 between plants and the air. In the summer, there&#8217;s a net uptake of carbon dioxide; in the winter stalks and roots break down and send CO2 in the air. Recently, scientists have found that farming accounts for a 25 percent increase in carbon activity, much of it from the the United State&#8217;s biggest crop &#8211; corn. But as, Harvest Public Media reporter Grant Gerlock explains, the jump in carbon activity doesn&#8217;t necessarily mean that farming is accelerating climate change. \nClick here to read Gerlock&#8217;s full report.\n\nReporter\n\n\nGrant Gerlock, reporter for Harvest Public Media, a member of the Here & Now Contributors Network. He tweets @ggerlock.", "This is traditionally one of the biggest shopping days online, as people return to work from the Thanksgiving holiday and log on for bargains.", "NPR's Alex Chadwick talks with John Dimsdale of <EM>Marketplace</EM> about a new survey that shows two-thirds of America's Internet users are now online shoppers.", "The pandemic might have kept many drivers off the streets, but it didn't put a dent in traffic fatalities. More than 42,000 people died in car accidents despite emptier roads in 2020, the National Safety Council says. That's an 8% increase from 2019, and it doesn't seem to be getting much better in 2021. Cities around the country are trying to tackle the issue. Kansas City, Missouri, is the latest to take on the \"Vision Zero\" plan, vowing to reach zero traffic deaths by 2030. \"We did have a little bit of a spike during the pandemic,\" Kansas City City Manager Brian Platt says. \"We think because there was less traffic on the roads and an easier opportunity to engage in dangerous behavior.\" Platt says a 20% rise in traffic fatalities and serious injuries over the last 10 years pushed city leaders to adopt the Vision Zero resolution. He helped announce the city's initiative last month. \"It became all the more urgent when I arrived here about six months ago to put this at the top of the priority list,\" says Platt, who also helped launch a Vision Zero plan in Jersey City, New Jersey, as its former city manager and business administrator. The city's action plan will include focusing on extending curbs into intersections and delaying red light traffic signals. Curb extensions shorten the distance pedestrians and cyclists travel and decrease the risk of coming in contact with a car. Adding leading pedestrian indicators (LPI) delays red lights and gives pedestrians and cyclists a little more time to cross intersections. \"A lot of the crashes occur right at the curb line where visibility is the lowest for vehicles and for pedestrians,\" he says. \"Getting those pedestrians out into the center of the street actually makes them more visible to cars and reduces the chances for that type of interaction.\" However, cities that have adopted Vision Zero strategies and plans have seen mixed results, with most seeing traffic fatalities rates take a turn for the worst. In 2014, New York City became the first U.S. city to adopt the Vision Zero policy that was first implemented in Sweden, another primarily foot traffic location. The city vowed to see zero traffic deaths by 2024. The Federal Highway Administration deemed the first four years after the launch of New York City's Vision Zero as the safest period for traffic collisions. The city has an overall decrease of 26% in traffic-related deaths. However, it's since seen a surge, with 2020 being marked as its deadliest year. Austin, Texas, adopted their Vision Zero policy in 2016 with an aim to have zero traffic deaths by 2025, a goal city auditors later determined was unlikely. Last year marked the highest number of traffic deaths for the city in the past five years. \"It&#8217;s hard to look at the high-level data [from] a city-wide perspective and see the change,\" Platt says. \"That&#8217;s because a lot of these treatments occur at a very hyperlocal level. When you look at those intersections, the data is positive.\" A 2017 University of Pennsylvania study found Black pedestrians are more likely to experience a traffic fatality death. Kansas City holds a similar disparity. Black residents in Kansas City make up 28% of the city's population, yet the police report Black pedestrians made up 35% of traffic fatalities in April 2021. \"We&#8217;re doing enough community engagement and feedback to make sure that we&#8217;re hearing from the people who are using the streets the most and understanding exactly where the challenges are in each particular neighborhood,\" Platt says. But the question still stands: Is achieving zero traffic deaths even possible? Platt says it's a feasible goal but also an aspirational one. It will take the city a while to address every intersection, curve and angle of its 318 square/sq. miles. \"I don&#8217;t think there is a city out there that would say, 'Let&#8217;s set a goal of only 10 deaths a year or 20 deaths a year,' \" he says. \"I don&#8217;t think that anyone would ever want to set a goal that doesn&#8217;t quite get all the way there.\" Kansas City's aim for zero traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030 is not too far into the future. But the ambitious Vision Zero plan focuses on redesigning street infrastructure to eliminate pedestrian death and injury — not one that relies on drivers to change their habits. \"We hope that these types of implementations and redesigns will be the new standard,\" Platt says. \"That no longer will we have to go back to intersections and revisit them and make tweaks.\" Xcaret Nuñez produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Jill Ryan. Nuñez also adapted it for the web. This article was originally published on WBUR.org.", "In malls around the country, the holiday shopping season has officially begun. But increasingly, Black Friday is less about lines at stores, and more about online stores." ]

[ "Its a nice case it does protect the phone from dropping on its back and the sides but the reason I did not give it 5 stars because it does not have screen protection" ]

[ "Great functions and performance, user friendly.\nThe photo quality need to improve during night time without flashlight.", "Reading, Math and Critical Thinking offer great advantages in a capitalistic system (not inherently unfair or improper). None of this works to assure the continuance of the overall system nor, necessarily works to improve upon it. All schooling need to include a sense of justice (over charity) that recognizes the turnaround of responsibility to the community or 'common' greater-good. Read the book. The author presents it all much better than I and makes the case that elitists be embraced here as there is room for us all.", "Sagan makes a great case for the improvement...and encouragement of education in general...as well as a more general awareness and understanding of science. He makes a very strong appeal for the continued...and increased national funding of science...especially space science. He builds an especially good case for skepticism...as a defense against psudo...or junk science...and charlatans. A great read...by a great mind..I highly recommend it.", "Got it for $10, and consider it a great value at this price point. The fit is perfect, made of quality polycarbonate, manufactured with very low tolerances. I combined this case with a magnetic ball mount for my car, and a round vent magnet disc to use while traveling as a stand on the plane (insert credit card) and a mount in my rental car. This case has a molded inlay for your metal magnet plate which improves the case's fit and feel over other hardshell cases in this particular scenario. The whole system sets you back $25.", "The improvements in the 2014 version made it so much better the the earlier versions. Although setting up accounts, even with the \"assistant\" help, still needs improvement. Almost needed a CPA to understand what QB was asking.", "love new case fits my new iphone6 just right....(update as of 10/21/14 everyone loves this case. If you need a case for your iPhone 6 for a great price this company has this case at a great price)", "It worked very well in order to improve the speed in which my old nexus 7 (2012 model) charges the battery (and also I don't need to constantly adjust the position of the usb cable), however, even though the charging time improved significantly it is still not the same as it was during my tablet's best days... Installation was very easy (you can search detailed instructions online), it took me around 10 minutes to replace. Overall is a recommended product in case you want to further extend the life of an old tablet.", "glad they still make cases for the ipad 2 which my aunt needed a case for. perfect fit and feels great in hand.", "Case was great but the kindle fire HDX was horrible. Now I do not need the case, so it has been returned.", "Super case made specifically for the Samsung Note 2014. It is lightweight, but strong and is a vast improvement over another case I purchased. You can't go wrong with this one. All the connections fit perfectly and it's attractive as well.", "These are a great training tool if you need to tweak your aim or you are new to firearms. They are affordable as well as highly beneficial, you get an immediate visual on what you need to work on to improve your skill level. I use one of these on occasion, not for regular range use, so they will last quite awhile given the quantity for the price. Great deal!", "This is a slim, smooth leather case that will only improve with age. Blackberry makes the best holsters. The clip is strong and holds strongly to anything it is clipped to.", "Works exactly the way I need it to. The case Is great to have.", "Great signal booster, however you need some IT knowledge in some cases. In my case the router had a WPS block.", "Product is made of cheap plastic. The diverse photo sizes are great, and the color looks nice. However, they need to improve their packaging, as the frame I ordered had a cracked edge that I had to superglue back together. Kind of a letdown for the price.", "My typing accuracy improved after switching to this keyboard--it must be sized just right for my hands. It works great, what more can I say? I needed it for work, where my employer refused to buy me an ergonomic keyboard.", "Ordered the 3pack (the leapster explorer player, the recharger and the case) for my grandson. Sooo very glad I did!!! Academically he's improving, added bonus is it keeps him busy& occupied!!! Thanks for that!!!", "A considerate interesting dialogue from the protagonist and the protagonists future self.\n\nPush through failure and learn from No to reach success.\n\nIf you're in need of a motivational pick me up this is a great book to read. Sales managers looking to improve their team. Great simple lifelong principals that will help you in life.", "Finally, an easy to read book for baseball coaches. This book is jammed packed with great ideas to use with my all my team members.\n\nI'm new to coaching Little League and many of the excellent insider tips helped improve my confidence and coach my players in an easy fun way... And baseball should be fun.\n\nIf you want to win the league championship or you're hunting for new ideas to improve your players, you need this terrific book!", "Great product that does exactly what is advertised, as easily as possible. We need more simple products like this. Their Raspberry Pi case is also worth considering. I own both the FLIRC remote device and the case, and they are both great.", "A sturdy and heavy duty case, love color. I received this case on a discounted price by shipper with free shipping and am very happy with my purchase. Fitted my phone perfect. Love attached clip which I need since phone is huge, works great attached to belt loop. Durable material, no need to worry if I accidentally dropped phone with this case. Absolutely love this case. Will order again from seller.", "Its not 3d view as it says.... The picture is son undefined as it says.... I have ordered several duvet covers from this manufacture and I have to say they need much better quality as it shows on the picture. The idea they have is great, but they need to improve quality. We/customers expect exactly what picture shows and better! Not less but more!", "Adds protection but not much bulk at all. It's a big , durable phone so the last thing needed is a bulky case. Great buy!", "Comp Cams components are great quality, as is the case here. Easy installation and performance/reliability improved with this application. I'd buy their stuff every time. Great savings off Amerzon.com, apposed to prices here in the UK. Easy speedy, tracked shipping arrived without the hassle of paying import duty on arrival....Prepaid takes out all the hassle.\nColin. 1969 Ford Fairlane 500...My pride and joy classic car for sunny days.", "Obliq has another fashionably good looking case while also providing great protection. Case is on the bulky side but not as bulky as an otterbox. Cutout for silent switch is deep, can be difficult to access, and using a card for the stand adds convenience at the cost of awkwardness of needing a card. Overall great case and good protection.\n\nI did receive this case in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.", "Great price and healthier and safe care in water for my Senegal Parrot \"Cazenovia\" but the wire holder is not the way to keep it securely on cage , need to improve this . I had my friend wire me a more stable holder for this and its less issues with Cazenovia knocking it off !", "I purchased this because I wanted to protect my Galaxy Note from scratches, etc. I've had it for almost a year and it is still in good condition. I use my phone, which means opening the case many times a day, often so the case gets moved a great deal. There is no interference with the magnetic tab that holds the case closed. The case is slim and fits in wherever I need to put it--purse or pocket. At this time there is no wear noticeable on the case. I would purchase again, if needed.", "This controller is flawless. The different shape needs getting used to, but the extra buttons and improved d-pad are definitely worth it.", "I love this pen! (And I have 4, in case I ever run out of ink ) Definitely helping me improve my hand lettering skills and in time for home made cards for this coming Christmas season.", "Great material and fit! Good for natural hair. These pillow case fit my king size pillows with no problems. Washes great and doesn't lose there quality. I have natural hair and I only sleep on these cases. Will always repurchase when needed.", "The fabric air-tight reinforcing band easy to slip off. Some design improvement needed. It's a decent respirator for the price I paid.", "I put about 30 grams into my protein shake along with my whey and it not only improves the taste but adds the carbs I need." ]

[ "Lionel Florence" ]

[ "The Who's Tommy" ]

[ "Assailants targeted convoys of the interim government's ministers of environment and education in two separate bombings in Baghdad on Tuesday, officials said." ]

[ "Gunmen kidnapped 15 Iraqi National Guards on Friday after ambushing their convoy on a desert road in the restive west of the country, an officer said.", "A car bomb exploded on the road to Baghdad's international airport on Wednesday, apparently targeting a U.S. convoy, Iraqi police said.", "Three Iraqis have died and several have been injured by a roadside bomb apparently targeting an Australian military convoy in Baghdad.", "Iraqi insurgents launched another round of violence today, planting roadside bombs that exploded as US convoys passed by, killing four US soldiers.", "A car bomb targeting an Australian military convoy exploded near the Australian Embassy, killing at least two Iraqis and wounding eight others, according to Iraqi and coalition officials.", "Three Iraqis have been killed in clashes in Ramadi while six Iraqi civilians and two US soldiers were wounded after a bomb targeting a US convoy exploded in southern Baghdad.", "Iraqi insurgents attacked a U.S. convoy with a car bomb in the northern city of Mosul and killed an American soldier with a roadside bomb near Baghdad, Iraqi and U.S. authorities reported today.", "Letters And rare praise for Chinese Govt's @itude", "Insurgents on Saturday targeted an Iraqi police station west of Baghdad, a national guard camp in Samarra and a convoy carrying food for US soldiers, killing at least 13 people.", "A rocket attack aimed at a passing US convoy on a commercial street in northern Baghdad killed four Iraqis and wounded 14 others Friday, the US military and Iraqi security forces said.", "An explosion targeted the Baghdad governor’s convoy as he was travelling through the Iraqi capital today, killing two people but leaving him uninjured, the Interior Ministry said.", "A car bomb targeting a convoy of cars carrying guests at the wedding of an Iraqi policemen killed five people and wounded 10 in the western city of Falluja on Thursday, a police source said.", "At least 10 Iraqis were killed and three United States soldiers were wounded north of Baghdad today in a convoy attack.", "Iraqi insurgents are targeting fellow Iraqis serving as police or national guardsmen and their families, the New York Times reported Tuesday.", "Iraq's relentless pre-election carnage continued unabated Wednesday with deadly attacks on an Iraqi police recruiting station and on a military convoy not far from the funeral procession for a high ranking Iraqi official slain on Tuesday.", "Insurgents have attacked a US convoy with a car bomb in the northern city of Mosul and three Iraqi civilians were killed in shooting after the blast.", "A car bomb targeting a US Military convoy exploded near the Australian Embassy in Baghdad on Monday, killing at least two people. Police at the scene said the morning explosion killed two Iraqi bystanders and injured several others.", "Insurgents detonated a roadside bomb Sunday as a convoy of contractors and private security guards sped down a busy highway outside Basra, killing two Western civilians and wounding at least one other.", "FALLUJA, Iraq - Attackers targeted a U.S. convoy with a blast near the Iraqi city of Falluja on Monday, the U.S. military said, and witnesses said several troops were killed or wounded.", "Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition forces clashed with gunmen northeast of Baghdad after armed Shiites attacked a convoy of Sunni villagers in retaliation for a suicide attack, officials said Friday.", "Iraqi politician and former US favourite Ahmed Chalabi escapes unhurt after gunmen open fire on his convoy.", "A car bomb targeting a U.S. military convoy exploded in Baghdad on Thursday, a witness said.", "Bandits from all factions are increasingly targeting relief convoys and aid workers in Sudan's conflict.", "Gunmen opened fire Wednesday on a convoy carrying former Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi in an apparent assassination attempt that wounded two of his bodyguards, Chalabi&#39;s spokesman said.", "BAGHDAD -- Guerrillas attacked a joint US-Iraqi convoy in Mosul yesterday, killing two Iraqi National Guardsmen only a day after a similar attack in the restive northern city left three Guardsmen dead.", "A suicide bomb targeting a US military convoy in Baiji kills 14 as violence erupts in Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland.", "At least 13 people are killed by a series of explosions in Baghdad apparently targeting a government convoy.", "A car bomb exploded at a US military convoy in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, causing several casualties, the army and Iraqi officials said.", "Gunmen attacked a convoy of civilian trucks Friday, killing one guard, and a cache of arms was seized in a Baghdad mosque, officials said. Security forces detained 77 people across Iraq in a crackdown on sectarian and political extremists.", "Gunmen attacked the convoy of Iraq's Shi'ite vice president, Adel Abdul Mahdi, in Baghdad on Thursday, but there were no immediate reports of any injuries, Interior Ministry officials said.", "Gunmen have opened fire on Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi&#39;s convoy, wounding two associates, an aide to Chalabi says. The aide, Mithal al-Alousi, told Reuters the convoy was hit on Wednesday", "BAGHDAD: A suicide car bomber attacked a police convoy in Baghdad yesterday as guerillas kept pressure on Iraq&#39;s security forces despite a bloody rout of insurgents in Fallujah." ]

[ "Patsy Kensit" ]

[ "plays", "play", "someone who takes part in a competition", "Who Made Who", "Playing with Fire", "Press to Play", "12 Play", "the order of play", "Play No Games", "musical play", "No pass, no play", "Playing in the Shadows", "the playing card", "playing technique", "Power Play", "The Play of Adam", "The Play of the Weather", "play song", "SoMa Play", "The Field of Play", "The Band Played On", "Google Play", "Price to Play", "stroke play", "squeeze play", "triple play", "Parallel play", "offensive plays", "slowing the play", "medal play", "halt in the play", "passing plays" ]

[ "A man is making art out of ice" ]

[ "An old man is cutting a tree", "A man is standing creating a sculpture.", "A woman is creating a sculpture.", "Ice sculptures in Japan.", "Calder creates grotesque sculptures.", "Ice sculptures in Alaska.", "A man kisses a woman in front of an ice sculpture.", "people are watching a man create a clay sculpture.", "A man kisses a dog in front of an ice sculpture.", "The man is chiseling a sculpture", "A woman creating a sculpture in her garage.", "An ice sculpture is viewed by many people.", "There is an ice sculpture competition at Odori Park as the highlight.", "The artist was 26 he created the sculpture.", "A man is sawing wood.", "At the height of the Chandellas' power, they created many paintings and no sculptures.", "The ice sculptures in the competition are very simple.", "the young boy playing with ice sculpture gun", "The man displayed a sculpture.", "A man in a white jacket is creating a sculpture of a woman out of clay.", "The man shows the sculptures.", "The temperatures in winter time are not enough to create ice.", "A man encounters a sculpture.", "Toby was creating an iron sculpture in between the two buildings.", "The man is standing near the sculpture.", "A man is carving a wooden sculpture.", "The man saw the camera.", "A man is making a sand sculpture", "A man creating art.", "The man is throwing the sculpture into the ocean.", "The sculpture inside created in the mid-11th century were the most sophisticated.", "A man intently looks at a sculpture." ]

[ "Hip-hop star Usher has revealed that he wants Pippa Middleton to front his new range of lingerie." ]

[ "SAUCY senorita Pippa Middleton caused a stir yesterday when she arrived in Spain for a holiday with pals.", "And after catching his eye with that figure-hugging dress, cheeky Prince Harry is being tipped to make a play for Britain's newest hottie Pippa Middleton.", "It's too good to be true, but could Pippa Middleton and Prince Harry be on the verge of becoming an item?", "Pippa Middleton, sister of Kate Middleton, is being touted as the new Jennifer Aniston.", "Pippa Middleton could be quizzed by police after she was pictured in a car with a group of friends, one of whom pointed a 'gun' at paparazzi.", "Pippa Middleton has angered Buckingham Palace officials with her extravagant plans for the post royal wedding bash.", "Today's celebrity pictures include Pippa Middleton leaving Loulou's in Mayfair with reported stockbroker boyfriend Nico Jackson, and Helen Flanagan carrying a huge Agent Provocateur bag as she leaves the Mayfair Hotel.", "Pippa Middleton stole the show at another wedding yesterday ...with a berry-like hat on her head.", "Pippa Middleton is set to move in with her long-term boyfriend Alex Loudon after she found herself spending most nights at his house in London.", "Simon Cowell has revealed that he would not hesitate to sign up Pippa Middleton to be part of his business.", "The on and off couple, Alex Loudon and Pippa Middleton have been spotted together cozy, as they arrived hand in hand at Wimbledon Center Court on Wednesday.", "Pippa Middleton, sister of Duchess Kate, wanted to be a tennis star when she was younger.", "Pippa Middleton 'hired out' by website Updated: 14:20, Monday May 14, 2012 An American business is claiming it can hire out Pippa Middleton for 90,000 a time.", "All the coolest stars want to talk to Newsround, but we got super excited when American R&B mega star Usher agreed to answer questions sent in by YOU Newsrounders!", "Lagerfeld, the creative Director of Chanel said that Pippa ``struggles'' with her looks, adding, ``I don't like the sister's (Pippa) face. She should only show her back.''", "Michael Bay has confirmed that lingerie model Rosie Huntington Whiteley, who according to the NY Daily News wore see through lingerie to her audition, will pay the lead role in Transformers 3.", "Pippa Middleton has reportedly apologized to her sister, Kate Middleton, for stealing the attention her attention in the weeks following the Royal Wedding.", "Brazilian beauty Ana Beatriz Barros has been recruited as the new face of the Marks and Spencer lingerie.", "She has just launched her own lingerie line for fashion house ``George at Asda.''", "Kate Moss is the 'sexiest lingerie model of all time', according to a new web poll.", "Pussycat Dolls have revealed that they plan to give the Queen some sexy lingerie as ``a present''.", "Our favourite London fashionista, Kate Moss, hit Paris yesterday for the Etam lingerie spring/summer 2011 show, and she did us Brits proud.", "Pippa Middleton has reportedly split from her boyfriend.", "Brazilian model Gisele Bündchen unveiled her new line of lingerie in Sao Paulo over the weekend, with its seductively vibrant colors, delicate lace, transparencies and a wink at eroticism.", "In an attempt to sex up the jungle I'm A Celebrity bosses have enlisted the help of underwear model Emily Scott.", "The fashion blogosphere is buzzing today over the news that Kate Moss is set to star in a new George Michael music video.", "Department store chain Bhs has this week introduced a premium lingerie range to 25 stores and online in an attempt to cash in on the growing lingerie sector.", "French actress Mylene Jampanoi has been unveiled as the new face of lingerie label Agent Provocateur.", "Pippa Middleton spent the weekend at a British aristocrat's home following her split from her long-term boyfriend.", "Usher has revealed that he was planning to record a duet with the late singer Amy Winehouse before her unexpected death in July last year.", "British singer Amy Winehouse, who recently splashed out thousands of pounds on a breast enlargement operation, wants to go for more cosmetic surgery.", "Orlando Bloom has turned fashion photographer and snapped his supermodel wife Miranda Kerr topless for a new ad campaign." ]

[ "Terence Fisher" ]

[ "directives", "directivity", "direction", "direct", "Shop Direct", "Direct action", "reverse direction", "Direct marketing", "at the direction of the court", "direction of the acceleration", "The Landfill Directive", "Sports Direct", "direct violence", "direct current", "Direct Line", "Nintendo Direct", "direct bank", "friendship betrayed and revenged", "directional lighting", "human directionals", "directed study", "direct mail", "direct debit", "directional gyro", "Direct to Home", "Guardians of the Directions", "direct evidence", "direct democracy", "one direction", "prograde direction", "Directive Principles", "direct percussion" ]

[ "They're enjoying some family time together over the summer break.\nAnd Theo Walcott and his wife Melanie looked every inch the doting parents as they enjoyed a day out with their sons Finley, three, and six-month-old Arlo while on holiday in Rome.\nMelanie, 28, put on a stylish display in a striped playsuit as she carried baby Arlo in her arms.\nScroll down for video\nFamily outing: Theo Walcott and his wife Melanie looked every inch the doting parents as they enjoyed a day out with sons Finley, three, and six-month-old Arlo while on holiday in Rome\nThe blonde beauty finished off the ensemble with a pair of silver flip flops and a checked tote bag, while shielding her eyes from the sun with a pair of large shades.\nTying her tresses back into a ponytail, she displayed her glowing complexion with a subtle make-up look.\nMeanwhile, her Arsenal footballer husband, 28, opted for a casual look, teaming a grey sweatshirt with a pair of navy shorts.\nRelaxed: Melanie, 28, looked stylish in a striped playsuit as the family went on a rickshaw ride through the Villa Borghese gardens\nThe couple looked happy and relaxed during the day out, taking their sons on a rickshaw ride through the Villa Borghese gardens.\nTheo was left disappointed after being left out of the England squad for the World Cup qualifier against Scotland earlier this month, as well as this week's friendly against France.\nBut the father-of-two appears to be making the most of some time off, enjoying a getaway in Rome after jetting out to the Italian capital for a wedding.\nDowntime: Theo, 28, opted for a casual look, teaming a grey sweatshirt with navy shorts\nHe and Melanie - who married in June 2013 - welcomed baby Arlo into the world in November, with Theo sharing a cute snap of eldest son Finley meeting the newborn on Instagram.\nBefore the birth Arlo, Melanie had previously confessed to wanting more children, saying that she and Theo love being parents.\nSpeaking on Lorraine in 2015, she said: 'I love being a mum and Theo is an amazing dad so yeah, and Finley would love to have a brother or sister I think, so yeah definitely.\nLoved up: Theo and Melanie are enjoying some quality time together over the summer break, jetting out to the Italian capital for a wedding\nHowever, she revealed that they went through a terrifying experience when Finley was born, as the little boy had to undergo surgery at eight weeks old to correct a heart defect.\nMelanie explained: 'When he was born he was so tiny, he was born two weeks early which is not too bad but when they did a routine check they found that he had a murmur on his heart.\n'That can be normal at first but it should sort itself out after 24 hours but it didn't and so then they knew there was something going on in the heart.'" ]

[ "Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nAaron Ramsey scored a hat trick as Arsenal blitzed Everton.\nRamsey struck twice in the first half and then completed his treble after the break with a lovely finish to even outshine Arsenal’s new boys.\nHenrikh Mkhitaryan provided three assists and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang also scored with an exquisite finish as Arsenal smashed four past Everton in a one-sided first half.\nLaurent Koscielny was also on target to make it 4-0 at half time and ruined Theo Walcott’s return to the Emirates as he was substituted on the hour mark with the visitors outclassed.\nArsenal’s first half super show brought the feel good factor back to the Emirates with their free flowing football as Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan have completely changed the mood.\nBut Everton did stage a second half fight back as Walcott’s replacement, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, got one back for Sam Allardyce’s men.\nArsenal keeper Petr Cech went off injured in the second half to take some of the gloss off a comfortable win as he was replaced by David Ospina.\n(Image: REUTERS)\n(Image: Getty Images Europe)\n(Image: AFP)\n1. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang looks fantastic - and that’s bad news for Alexandre Lacazette\nOne record signing in, another record signing out, Arsene Wenger started with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and that will be a worrying sign for Alexandre Lacazette who was on the bench and will know the writing is on the wall.\nAubameyang showed the sort of pace and brilliant finishing - a lovely dink of a chip over Jordan Pickford - that Lacazette has been missing.\nFormer Borussia Dortmund striker Aubameyang showed pace, energy and movement which gave Everton all sorts of problems.\nMake no mistake - he is the new No1. Lacazette, meanwhile, will now be the Europa League striker who will be the new Olivier Giroud and come on from the bench.\nMaybe it’s the kick up the backside that Lacazette needed to get him going but Aubameyang’s arrival means there’s a new sheriff in town.\n(Image: REUTERS)\n2. Arsenal’s transfer window was good - they bought a player with much to prove\nHenrikh Mkhitaryan was fantastic in the first half, comfortably Arsenal’s best player and the new No7 is very different to Alexis Sanchez but immediately looked very comfortable in the shirt.\nMkhitaryan was derided by Jose Mourinho, dropped and treated badly because, apparently, he does not track back. Well, good luck with Alexis Sanchez on that one.\nBut what Arsenal have got is a player who is clearly determined to prove a point - and he did exactly that. Mkhitaryan glided across the pitch, picked passes and provided three assists. He looks a lovely player. A Wenger sort of player, definitely not Mourinho’s cup of tea.\n(Image: Michael Regan)\n3. Big Sam’s team looks a long way short\nEverton were an absolute mess, defensive shambles, they could have been five or six down by half time and were lucky it was only four.\nSam Allardyce hooked Michael Keane at half time as his season is going from bad o worse, hopelessly exposed again.\nEverton’s unbalanced squad has not been improved enough during the January transfer window and Allardyce faces a difficult second half of the season in which he must improve results or face doubts as to whether he really is the right man for the job.\n(Image: Michael Regan)\n4. Theo Walcott returns as a hero\nWalcott spent 11 and a half years at Arsenal, won FA Cups and 47 England caps. How anyone can knock his career is beyond belief. Or just perhaps is a sign of jealousy.\nWalcott returned as a hero, got a great reception as he lined up for Everton and, at 28, he still has a good career and time in front of him.\nIt did not work out for him, he got substituted after 60 minutes, Sam Allarydce put a big consoling arm around him and clearly offered some comforting words.\nArsenal fans chanted his name as he went off, a mark of respect for a great servant and top bloke.\n(Image: Catherine Ivill)\n5. Wenger out - until they win…\nMaybe it was the rain or the slight chill in the air, but the planned “Wenger Out” protest outside Arsenal’s old ground at Highbury got as little turn out as it got enthusiasm.\nAfter 37 minutes with Arsenal 4-0 up and looking fantastic, to call for the manager to go looked more than a bit ridiculous. In fact, Arsenal fans end up making themselves look like spoilt little rich kids.\nWenger’s future is in doubt, he will want to see out his contract, Arsenal want to get back in the Champions League and a decision may be made this summer.\nBut on days like this, it’s easy to forget all the shouting and noise because the football is so good. And, after all, they are in a cup final…", "Peter Andre reveals last Christmas was a 'horrible time' as family dealt with son Theo’s terrifying illness which left him in hospital PETER Andre has revealed that his youngest son Theo had to spend his first Christmas in hospital.\nPeter Andre and Emily MacDonagh revealed their tough time last Christmas[Wenn]\nThe little boy contracted bronchiolitis and was left struggling to breathe at just two weeks old, meaning he was rushed to hospital.\nSpeaking to OK! Magazine in an exclusive interview, Peter Andre's wife Emily MacDonagh said: \"He was hospitalised this time last year, shortly after being born.\n\"He got bronchiolitis at two weeks old, which is a winter illness in babies. It causes inflammation in the airways so oxygen levels can drop.\nTheo Andre spent last Christmas in hospital[Peter Andre/Instagram]\n\"I noticed he was having trouble breathing when he was feeding and at times there would be quite big pauses between his breaths.\nPeter said: \"It was a very scary time. Emily’s mum is a paediatrician so Theo was in great hands, but it was a horrible time.\nEmily continued: \"It was tough for me to speak about at the time but now he’s a chubby cherub and is right as rain, I feel fine to talk about it.\"\nPeter Andre's family album Wednesday, August 23, 2017 1 / 53\n/\nPlay slideshow Peter Andre's family album Wednesday, August 23, 2017 1 / 53\n/\nPlay slideshow Peter Andre carries his youngest children Amelia and Theo on holiday [Instagram]\nAs Peter Andre and Emily MacDonagh are expecting their second baby together, we take a look at their most intimate family snaps with Junior, Princess and Amelia\nTheo Andre developed bronchiolitis at just two weeks old [Peter Andre/Instagram]\nPete, 44, and wife Emily revealed that last year’s tough time means that the family are looking forward to this Christmas more than ever.\nEmily said: \"I’m really looking forward to it as last year Theo was so miserable and he wasn’t well at all.\"\nPete also said: \"None of the kids have ever had anything like that so it was worrying. After a tough time last Christmas with Theo big ill, this year will be amazing.\nPrincess Andre dotes on her baby brother Theo [Peter Andre/Instagram]\nPrincess and Junior will be spending Christmas with Peter, Emily and their children[Peter Andre/Instagram]\n\"Sometimes it felt like there was no light at the end of the tunnel but here we are, a year on, about to have a wonderful Christmas at home and Theo’s great now!\"\nPete's older children Junior Andre, 12, and ten year old Princess Andre from his marriage to Katie Price will be with Peter and Emily in their Surrey mansion this Christmas.", "Goal South Africa chief editor Ernest Makhaya had an opportunity to interview Guinness World Records holder and freestyle footballer Khris Njokwana at the Heineken screening party for the Uefa Champions League final in Nasrec this past weekend.\nNjokwana exclusive spoke to Goal about his success in breaking former Arsenal and England national team player Theo Walcott's Guinness World Records for the highest altitude football dropped and controlled.\nWalcott, who is currently on the books of Premier League side Everton, did it from 34 metres while Njkokwana bettered the record at a staggering 37.4 metres high in Johannesburg earlier this month.\nThe Cape Town-born star had three chances to set the new record, but he still wants to know how many chances Walcott got for his previous record.\nNjokwana was challenged to break the record by Heineken SA, and he accepted it and delivered the goods.\nHere's Njokwana's full interview with Goal...\nGoal: Khris, congratulations on breaking Theo Walcott's record and for claiming the Guinness World Records. How does it feel holding a record that was previously held by a football player while you're not a football player?\nNjokwana: First of all, thanks so much my brother. I still can't believe the love and the support that I'm getting here at home, in Africa and around the world. To beat... not really to beat, but to better a record that was done by Theo Walcott; a player that I have always looked up to and admired playing in the EPL, I mean it's a great feat. Not to sound big-headed, but I don't think a lot of South African PSL players would have broken the record. Maybe they could, but given three chances were there was a lot of pressure is a great feat and it's really humbling, and I'm happy to be number one in the world.\nGoal: Was the Guiness World Records certificate already there even before you attempted breaking the record?\nNjokwana: The adjudicator from Guinness World Record flew down from the UK on the day, and he bought the certificate. I think he also had the belief that I would do it. I think that's what they do with everyone that tries the Guinness World Record - they bring it just in case. Maybe had I not done the record then I was not going to see the certificate (laughs).\nGoal: How much belief did you have in yourself in the build up to the big day?\nNjokwana: There was a lot of belief, three months before... there was a lot of belief that I would do it, but I musn't lie man, maybe the night before, I didn't not sleep. I had a rehearsal at 8am, and I saw that I was going to sleep at eight the next day just to relax my mind, but I ended up sleeping at 6am and woke up at 7am - only an hour. So, there was belief, but on the day, it was a scary experience actually.\nGoal: What was going through your mind when the ball descended for the third time after failing the first two attempts?\nNjokwana: I was shaking, I was scared yet again at the same I was confident because it was the last chance to make a mark. I was scared in a sense that I didn't want to disappoint myself first of all - very importantly. I didn't want to disappoint Heineken the brand, and I didn't want to disappoint the people that have so much belief in me. The other part of it is that although I failed the first two attempts, I was confident that I would do it. I just prayed, and I prayed so hard and here we are today.\nGoal: What about the pressure, both internally and externally?\nNjokwana: If you see in the video, it clearly shows. I was shaking the whole time. It's very hard to explain the feeling because you have to be in that moment in order to explain it. It was an outside body experience. I don't think it's a feeling I will ever feel again in my life because it was dramatic. Had I dropped the ball then I would have failed everyone, and when I got the ball, it was congratulations all over. So, I was very happy.\nGoal: You said in your interview afterwards that it's not easy for anyone to control a soccer ball. Tell us more.\nNjokwana: Yeah, actually I would love to know how many chances Theo got to do the 34 metres, but it's really difficult when the ball comes down, it's different velocity because I trained in Cape Town, and I come to Johannesburg... different altitude. The pressure is pumped up a little differently. So, every time it comes down, it leaves bruises on your body. It comes down like a brick. So, it's not very easy, but I want to challenge other guys to also try and break the record maybe it's going be more interesting.\nGoal: What's next for Khris Njokwana?\nNjokwana: I want to break more records. I want to put South Africa more on the map. I want to encourage more kids in whatever niche sport they're doing. My sport, freestyle football, is not really recognised here in South Africa. So, that's why when I got the ball, I delivered a freestyle and not just do the five touches, just to grow the sport more because I knew I had the opportunity to showcase it to the world. That's what I want to do. I just want to inspire the little kids, I want to inspire South Africans. We're living in interesting times. I want to do great things for Africa.\nGoal: Are we going to see more records being broken by you in the near future?\nNjokwana: Definitely, the next thing I want to do, I want to keep up the ball a million times... without dropping the ball. So, that's going to be very interesting.\nGoal: Thanks very much for your time Khris and best of luck.\nNjokwana: Thank you so much.", "1. Eyes fixed on Sanchez after below-par Spurs display\nALEXIS SANCHEZ CUT an isolated figure at Wembley on Wednesday evening as his new club slogged towards a bitter 2-0 defeat to Tottenham.\nThe Chilean was the marquee signing of the January transfer window the but failed to make a lasting impression during his Premier League debut.\nSanchez succeeded in recording an FA Cup assist on his debut against Yeovil Town but failed to manage a single shot on target during Wednesday’s loss in London.\nIt was the first time the forward had failed to do so all season, with the magnitude of both the game and the fact that it was his first chance to impress a worrisome indicator.\nSome have pointed to the system employed by manager Jose Mourinho as restrictive to the explosive, quick nature of the player. Both the player and manager alike will be keen to show his worth against Huddersfield at Old Trafford.\nUnited suffered their first defeat of the campaign away to David Wagner’s side back in October.\nIt was a defeat which showcased the gap in class which exists between themselves and league leaders City, but with Sanchez on board and second place still in their grip, United will be keen to demonstrate they have much more in their armoury to display in the months ahead.\n2. Man City aim to extend lead to 18 points\nManchester United’s midweek flop at Wembley means Pep Guardiola’s side can extend their lead at the top of the Premier League to a massive 18 points this weekend with a win against Burnley at Turf Moor.\nThe league leaders’ momentum shows no signs of letting up as they remain on course for a potential quadruple in 2018, facing into the last sixteen of the Champions League alongside a EFL Cup final on top of remaining in contention for the FA Cup.\nSource: PA Wire/PA Images\nCity secured the services of Aymeric Laporte during the January transfer window and made it 22 wins from 25 with a 3-0 win against West Brom.\nWith just five games coming their way in February, they will want to put as much distance between themselves and United before the priorities of a deep Champions League campaign take centre take.\n3. Theo Walcott makes a quick return to the Emirates\nIt has been largely a dream start to life in blue for Theo Walcott. The forward bagged a brace against West Brom midweek on a night where things seemed to just fall into place for Everton, with Seamus Coleman also making his long-awaited return on the night.\nWalcott drifted apart from Arsenal over the course of the last number of seasons but showcased on Wednesday the potential he still possesses as an attacking threat.\nToffees boss Sam Allardyce claimed two weeks ago that his side needed to play “more boring football”. Walcott will likely not provide that, but will bring to the table a renewed speed, energy and clinical edge to a side lacking in the goals department in recent months.\nTheo Walcott scored a brace against Leicester City. Source: Nick Potts\nHe will return to the Emirates on Saturday and face a warm reception for a much-loved player who had given over a decade of service to the Gunners’ cause.\nThe player will turn 29 next month and enters the twilight of his career with a tinge of regret of what might have been under Arsene Wenger as the years went on and on with the charge of potential unfulfilled labelled against him.\nWalcott’s brace against the Baggies showcased there is still that same energy and hunger in him. He will be keen to show his old employers what he is capable of on his day.\n4. Confident Spurs can overtake Reds with Sunday win\nTottenham were in alluring dreamland after just 11 seconds against Manchester United on Wednesday after Christian Eriksen slipped a fine finish past David de Gea to send Wembley into raptures before many fans had even taken their seats.\nThey swept Jose Mourinho’s side away with an accomplished display which overshadowed the Premier League debut of Alexis Sanchez, with the evening turning almost embarrassing when Phil Jones scored an own goal to double the hosts’ lead.\nThe win meant Mauricio Pochettino’s side have suffered just one defeat in their last 14 outings in all competitions; a loss which can perhaps be forgiven against runaway league leaders Manchester City.\nTottenham have lost just one game in their last 14 in all competitions. Source: Xinhua News Agency/PA Images\nThis competitive run of form means Spurs can now overtake Sunday’s opponents Liverpool were they to secure their seventh win in 10.\nJurgen Klopp’s side became the first team to beat City all season but soon relapsed into a state of despair with back-to-back defeats against relegation-threatened Swansea and West Brom in the FA Cup at Anfield.\nA comfortable 3-0 win against David Wagner’s Huddersfield midweek has aired a certain level of calm. Klopp will need to firmly quell this current tide of unease, however facing an in-form Tottenham side hot on their heels will be no easy feat.\nLose, and they will drop below their opponents into fourth place at best. Suffer defeat combined with a Chelsea win on Saturday and the Reds will drop out of the top four.\n5. Conte must calm current tide of misfortune\nLike Liverpool, January has not been an enjoyable month for Chelsea.\nThe Premier League champions suffered four draws on the hop in all competitions, exited the EFL Cup, narrowly overcame Norwich on penalties in the FA Cup and were spanked by Bournemouth 3-0 at Stamford Bridge.\nThe January transfer window runaround will only have added to boss Antonio Conte’s stress levels, but like Arsenal and Borussia Dortmund, he will be happy with his lot — bringing in Olivier Giroud and seeing Michy Batshuayi depart on loan to the Bundesliga.\nAntonio Conte's side have struggled since the New Year. Source: PA Wire/PA Images\nThe Italian at last has a backup option to Alvaro Morata up front and in Giroud has a bulky, traditional striker who is proven to score close to 20 goals in the Premier League each season.\nAll that’s left to do now is get on with matters on the pitch, which is easier said than done. A tough February takes in games against Barcelona and Man United, before March begins with a trip to the Etihad.\nWatford, under the stewardship of Javi Gracia, will present an achievable win as the Blues face into a heavy couple of months ahead.\nConte is unlikely to remain at Stamford Bridge beyond this season but knows he needs to ensure Chelsea’s place in the top four if this season is to stand any measure of credibility.\nThe42 is on Instagram! Tap the button below on your phone to follow us!", "Mesut Ozil celebrates in 5-2 win over Everton\nNinth place Everton travel to the Emirates this Saturday evening as Theo Walcott makes his first return to the Emirates since his January move to Goodison Park.\nThough Arsenal had an impressive January in terms of transfers, Arsene Wenger’s side are in desperate need of a result having won only two of their seven games this month.\nEarlier this week, Arsenal suffered arguably their worst loss of the season to Premier League strugglers Swansea City and will be keen to return to winning ways against Sam Allardyce’s side.\nEverton will come into the game in good spirits having beaten Leicester City, who sit one place above them in the league, during the week.\nArsenal’s first game since the end of busy transfer window\nHaving had a successful last few days in the transfer window, Wenger can finally turn his full attention to the league, as the Gunners play their first game since the transfer window shut.\nSaturday’s game against the Toffees could see a full debut for new signing Henrikh Mkhitaryan as well as Arsenal’s record signing, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.\nMkhitaryan played the last 30 minutes during the defeat at Swansea, however, he is likely to make his full debut this Saturday at the Emirates as the Armenian international is tipped to start.\nAfter what felt like an age, Aubameyang finally became an Arsenal player on transfer deadline day after a week or so of negotiations.\nHaving been given the iconic number 14 shirt, famously worn by Arsenal’s top goal-scorer, Thierry Henry, all eyes will be on the Gabon international this Saturday as he potentially makes his debut at the Emirates.\nMesut Ozil expected to lead by example after signing new deal\nNot only did the Gunners sign Aubameyang on transfer deadline day, Mesut​ Özil signed a new contract keeping him at the club until 2021, which would put the German playmaker into his seventh year in North London.\nWenger has spoken out since Ozil signed the contract and claims he now has to become a leader within this Arsenal side, in their challenge to qualify for Champions League football.\nSince his arrival in the Premier League, no player has created more goal-scoring chances than Arsenal’s number 11 and the arrivals of creative players such as Mkhitaryan and Aubameyang can only enhance the German’s game.\nWalcott returns to the Emirates\nFollowing his January departure from the Emirates, Walcott will return to face his former club having only played two games for the Toffees.\nThe English international impressed last time out, as he netted twice to get off the mark for Everton against Leicester.\nHaving been Arsenal’s longest serving player before he decided to make the switch to Goodison Park, a good reception is to be expected for Arsenal’s former number 14.\nTeam News\nDanny Welbeck has not returned to full fitness just yet and will miss out completely on Saturday, whereas Jack Wilshere and Aubameyang face late fitness tests having both reported sick.\nMkhitaryan is fully fit and Wenger has claimed he has fulfilled is match sharpness and is in line to start.\nEverton will be without Leighton Baines, James McCarthy, Ramiro Funes Mori and Maarten Stekelenburg through injury.", "Olivier Giroud's sensational scorpion style goal was described by Arsene Wenger as one of the greatest he has ever seen at Arsenal.\nIt was labelled a 'work of art' before Wenger went on to explain how it easily made his top five of all time at Arsenal.\nHere, Sportsmail has named our top 10 goals scored by the Gunners under Wenger, and do let us know your order in the comments section!\n10. ROBIN VAN PERSIE (vs Everton, 2011)\nA piece of precision from Van Persie ensured Arsenal a 1-0 win over Everton here as they celebrated their 125th birthday in style.\nA ball over the top from Alex Song found the striker, who still had it all to do. Van Persie swung his left boot at it and scored a volley that went in off the post.\nRobin van Persie scored this precise volley against Everton in 2011 to win the game 1-0\nArsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny pictured kissing the boot of Van Persie afterwards\n9. THIERRY HENRY (vs Liverpool, 2004)\nHenry scored a hat-trick this day in a 4-2 win and one of his three went down in history, even being voted Arsenal's 10th greatest-ever goal in a poll by their fans.\nThe striker dropped deep in search of the ball and had the entire Liverpool back line ahead of him. He cut through them all, escaping challenges, and scored.\nThierry Henry scored a hat-trick this day in a 4-2 win for Arsenal against Liverpool\n8. THIERRY HENRY (vs Real Madrid, 2006)\nHenry picked it up in midfield, rode one challenge, then two, then three, then shot as Sergio Ramos tried to close him down. No chance.\nThe striker went for the far corner and scored, winning them the game. No English club had beaten Real Madrid on their own patch before Arsenal's visit in 2006.\nThis goal from Thierry Henry in Madrid was stunning even by his own high standards\nHenry picked it up in midfield, rode several challenges then scored a superb solo goal\n7. ROBIN VAN PERSIE (vs Charlton, 2006)\nA stunning volley from Van Persie, who scored in spectacular style at Charlton in 2006. The Dutchman gets added points for winning them the game with this, too.\nHe scored twice on this day but it was his second strike that stole the show - as Van Persie met Emmanuel Eboue's cross perfectly. A thing of beauty.\nThis stunning volley from Van Persie against Charlton in 2006 won Arsenal the game\nVan Persie pictured running away in celebration after scoring his second goal for Arsenal\n6. THEO WALCOTT (vs Newcastle, 2012)\nA ten-goal thriller that included a stunning solo goal from Walcott, who scored three times and set up two more in this 7-3 win for Arsenal.\nWalcott was close to the corner flag and had four Newcastle bodies, plus a goalkeeper, in front of him. That didn't stop him and it included a fine finish, too.\nTheo Walcott scored a superb solo goal to seal this 7-3 win over Newcastle in 2012\nWalcott scored three times and set up two more goals in this 7-3 win for Arsenal\n5. DENNIS BERGKAMP (vs Leicester, 1997)\nWe all know the one. It completed his hat-trick and included some special skill from Bergkamp, as he took the ball down out of thin air and turned his marker inside out.\nThe Arsenal great then, in a moment of pure genius, switched from left foot to right and beat Kasey Keller. Despite his three goals, Arsenal still lost, somehow.\nDennis Bergkamp pictured scoring against Leicester in 1997 to complete his hat-trick\nThe Bergkamp statue pictured outside of the Emirates Stadium on Sunday\n4. OLIVIER GIROUD (vs Crystal Palace, 2017)\nAnd here we are. Giroud's sensational scorpion kick strike that got Arsenal on their way to winning on New Year's Day. It is one that should never be forgotten.\nIt is funny to think we may already have witnessed 2017's greatest goal and we were only one day into it. For us, it comes fourth here.\nOlivier Giroud pulled off an audacious scorpion kick against Crystal Palace\nThe Arsenal man saw his sublime attempt crash in off the underside of the crossbar\n3. THIERRY HENRY (vs Manchester United, 2000)\nThe rivalry between Arsenal and Manchester United is no laughing matter and Henry's match-winner was out of this world.\nGilles Grimandi fed the ball to Henry, who had his back to the goal. He flicked it up, turned and volleyed a dipping shot over Fabien Barthez. Utter brilliance.\nHenry pictured celebrating scoring his sensational goal against Manchester United\n2. DENNIS BERGKAMP (vs Newcastle, 2002)\nVoted No 1 in the list of Arsenal's greatest-ever goals by fans on their official website was this strike by Bergkamp at Newcastle in 2002.\nThe touch, the spin, the technique, the calm composure to beat Shay Given. Bergkamp showcased his superiority with this opening goal at St James' Park.\nBergkamp scored a superb solo goal against Newcastle in 2002 and is pictured celebrating it\n1. JACK WILSHERE (vs Norwich, 2013)\nSportsmail's favourite from Arsenal was the one that epitomised their play under Wenger.\n'The thing about Arsenal is they always try to walk it in,' as the joke goes. They did here. Mesut Ozil said it was like something out of a Playstation game.\nIt saw Wilshere finish off an intricate passing move between himself, Santi Cazorla and Olivier Giroud. The more you watch it, the more you realise how absurd it was.\nJack Wilshere finished off a fine move that epitomised the way Arsenal play\nWilshere's finish came afyer an intricate passing move between himself, Santi Cazorla and Olivier Giroud at the Emirates Stadium in 2013", "The Spice Girls have hinted they will perform at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding — but could they be muscled out by an even more venerable British musical institution?\nThe Rolling Stones are leaving blank the weekend of the May 19 Windsor wedding on their UK tour itinerary.\nA pal of the Stones tells me: ‘Keith Richards isn’t bothered about the royals. But Mick is probably expecting an invitation — maybe that’s the reason he’s keeping the date free.’\nSir Mick Jagger does have some reasons for optimism.\nPrince Harry is said to be a fan of the band and was at the 2013 Glastonbury Festival, where he watched them with his then girlfriend, Cressida Bonas.\nA pal of the Stones tells me: ‘Keith Richards isn’t bothered about the royals. But Mick is probably expecting an invitation — maybe that’s the reason he’s keeping the date free’\nThe Rolling Stones are leaving blank the weekend of the May 19 Windsor wedding on their UK tour itinerary (pictured: the start of their UK tour dates)\nHe met the band backstage and even warned guitarist Ronnie Wood, 70, not to make any passes at 29-year-old Cressie. ‘He said it was great to see me again and then he introduced me to his bird,’ Wood disclosed.\n‘I gave her a cuddle and he said: “Oi, get your hands off.” He was very funny. It was great to see him.’\nIf Sir Mick, 74, is invited to St George’s Chapel, Windsor, it would not be the first time that he and Harry have been at the same wedding.\nWhen the Prince’s stepbrother, Tom Parker Bowles, tied the knot with fashion journalist Sara Buys in 2005, both he and Jagger were among the congregation.\nTeacher’s son Sir Mick has always yearned to be part of the establishment.\nEx-girlfriend Marianne Faithfull says he always craved a knighthood because he is ‘a tremendous snob’.\nIt was a view echoed by Rolling Stone guitarist and songwriter Keith Richards .\n‘He’s such a snob,’ moaned Richards. ‘He can come off that way even to me and the rest of the band.’\nPrince Harry is said to be a fan of the band and was at the 2013 Glastonbury Festival, where he watched them with his then girlfriend, Cressida Bonas\nQueen of Shops and wife's tribute to kings of glam\nQueen of Shops Mary Portas, 57, went to a fancy dress party at the weekend dressed as David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust days while her wife, Melanie Rickey, wore a sparkly top hat in the guise of Sir Elton John.\nIn 2015 Portas, who has two grown-up children with ex-husband Graham Portas, welcomed her first child with Melanie, a son named Horatio.\nThe couple used Mary’s brother, Lawrence, as the biological father. Portas said: ‘It’s amazing. Now, when I look at Horatio, he is a complete mix of Mel and me.’\nQueen of Shops Mary Portas, 57, went to a fancy dress party at the weekend dressed as David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust days while her wife, Melanie Rickey, wore a sparkly top hat in the guise of Sir Elton John (pictured)\nHarvey Weinstein’s career ended when he was accused of sex abuse and rape last year. But his estranged wife, fashion designer Georgina Chapman, is flourishing professionally.\nThe London-born couturier, whose Marchesa dresses are worn by the Duchess of Cambridge and Hollywood’s elite, celebrated her label reaching two million followers on her company’s social media account at the weekend. Every cloud . . .\nWhy do our foremost novelists have it in for the Duchess of Cambridge?\nFirst, she was called a ‘plastic princess made for breeding’ by Hilary Mantel; now Booker Prize-winning novelist Alan Hollinghurst has poured scorn on a painting of Kate. While being interviewed in the National Portrait Gallery for the New York Times, Hollinghurst describes Paul Emsley’s painting of Prince William’s wife as ‘one of the more ghastly recent accessions’.", "April 2 Arsenal recovered twice to earn a 2-2 draw with Manchester City in the Premier League at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday thanks to goals from Theo Walcott and Shkodran Mustafi after Leroy Sane and then Sergio Aguero had given the visitors the lead.\nWe have gathered some post-match reaction from supporters of both clubs: Arsenal: Arsenal Mania \"That was the first bit of fight Arsenal have shown in a very long time. We probably didn't do enough to deserve a win this afternoon but we showed a glimpse of the desire that we've been lacking lately. \"The stats show we only had one shot on target in the second half. We're not going to make the top four with form like that and we're running out of time. There is so much ability going to waste here. We really need a new manager with a new approach. \"I thought Danny Welbeck was more effective up front than Olivier Giroud, at least he penned Manchester City's defence back and forced them to track him. Welbeck also made them work for the 50/50 balls. Did Giroud even touch the ball? He is a player that should be winning every header. \"There is no cohesiveness to this Arsenal team under Arsene Wenger. They were all running around trying to do their thing. The midfield had zero control and Hector Bellerin always gives the ball away. His shocking defending led to Leroy Sane's goal. He's an embarrassment. \"The result is disappointing, especially against a side that turned up for 20 minutes and left Jesus Navas on the pitch after having made made three decent passes in his entire City career. Then they bring on Yaya Toure who looks about 20 yards off the pace. \"The pressure is well and truly on. Roll on Wednesday.\" Manchester City: Bluemoon MCFC \"Manchester City should have beaten Arsenal easily this afternoon. Instead we made them look good. It's probably a fair result on the day but we've dropped two huge points. \"We had plenty of chances to kill the game, particularly in the first half. It sums up our season. There is always that nagging feeling that we were going to concede. We usually do. \"You don't have to hammer every team to beat them, you just have to score more than them and we should have done that today. We might have won it if the referee had given us that stone-wall penalty. \"Our chances also would have been a lot better if the referee had sent off Theo Walcott for going over the ball in the first half with a potential leg breaking challenge, or if Granit Xhaka had got a second yellow card for lunging in like a lunatic on Yaya Toure. \"I hope Pep Guardiola sits Kevin De Bruyne down and gives him a proper talking to. There should be none of this putting his 'arm around the shoulder' nonsense. Experiencing a drop in form can't really be helped, but at the moment he looks like he doesn't want to be there. \"De Bruyne's ball in for Leroy Sane was sublime and there are very few players that can pull that off, but his application from that moment on was shocking. He is also responsible for Arsenal's second goal.\" (Compiled by Claire Bloomfield; Editing by Clare Lovell)", "Louisa Johnson speaks out after saying she’d ‘report back’ on Olly Murs and Melanie Sykes’ rumoured romance - EXCLUSIVE LOUISA Johnson has spoken out after saying she would “report back” on rumours her pal Olly Murs was dating Melanie Sykes.\nLouisa Johnson attends the Capital FM Jingle Bell Ball with Coca-Cola at The O2 Arena [Getty]\nThe X Factor winner, who was performing at Capital’s Jingle Bell Ball with Coca-Cola, was asked weeks ago about her 33-year-old close friend’s shock romance rumours with the gorgeous 47 year old, following a report from The Sun that they’d been secretly dating for \"almost a year\".\nWhen previously asked, she claimed she’d \"report back\" when she’d spoken to the Troublemaker singer – but it seems she still has doubts there’s even a romance to speak of in the first place.\nWhen asked if she’d spoken to Olly Murs, she exclusively told OK! Online: \"I haven’t actually – we don’t speak on them kind of terms, I feel a bit rude asking about his love life. I literally still don’t know though, I don’t even know really where it came from.\"\nMelanie Sykes and Olly Murs have sparked dating rumours [Melanie Sykes/Instagram]\nOlly Murs and Louisa Johnson are great pals [Getty]\nSlamming the rumours, she added: \"I don’t want to say as I really don’t know what’s happening, but if it’s been a year – I would know! I would have known.\"\nMelanie previously addressed the rumours with a very stern post – shunning there was anything going on with the X Factor hunk.\nThe TV presenter took to social media to share a beautiful photo of herself, showcasing her fabulous assets in a mesh dress.\nMelanie Sykes shows off incredible abs Friday, June 02, 2017 1 / 9\n/\nPlay slideshow Melanie Sykes shows off incredible abs Friday, June 02, 2017 1 / 9\n/\nPlay slideshow Melanie Sykes praised by fans as she reveals enviable bikini body [Instagram]\nMelanie Sykes, 46, reveals her incredible body after a week at No.1 Bootcamp in Marrakech\nMel Sykes has hit back at rumours [Getty]\nGrinning at the camera, Melanie Sykes flaunted her figure in the stunning ensemble, which featured a floor-length skirt with a thigh-split and an embroidered bustier.\nAlongside the stunning snap, Melanie appeared to hit back at the rumours surrounding her relationship with Olly Murs.\n\"To all Those writing s***e about me and my life,\" she wrote. \"This is what a single, happy, healthy, 47yrs old independent mother of two teenage sons looks like. DEAL WITH IT!\"\nMel Sykes defiantly hit back [Mel Sykes/Instagram]\nMelanie’s apparent response to the speculation comes following rumours that she is planning to take her romance with Olly \"to the next level\". According to Closer Magazine, a source said: \"Olly has always said he wants children of his own one day, but Mel has made it clear she’s not keen on having another child.\"\nTV presenter Melanie Sykes is already mother to sons Valentino, 17 and Roman, 15, from her first marriage to Daniel Caltagirone.\nIt's said that while Olly Murs is keen to keep the relationship under wraps, Melanie has been more vocal about the union.\nA source said: \"Pals have urged Olly to be cautious as they fear they want different things, but it’s been tough. Their chemistry is undeniable. Mel appears besotted with Olly and really likes him. She’s even told friends she can see herself marrying him.\"", "Aaron Ramsey hit a hat-trick and Arsenal fans were treated to a first showing of their January transfers in tandem as both Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang shone in a 5-1 win over Everton.\nGabon forward Aubameyang joined from Borussia Dortmund on deadline day for a club-record fee, uniting with his former team-mate Mkhitaryan, who had come in earlier in the window from Manchester United in a swap deal for Alexis Sanchez.\nRamsey was the star of the show, though, as the Wales midfielder hit his first career hat-trick, with the Gunners wrapping up a well-deserved victory.\nPicture\nTweet of the match:\nSensational 1st half.\nThis trio have resuscitated my flatlining Arsenal heart. 🔥 pic.twitter.com/lTUUv6IDKJ — Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) February 3, 2018\nStar man: Aaron Ramsey\nWhile Aubameyang’s (offside) debut goal may see him grab the headlines, it was the all-action display of Wales midfielder Ramsey which stood out. At the centre of everything positive and so quick in the transition, Ramsey’s double early salvo put the Gunners on their way to an impressive victory as Everton were over-run. Just for good measure, Ramsey crashed in a third after 74 minutes to complete a first career hat-trick shortly before being substituted. Job done.\nMoment of the match\nThe Gunners set the tone for the match when sweeping into the lead after just six minutes with a slick passing move. Mesut Ozil fed Aubameyang, whose first-time flick laid the ball off into the path of Henrikh Mkhitaryan on the right side of the penalty area. The Armenian’s low pass through the six-yard box was promptly knocked home by Ramsey. Clinical.\nStat Attack\nAubameyang’s debut saw Gabon become the 50th different nation to be represented for Arsenal in the Premier League, while Ramsey continued his scoring spree against Everton, the Welshman now with six goals in his last four games when taking on the Toffees.\nRatings\nArsenal: Petr Cech 7 (out of 10), Hector Bellerin 7, Laurent Koscielny 8, Shkodran Mustafi 7, Nacho Monreal 7, Aaron Ramsey 9, Granit Xhaka 7, Henrikh Mkhitaryan 8, Mesut Ozil 8, Alex Iwobi 7, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang 8.\nSubstitutes: Sead Kolasinac (for Monreal, 46) 7, David Ospina (for Cech, 70) 7, Jack Wilshere (for Ramsey, 74) 7\nEverton: Jordan Pickford 6 (out of 10), Michael Keane 6, Ashley Williams 6, Eliaquim Mangala 5, Jonjoe Kenny 6, Morgan Schneiderlin 6, Idrissa Gueye 6, Cuco Martina 6, Theo Walcott 7, Oumar Niasse 6, Yannick Bolasie 6.\nSubstitutes: Tom Davies (for Michael Keane) 7, Dominic Calvert-Lewin (for Walcott) 7\nWho’s up next?\nTottenham v Arsenal (Premier League, February 10)\nEverton v Crystal Palace (Premier League, February 10)", "Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has submitted a medical certificate to a German court to ensure he is not fined £900 if he makes his Arsenal debut against Everton on Saturday.\nThe 28-year-old, at £56million the most expensive signing in Arsenal's history, was due to give evidence last Monday regarding the terrorist attack on the Borussia Dortmund team bus last April, but skipped the court date claiming he was too ill to attend.\nHe would have faced a £900 fine by the court if he played, given it is only five days since he was due to appear. But the Gabon striker has submitted a medical certificate clearing him.\nPierre-Emerick Aubameyang gets the all-clear from the German court to make his debut\nManager Arsene Wenger, meanwhile, says Arsenal's potent strikeforce means they will continue to play on the front foot.\nManchester United flop Henrikh Mkhitaryan arrived just before Aubameyang at the Emirates as Wenger tries to solve a shortage of goals.\nIt was the failure to strengthen Arsenal's defence, though, that again left Wenger facing questions. He wanted to sign Jonny Evans from West Bromwich but a £12m offer was dismissed.\nArsenal did recruit Konstantinos Mavropanos from Greek side PAS Giannina, but the 20-year-old is viewed as a player for the future.\nThey have conceded 34 goals in the Premier League — more than any other side in the top six.\nHe was due to appear in court regarding the terror attack on the Borussia Dortmund team bus\nHowever, the Arsenal star submitted a medical certificate to tee up potential club debut\nSam Allardyce believes Everton can exploit that vulnerability this evening but Wenger will remain committed to playing on the front foot.\n'Attacking is in our DNA. We are an attacking team,' said Wenger.\n'The danger when you are an attacking team is that if you don't score, then of course you create your own problems.\n'When people say we've conceded too many goals, I think we don't score enough goals. That's our basic problem. Defensive strengthening is a huge problem for everybody. Everybody looks for defenders.\n'You look again at Manchester City — they bought another defender. How much money have they spent on defenders in the last three years?'\nSaturday evening's game will see Theo Walcott return to the Emirates for the first time since he left for Everton two weeks ago, his departure so hurried that he had to bundle his belongings into a black bin bag before heading to Merseyside.\nArsene Wenger claims 'attacking is in our DNA' when asked why he failed to buy a defender\nAllardyce knows this will be an emotional occasion for the 28-year-old, who spent 12 seasons at Arsenal, and quipped that he will let Walcott give the team talk.\nHe scored both goals in Wednesday's 2-1 win against Leicester, and his new boss can see his hunger. 'A lot of things have been said about Theo — he hasn't reached his full potential and all that — but I don't know how you could say that after last season's performance,' said Allardyce.\n'He played 30-plus games, scored 19 goals. I think if he'd have been playing a lot this year, he would have been happy to finish his career at Arsenal.'", "Everton boss Sam Allardyce thinks Arsenal are “defensively weak” and he will target Arsene Wenger’s side on the counter-attack at the Emirates on Saturday.\nArsenal have not kept a Premier League clean sheet in their last seven games and have conceded 34 goals – the most of the top seven teams in each of Europe’s big five leagues.\nWenger admitted on Friday his side have to find a solution to their defensive problems and Allardyce wants Everton to add to those issues following Arsenal’s 3-1 defeat at Swansea on Tuesday night.\n“Arsenal’s attacking force has always been what you have to manage,” Allardyce said. “They haven’t scored as many goals as they have done in recent years at this stage of the season which gives us an opportunity to try and shut them out.\n“I think that while it was away from home the other night, we studied the Swansea performance where Swansea managed to get a result against them but the Emirates is a different kettle of fish.\n“It’s about being able to nullify the strengths of Arsenal and then, I’ve always felt, that defensively they are weak because of the amount of players they commit forward.\n“If we’re clever enough to not give the ball away and break out from when we win the ball back with some quality forward passes and forward runs, we can play well and get good counter-attacking movement going.”\nTheo Walcott is one player who Allardyce may look to use on the break, with the forward set to play against Arsenal for the first time since leaving the club last month in a £20m deal.\nThe move ended Walcott’s 12 years at the club and Allardyce expects the Englishman to get a warm welcome back at the Emirates on Saturday, and hopes he can continue his goal scoring form which saw him net both of Everton’s goals in their 2-1 win over Leicester on Wednesday.\n“He’ll be doing the team-talk tomorrow I think,” he joked. “I think he’s looking forward to it. I’m sure he’ll get a very good reception when he goes back to the Emirates.\n“Everybody can understand why he’s left because now he’s got the opportunity to be one of the key players for Everton now and I think he saw that was going to be the case.\n“Last season he played 30 plus games and scored 19 goals, then all of a sudden this season that hasn’t been the case so he can be a pivotal figure for us going forward into the future.\n“Hopefully he can go and perform at the Emirates as well as he did on Wednesday night.”", "Aaron Ramsey hit a hat-trick with Arsenal fans treated to their first showing of their January transfers in tandem as both Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang shone in a comfortable 5-1 win over Everton.\nAubameyang joined from Borussia Dortmund on deadline day for a club-record fee, uniting with his former team-mate Mkhitaryan who had come in earlier in the window from Manchester United in a swap deal for Alexis Sanchez.\nRamsey would go on to shine alongside his all-star team-mates as he hit his first career hat-trick with the Gunners wrapping up a well-deserved win.\nThe new arrivals needed just six minutes to have an impact as the pair combined to allow Ramsey to tap in the opening goal of the contest.\nLaurent Koscielny added the second and Ramsey struck again before close friends Mkhitaryan and Aubameyang combined as the latter scored on his debut – albeit from an offside position.\nSubstitute Dominic Calvert-Lewin pulled one back for Sam Allardyce, who will want to forget his 500th Premier League game as a manager in a hurry, before Ramsey completed his hat-trick with a fine strike.\nMesut Ozil, challenged by Gunners boss Arsene Wenger to become the leader of his side after opting to sign a new deal at the Emirates Stadium, was involved in the first goal.\nHe laid a pass in to Aubameyang, who freed Mkhitaryan to cross low for Ramsey to tuck home from close-range for his first goal since October.\nMkhitaryan had looked a little lost as he came off the bench to make his debut in defeat at Swansea but he soon found his feet here, flashing a shot inches wide of Jordan Pickford’s right-hand post as Arsenal went in search of a second.\nThe home fans were not made to wait too long.\nA 14th-minute Ozil corner was flicked on by Shkodran Mustafi and Koscielny arrived in front of Aubameyang to send a diving header past Pickford.\nAs with the recent home win over Crystal Palace, the early goals kept on coming for the Gunners, as Ramsey scored his second with a long-range shot which deflected off Everton debutant Eliaquim Mangala.\nEverton had offered very little until the returning Theo Walcott latched onto a simple through ball which split the under-fire Arsenal defence and set him away, only for Shkodran Mustafi to make a late block.\nAubameyang showed his blistering pace soon after as he left the Everton defence for dead to latch onto a sumptuous Ozil throughball, only to run wide and fire in a low shot which Pickford saved.\nThe Gabon striker did score his first Arsenal goal with a deft chip from Mkhitaryan’s pass, although he should have been flagged offside.\nThe onslaught continued and only the post prevented Nacho Monreal heading in his third goal in as many league games with the Everton defence all over the place.\nAllardyce switched to a back four for the second half and it almost paid dividends as Walcott’s low cross was turned onto the post by Oumar Niasse.\nWalcott’s unhappy return ended when he was replaced by Calvert-Lewin, who then headed home past Petr Cech before the Arsenal goalkeeper limped off.\nRamsey would complete his hat-trick courtesy of another Mkhitaryan assist as Arsenal’s superb home form continues in stark contrast to their away showings.\nShare it:\nDon't Miss", "Arsene Wenger has called on Mesut Ozil to be the leader of his new Arsenal generation.\nWith Alexis Sanchez, Theo Walcott and Olivier Giroud all departing for pastures new during the January transfer window, Ozil bucked the trend by signing a new three-year deal.\nThe German World Cup winner is reportedly being paid £350,000-a-week at the Emirates Stadium – a record wage for an Arsenal player.\nHe is expected to line up with Henrikh Mkhitaryan – who joined from Manchester United in a swap deal for Sanchez – and summer signing Alexandre Lacazette when Everton visit today.\nThere could also be space in the side for club-record acquisition Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who came in on deadline day from Borussia Dortmund.\nAubameyang is more likely to start on the bench given his recent arrival and a bout of illness but Wenger – despite seeing his top goalscorers from the past five seasons depart – maintains an embarrassment of attacking riches.\n“Many predicted that he will not commit and not sign for us,” Wenger said of Ozil signing a new deal.\n“When you look at the transfer market today, the fact that you can keep a player of that calibre is of course good news.\n“The fact that he committed for a longer period shows as well that he will have to do that as well on the pitch and lead the team.\n“It means he will be the technical leader of the team. Physically he is much stronger than people think. His distances are quite good. He can run. He is not a tackler. When he is angry he can.”\nOzil could have left for free in the summer when his previous deal expired but, unlike Sanchez who was in the same position, he has stayed put.\nMesut Ozil\nBut despite a seemingly huge leap in what Arsenal will now pay in wages, Wenger believes Ozil was the “cheapest” option as he would have had to spend a big fee, and a large wage, to sign a suitable replacement if the 29-year-old walked away for nothing.\n“When you let a player go you have to buy somebody of the same calibre and if you add the transfer needed and the wages will be similar,” he added.\n“On top of that we have to pay a transfer. So overall I think Mesut for us was the cheapest option. On the other side all of our players are well paid. Very well paid. To feel sorry for them – I’m not sure that it’s the most objective assessment.”\nWenger admitted he did not get everything he wanted in the transfer window and said Arsenal’s defensive options are too limited after a late move for West Brom’s Jonny Evans failed to materialise.\n“I couldn’t do everything. I wanted to do more. I believe we have to find an internal solution to our defensive problems, and that means everyone putting more effort in.\n“That’s where we needed some possible strengthening as well. We have to improve our defensive numbers.”\nEverton winger Theo Walcott returns to his former club tonight with manager Sam Allardyce insisting he can be a pivotal player for his new side in a way he was no longer for the Gunners.\n“He’ll be doing the team talk tomorrow,” joked Allardyce ahead of the trip to London.\n“I think he is looking forward to it. I am sure he will get a good reception when he goes back to The Emirates considering the time he spent there.\n“Everyone can understand why he has left because now he has the opportunity to be one of the key players for Everton now.\n“I think he saw that was going to be the case (for Arsenal) last season when he played 30-plus games and scored 19 goals.\n“Then all of a sudden this season that hasn’t been the case, but he can be a pivotal figure for us in the future.", "Get Newcastle United FC updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nRafa Benitez insists he was “happy” with Islam Slimani’s full Newcastle United debut - but admits it will take time for the striker to really develop an understanding with his team-mates.\nThe 29-year-old, who joined on loan from Leicester City on deadline day in the January transfer window, was sidelined for two months with a persistent thigh problem immediately after moving to the North East.\nHowever, after two impressive cameos as a substitute against Huddersfield Town and Arsenal following his recovery from injury, Benitez handed the Algeria international his first Magpies start during the 1-0 defeat to Everton at Goodison Park on Monday evening.\n(Image: Newcastle Chronicle)\nSlimani worked tirelessly for the 63 minutes he was on the field, held the ball up well and made a nuisance of himself, but Newcastle failed to create clear-cut opportunities for the forward.\nAt one stage, Ayoze Perez even had the opportunity to play Slimani clean through on goal, but the Spaniard over-hit his pass.\nDuring the final four games of the season, Benitez expects to see Slimani’s relationship with his midfielders develop, and that could yet hand the forward the opportunity to try and win a permanent move to Tyneside this summer.\n“Islam worked hard, but the understanding between him and the rest of the team will take some time,” Benitez said of Slimani’s first start.\n“In terms of effort I was happy with him. I say it again, we had chances. The final pass, and in the final third, we didn’t take our chances.\n“That is the difference when you have [Theo] Walcott or [Wayne] Rooney on these wages, they can make the difference.”\nDwight Gayle, who had started Newcastle’s four successive victories before the defeat to Everton, replaced Slimani after 63 minutes - and, with his first touch of the ball, last season’s top scorer diverted a golden chance over the bar from just six yards out\nFor Benitez, the difference between Newcastle and Everton was the quality the Toffees had at their disposal in the likes of Rooney and match-winner Walcott.\nEvidently, Benitez’s priority for the summer remains signing a proven Premier League goal-scorer, otherwise defeats like this one suffered at Goodison Park will continue to remain commonplace.\n“To be here, to play against this team, and to expect we have to beat them easily, is not right,” Benitez added of the performance of his forwards.\n“They have very good players who can make the difference. We battled and we fought until the end. We had the chance to draw, maybe even win but we lost against a good team. That’s it.", "LONDON, April 2 Manchester City's 2-2 draw at Arsenal has prompted faint title talk from the visitors' camp, but their Emirates Stadium stalemate only exposed the enduring frailties that persist with Pep Guardiola's side.\nTwice City took the lead, through Leroy Sane and Sergio Aguero, but twice they were pegged back as Arsenal equalised through Theo Walcott and Shkodran Mustafi.\nWhile City can move within eight points of Premier League leaders Chelsea with a win at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday, their inability to kill off troubled Arsenal suggests Guardiola has his work cut out to cultivate a side that can mount a challenge for the title, let alone eclipse Chelsea this season.\nDefensively, City were regularly troubled by an Arsenal attacking unit that have themselves flattered to deceive in recent fixtures.\nGuardiola praised stand-in right back Jesus Navas, who applied himself manfully despite the ominous prospect of a tussle with Alexis Sanchez, though the City winger's cameo in defence only served to highlight the paucity of options.\n\"I played him because Bacary Sagna was injured and Pablo Zabaleta were not ready,\" Guardiola told Sky Sports. \"Jesus always deserves the best because he is an excellent guy and I was so happy with him.\"\nFit-again club captain Vincent Kompany remained on the bench despite being available and cut a frustrated figure watching his team mates toil defensively.\nCity have conceded 32 league goals this season - 11 more than second-placed Tottenham Hotspur, nine more than Chelsea - and the backline requires a significant overhaul this summer.\nGuardiola has crafted a sleek offensive unit but, after a breathless opening 15 minutes at The Emirates, they appeared to ease off as their intensity levels dropped and they allowed Arsenal back into the match.\nCity only reasserted themselves after Walcott poked home an equaliser, and were unable to rouse themselves in the second half to push on and secure all three points.\n\"We didn't play in the first half,\" Guardiola conceded, \"after the goal we forgot to play, the desire went.\n\"In the second half we played more. We suffered a lot in the first half because we did not make those passes together.\"\nThe match summed up City's maiden season under ex-Barcelona and Bayern Munich coach Guardiola, as they started brightly, dropped off significantly and ultimately lost their way.\nDespite the re-emergence of title talk, the Spanish coach has much to do in order to craft a championship-winning side out of a talented - if flawed - squad. (Reporting by Ed Dove; Editing by Ken Ferris)", "Robbie Williams' children sing along to his hit track – watch the cute video The singer shares two young children with his wife Ayda Field\nRobbie Williams has two very adorable fans – his daughter Teddy and his son Charlton! The singer's wife Ayda Field has shared a video on Instagram, showing the family enjoying a walk in the countryside while singing along to Robbie's hit track, Love My Life. The couple's children were the cutest, belting out the lyrics word perfect as they enjoyed their family day out. Ayda, 38, also uploaded another post of her four-year-old daughter standing at the top of a hill.\nRobbie is clearly enjoying being reunited with his wife of seven years and their two kids. The Angels singer, 43, has been on tour and in the past week, he has performed in Finland and Denmark. On Friday, Ayda revealed on Loose Women that she would finally be seeing Robbie and celebrating a belated seventh wedding anniversary.\n@robbiewilliams #lovemylife ❤️AWxx A post shared by Ayda Field Williams (@aydafieldwilliams) on Aug 12, 2017 at 8:31am PDT\nAyda and her husband Robbie enjoyed a day out with their children\n\"Seven years married, eleven together,\" Ayda said. \"It makes me feel so grown-up and old! I'm actually going to see him tonight for the first time in a bit so, I shaved my legs. You know it's special when I shave the legs! I know poor guy. I mean I didn't go full thigh, I just went to the knee. It's still a to-do. Seven years, he's lucky he gets the ankle!\" She added: \"No I feel a bit like a teenager, I'm giddy – little date night, with lots of other people and children and dogs and I'm sure Nando's.\"\n@robbiewilliams #teddygram #imontopoftheworld #sundayfunday ❤️ AWxx A post shared by Ayda Field Williams (@aydafieldwilliams) on Aug 13, 2017 at 3:22am PDT\nThe actress also shared another photo of her daughter\nAyda and Robbie occasionally share photos of their son and daughter, although the showbiz couple make a conscious effort to keep their kids' faces hidden from public view. During a previous appearance on Loose Women, the former Take That star opened up about their policy, saying: \"We never show their faces, it's really important to us. We're really proud and we want to share absolutely everything but there's a law in this country that they can't put pictures up of kids in the papers unless you're posting their faces.\"", "Get Arsenal FC updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nTwo new faces, five goals and one hat-trick - the all-new Arsenal show is on the road.\nDespite debuts for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Henrikh Mkhitaryan - it was Aaron Ramsey who did the damage with an amazing hat-trick.\nMkhitaryan provided three assists while partner in crime Aubameyang also scored with an exquisite finish - although it looked decidedly off side\nLaurent Koscielny was also on target to make it 4-0 at half time and ruined Theo Walcott’s, before the winger's replacement, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, got one back for Sam Allardyce’s men.\nBut despite a Welshman stealing the show, for many Arsenal fans it was all about the new boys - and how they instantly linked up.\nHere's how they rated...\nARSENAL\nCech (sub Ospina 7 71 mins, 7)\n(Image: Catherine Ivill)\nWas beaten by Calvert-Lewi's header shortly after picking up an injury and will wonder when that clean sheet record will come 7\nBellerin\nExcellent down the right. The Spaniard was a constant threat for the Gunners with his speed 7\nMustafi\nWas pulled around a little by the Everton frontline, but put his body where it mattered to keep the score down 7\nKoscielny\nScored the second but was troubled by the pace of former Gunner Theo Walcott throughout the match 7\nMonreal (sub Kolsainac 46, 7)\nHit the bar which would have made it two goals in two games. Looked to be struggling and was taken off at half time 7\nXhaka\nDid his defensive duties well and got back to cover when he needed to in a central midfield role. Went some way to making up for Swansea 6\nRamsey ( sub Wilshere 6 75 mins)\n(Image: Stuart MacFarlane)\nDoing what he does best, popping up with vital goals and using the space in between Everton's midfield and defence well 8 (\nMkhitaryan\nA stunning display of creativity and imagination. Elusive, gifted and is blessed with a supreme touch. Arsenal have one terrific asset. 9\nOzil\nSigned a new deal and was all over the pitch in the first half. Got an assist, even though he faded a little in the second period 7\nIwobi\nEffective display from the winger which was the shot in the arm he needed. A constant threat down the left whoever he played with 7\nAubameyang\n(Image: Michael Regan/Getty Images)\nOkay, his first Gunenrs goal may have been offside, but What. A. Finish. A glimpse of what is to come from the Gabon striker 7\nSubs: Lacazette, Chambers, Maitland-Niles, Elneny\nEVERTON\nPickford\nYou could only feel sorry for the Everton keeper as the home side carved open the defence in front of him at will 5\nKenny\nKenny's recall showed just how much the Kirkdale-born homegrown hero still has to learn and he remains very much the apprentice to the master Seamus Coleman 5\nMangala\n(Image: Michael Regan)\nEverton switched to a centre-back trio to accommodate their new loan signing but like his colleagues at the back he was woefully slow to react to the speed of thought of Arsenal 3\nWilliams\nRecalled and handed the captain's armband, he looked off the pace and couldn't get near the home side's dangermen 3\nKeane (sub Davies 46 mins 6)\nLooked like a defensive colossus for long periods against Leicester but was more statue than statuesque here and was withdrawn at the interval. 5\nMartina\nIt was scant consolation among this horror show but in by far his best impression of Leighton Baines to date 5\nGueye\nSnapping at the heels of his opponent, he was more a Chihuahua than guard dog as Arsenal just ignored him and carried on with their onslaught 5\nSchneiderlin\nThe Frenchman is supposed to be Everton's defensive shield while also providing a link to the attack but instead he was often just found jogging around 4\nBolasie\nA tricky customer on his day, this was not the kind of occasion that his silky skills could blossom in as Everton's players found themselves constantly running backwards 4\nWalcott (Calvert-Lewin 61 mins, 6)\n(Image: Catherine Ivill)\nFormer Gunner endured a miserable return to the Emirates. He suffered the humiliation of having his name chanted ironically by the home fans after fluffing a chance to score 5\nNiasse (sub Tosun 78 mins 6)\nA thankless task leading the line on a night in which Everton were run ragged he put himself about and hit the post with one effort when the game was already very much lost 5\nSubs: Rooney, Sigurdsson, Holgate, Robles\nReferee: Neil Swarbrick 7", "Two London clubs go head-to-head on Tuesday as the Carabao Cup moves into the quarter-final phase with Arsenal's home clash against West Ham United.\nArsene Wenger's men have found the going hard in the Premier League recently, dropping out of Champions League qualification.\nAnd they will have to face a rejuvenated Hammers side, slowly recovering after a disastrous start to the season.\nGame\nArsenal vs West Ham United\nDate\nTuesday, December 19\nTime\n19:45 GMT / 14:45 ET\nTV CHANNEL & LIVE STREAM\nJames Collins, West Ham More\nThe Carabao Cup clash will not be available live for UK viewers, as no channel is carrying the broadcast.\nIn the United States (US) , ESPN 3 will be screenin all the action live, while subscribers will also be able to watch online via the Watch ESPN stream.\nUS TV channel Online stream\nESPN 3\nWatch ESPN\nSQUADS & TEAM NEWS\nPosition Arsenal players\nGoalkeepers\nCech, Ospina, Macey\nDefenders\nMertesacker, Holding, Mustafi, Koscielny, Chambers, Monreal, Debuchy, Bellerin, Kolasinac, Maitland-Niles\nMidfielders\nNelson, Wilshere, Willock, Xhaka, Elneny, Ozil\nForwards\nIwobi, Sanchez, Welbeck, Lacazette, Giroud, Nketiah, Akpom, Walcott\nTheo Walcott has missed Arsenal's last two outings, but could return for the quarter final after recovering from a groin injury.\nShkodran Mustafi is also on the mend but will not be risked on Tuesday, while Wenger will also have to do without Aaron Ramsey who has been ruled out with a hamstring problem.\nPotential Arsenal starting XI: Ospina; Debuchy, Mertesacker, Holding, Maitland-Niles; Coquelin, Elneny; Nelson, Iwobi, Welbeck; Giroud.\nPosition West Ham players\nGoalkeepers\nHart, Adrian\nDefenders\nMasuaku, Zabaleta, Collins, Reid, Creswell, Ogbonna\nMidfielders\nNoble, Lanzini, Obiang, Arnautovic, Antonio, Kouyate, Rice\nForwards\nCarroll, Ayew, Sakho, Chicharito\nWith the Hammers still battling against relegation, David Moyes may well opt to rest several first-teamers at the outset of a busy festive season.\nJavier Hernandez is one of the players who could benefit from rotation, especially if Manuel Lanzini sees a two-match ban for diving upheld, while Mark Noble is likely to miss out through injury.\nJoe Hart is also set to start after losing his place to Adrian in recent weeks.\nPotential West Ham starting XI: Hart; Zabaleta, Reid, Ogbonna, Cresswell; Arnautovic, Lanzini, Obiang, Masuaku; Carroll, Chicharito.\nBETTING & MATCH ODDS\nLaurent Koscielny Arsenal More\nArsenal are 8/15 favourites according to dabblebet , with West Ham priced at 5/1 to win. A draw between the sides after 90 minutes at the Emirates is considered a 10/3 bet.\nClick here to see dabblebet's markets for the game, including goalscorer odds, correct score predictions and more.\nStory Continues", "Arsenal 5 Everton 1\nAaron Ramsey hit a hat-trick with Arsenal fans treated to their first showing of their January transfers in tandem as both Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang shone in a comfortable 5-1 win over Everton.\nAubameyang joined from Borussia Dortmund on deadline day for a club-record fee, uniting with his former team-mate Mkhitaryan who had come in earlier in the window from Manchester United in a swap deal for Alexis Sanchez.\nRamsey would go on to shine alongside his all-star team-mates as he hit his first career hat-trick with the Gunners wrapping up a well-deserved win.\nThe new arrivals needed just six minutes to have an impact as the pair combined to allow Ramsey to tap in the opening goal of the contest.\nLaurent Koscielny added the second and Ramsey struck again before close friends Mkhitaryan and Aubameyang combined as the latter scored on his debut – albeit from an offside position.\nSubstitute Dominic Calvert-Lewin pulled one back for Sam Allardyce, who will want to forget his 500th Premier League game as a manager in a hurry, before Ramsey completed his hat-trick with a fine strike.\nMesut Özil, challenged by Gunners boss Arsene Wenger to become the leader of his side after opting to sign a new deal at the Emirates Stadium, was involved in the first goal.\nHe laid a pass in to Aubameyang, who freed Mkhitaryan to cross low for Ramsey to tuck home from close-range for his first goal since October.\nMkhitaryan had looked a little lost as he came off the bench to make his debut in defeat at Swansea but he soon found his feet here, flashing a shot inches wide of Jordan Pickford’s right-hand post as Arsenal went in search of a second.\nThe home fans were not made to wait too long. A 14th-minute Özil corner was flicked on by Shkodran Mustafi and Koscielny arrived in front of Aubameyang to send a diving header past Pickford.\nAs with the recent home win over Crystal Palace, the early goals kept on coming for the Gunners, as Ramsey scored his second with a long-range shot which deflected off Everton debutant Eliaquim Mangala.\nEverton had offered very little until the returning Theo Walcott latched onto a simple through ball which split the under-fire Arsenal defence and set him away, only for Mustafi to make a late block.\nAubameyang showed his blistering pace soon after as he left the Everton defence for dead to latch onto a sumptuous Özil through ball, only to run wide and fire in a low shot which Pickford saved.\nThe Gabon striker did score his first Arsenal goal with a deft chip from Mkhitaryan’s pass, although he should have been flagged offside.\nThe onslaught continued and only the post prevented Nacho Monreal heading in his third goal in as many league games with the Everton defence all over the place.\nAllardyce switched to a back four for the second half and it almost paid dividends as Walcott’s low cross was turned onto the post by Oumar Niasse.\nWalcott’s unhappy return ended when he was replaced by Calvert-Lewin, who then headed home past Petr Cech before the Arsenal goalkeeper limped off.\nRamsey would complete his hat-trick courtesy of another Mkhitaryan assist as Arsenal’s superb home form continues in stark contrast to their away showings.", "Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nFurious Everton boss Sam Allardyce described his team's first-half performance at Arsenal as \"pathetic\".\nThe Toffees were 4-0 down by the break in an embarrassing display at the Emirates Stadium.\n\"I have to say the longer I go on, the players are showing so much inconsistency that I've got to face the uphill battle by trying to get them more consistent, get them to perform at their best level week in and week out,\" the former England manager said.\nVideo Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now\n\"It's no good playing OK in the second half and getting a goal and trying to make the score look respectable. It's far too late.\n\"It was a pathetic, pathetic first-half performance.\"\nAaron Ramsey hit a hat-trick with Arsenal fans treated to their first showing of their January transfers in tandem as both Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang shone in a drubbing of their visitors.\nAubameyang joined from Borussia Dortmund on deadline day for a club-record fee, uniting with his former team-mate Mkhitaryan who had come in earlier in the window from Manchester United in a swap deal for Alexis Sanchez.\nRamsey would go on to shine alongside his all-star team-mates as he hit his first career hat-trick with the Gunners wrapping up a well-deserved win.\nThe new arrivals needed just six minutes to have an impact as the pair combined to allow Ramsey to tap in the opening goal of the contest.\nLaurent Koscielny added the second and Ramsey struck again before close friends Mkhitaryan and Aubameyang combined as the latter scored on his debut - albeit from an offside position.\nSubstitute Dominic Calvert-Lewin pulled one back for Sam Allardyce, who will want to forget his 500th Premier League game as a manager in a hurry, before Ramsey completed his hat-trick with a fine strike.\nMesut Ozil, challenged by Gunners boss Arsene Wenger to become the leader of his side after opting to sign a new deal at the Emirates Stadium, was involved in the first goal.\nHe laid a pass in to Aubameyang, who freed Mkhitaryan to cross low for Ramsey to tuck home from close-range for his first goal since October.\nMkhitaryan had looked a little lost as he came off the bench to make his debut in defeat at Swansea but he soon found his feet here, flashing a shot inches wide of Jordan Pickford's right-hand post as Arsenal went in search of a second.\nThe home fans were not made to wait too long.\nA 14th-minute Ozil corner was flicked on by Shkodran Mustafi and Koscielny arrived in front of Aubameyang to send a diving header past Pickford.\nAs with the recent home win over Crystal Palace, the early goals kept on coming for the Gunners, as Ramsey scored his second with a long-range shot which deflected off Everton debutant Eliaquim Mangala.\nEverton had offered very little until the returning Theo Walcott latched onto a simple through ball which split the under-fire Arsenal defence and set him away, only for Shkodran Mustafi to make a late block.\nAubameyang showed his blistering pace soon after as he left the Everton defence for dead to latch onto a sumptuous Ozil through ball, only to run wide and fire in a low shot which Pickford saved.\nThe Gabon striker did score his first Arsenal goal with a deft chip from Mkhitaryan's pass, although he should have been flagged offside.\nThe onslaught continued and only the post prevented Nacho Monreal heading in his third goal in as many league games with the Everton defence all over the place.\nAllardyce switched to a back four for the second half and it almost paid dividends as Walcott's low cross was turned onto the post by Oumar Niasse.\nWalcott's unhappy return ended when he was replaced by Calvert-Lewin, who then headed home past Petr Cech before the Arsenal goalkeeper limped off.\nRamsey would complete his hat-trick courtesy of another Mkhitaryan assist as Arsenal's superb home form continues in stark contrast to their away showings.", "PIERRE-EMERICK AUBAMEYANG and Henrikh Mkhitaryan dazzled on their Emirates Stadium debuts as Aaron Ramsey’s hat-trick led Arsenal’s unceremonious 5-1 thumping of Everton.\nBy the time £56million recruit Aubameyang displayed his midas touch in front of goal, Arsene Wenger’s side were already three goals to the good and cruising on account of Aaron Ramsey’s first two strikes, which came either side of a Laurent Koscielny header.\nMkhitaryan set up the Wales international’s opener and also laid on Aubameyang, his old partner in crime at Borussia Dortmund, for a goal on his maiden Premier League appearance, although the offside flag should have ruled that one out.\nArguably, a defensive showing as abject as the ramshackle interpretation offered by Everton in the first half deserved such ill fortune.\nOn-loan Manchester City centre-back Eliaquim Mangala suffered a debut ordeal and deflected Ramsey’s second past Jordan Pickford, while Sam Allardyce’s pre-match assertion that Arsenal were defensively weak came back to bite him brutally and repeatedly.\nEverton improved after the break – it would have surely been impossible to do otherwise – and substitute Dominic Calvert-Lewin reduced the arrears before Ramsey claimed the match ball from Mkhitaryan’s third assist.\nArsenal’s new-look forward line slotted effortlessly into gear as the two one-time Dortmund allies combined to create a sixth-minute opener.\nAubameyang found Mkhitaryan with a clever reverse pass down the right channel and the Armenia playmaker cut an excellent ball across the Everton six-yard box to leave Ramsey with a simple finish.\nThe record signing had a shot deflected behind by Ashley Williams that led to another corner, at which point Arsenal made it 2-0 – Shkodran Mustafi flicking on a delivery from the newly contracted Mesut Ozil for fellow centre-back Koscielny to stoop and convert.\nIt was proving to be a somewhat contrasting debut for Mangala as he turned his back to deflect Ramsey’s 19th-minute drive beyond Pickford’s best efforts.\nMustafi celebrated as if he was the latest man to get on the scoresheet when his flying challenge denied Theo Walcott a breakaway goal on his return to Emirates Stadium.\nScoring start Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Source: Victoria Jones\nIn the 32nd minute it was time for Aubameyang’s counter-attacking pace to come to the fore, with Ozil’s ball over the top releasing him, but England goalkeeper Pickford stood firm.\nHaving gone for power on that occasion, the Gabon striker delighted with sumptuous finesse to chip home his maiden Premier League goal – his link-up with Mkhitaryan proving fruitful once more.\nArsenal left-back Nacho Monreal almost prolonged his recent goalscoring form by heading against the post before a disorientated Everton made hastily for the dressing room.\nWalcott had a shot blocked before curling in a delightful cross for Oumar Niasse to hit the upright, meaning the visitors’ rally early in the second half was as impressive as it was futile.\nAllardyce decided Walcott had given enough on his old stomping ground after the hour and replacement Calvert-Lewin outjumped fellow substitute Sead Kolasinac to plant a header past Petr Cech.\nThe veteran goalkeeper soon made way for David Ospina, having failed to shake off a knock from when Niasse tested his post.\nAnd the new shot stopper was given even more insurance 16 minutes from time when the on-rushing Ramsey slammed home Mkhitaryan’s cutback.\nSixth-placed Arsenal are now within three points of Tottenham in fifth, while Everton being 14 back from the Gunners in 10th seems an inadequate demonstration of the gulf between the sides.\nThe42 is on Instagram! Tap the button below on your phone to follow us!", "London, United Kingdom | AFP | Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger may be forced to wait before handing club record signing Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang his debut after the Gabon striker missed training on Friday due to illness.\nAubameyang joined the Gunners from Borussia Dortmund in a £56 million ($79 million, 63 million euros) switch on Wednesday, but may be forced to sit out Saturday’s visit of Everton.\n“Aubameyang was sick, so we will assess him,” said Wenger on Friday.\nArsenal are hoping Aubameyang can reignite his prolific partnership with former Dortmund teammate Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who also joined from Manchester United last month as part of the deal that took Alexis Sanchez to Old Trafford.\nAn unusually busy transfer window for Wenger also saw Olivier Giroud join Chelsea, while Theo Walcott could quickly come back to haunt the side he played with for over a decade when he returns to the Emirates in an Everton shirt.\nOut-of-favour Chelsea striker Michy Batshuayi joined Dortmund to complete a striker swap triangle between the two London sides and the German giants.\n“It was difficult because of course Dortmund needed a replacement,” added Wenger on the drawn-out deal for Aubameyang.\n“It was a cryptic deal because Giroud went to Chelsea and Batshuayi went to Dortmund. That is why it was short in time and tense until the end.”\nA frantic few days was rounded off when German playmaker Mesut Ozil ended speculation over his future by signing a new three-year deal on Thursday.\n“Many predicted Ozil would not commit but it is good news for Arsenal,” said Wenger.\n“The fact you can keep a player of that calibre is good news.”\nHowever, Wenger admitted he didn’t get all he wished for in the January window as Arsenal’s leaky defence went unstrengthened despite persistent rumours of a bid for West Brom’s Jonny Evans.\nNo side in the top eight of the Premier League has conceded more goals than Arsenal’s 34 this season and their defensive frailties were again clear as they lost 3-1 at relegation threatened Swansea on Tuesday night.\n“I couldn’t do everything. I wanted to do more,” added Wenger.\n“Our defensive numbers are not good enough. That’s where we needed some possible strengthening as well.\n“We have to improve our defensive numbers. We want to go in the top four. We have to improve our offensive numbers and defensive numbers.”", "Britain Football Soccer - Arsenal v Manchester City - Premier League - Emirates Stadium - 2/4/17 Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola and Manchester City's Sergio Aguero speak to referee Andre Marriner at full time Action Images via Reuters / John Sibley Livepic\nLONDON Manchester City's 2-2 draw at Arsenal has prompted faint title talk from the visitors' camp, but their Emirates Stadium stalemate only exposed the enduring frailties that persist with Pep Guardiola's side.\nTwice City took the lead, through Leroy Sane and Sergio Aguero, but twice they were pegged back as Arsenal equalised through Theo Walcott and Shkodran Mustafi.\nWhile City can move within eight points of Premier League leaders Chelsea with a win at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday, their inability to kill off troubled Arsenal suggests Guardiola has his work cut out to cultivate a side that can mount a challenge for the title, let alone eclipse Chelsea this season.\nDefensively, City were regularly troubled by an Arsenal attacking unit that have themselves flattered to deceive in recent fixtures.\nGuardiola praised stand-in right back Jesus Navas, who applied himself manfully despite the ominous prospect of a tussle with Alexis Sanchez, though the City winger's cameo in defence only served to highlight the paucity of options.\n\"I played him because Bacary Sagna was injured and Pablo Zabaleta were not ready,\" Guardiola told Sky Sports. \"Jesus always deserves the best because he is an excellent guy and I was so happy with him.\"\nFit-again club captain Vincent Kompany remained on the bench despite being available and cut a frustrated figure watching his team mates toil defensively.\nCity have conceded 32 league goals this season - 11 more than second-placed Tottenham Hotspur, nine more than Chelsea - and the backline requires a significant overhaul this summer.\nGuardiola has crafted a sleek offensive unit but, after a breathless opening 15 minutes at The Emirates, they appeared to ease off as their intensity levels dropped and they allowed Arsenal back into the match.\nCity only reasserted themselves after Walcott poked home an equaliser, and were unable to rouse themselves in the second half to push on and secure all three points.\n\"We didn't play in the first half,\" Guardiola conceded, \"after the goal we forgot to play, the desire went.\n\"In the second half we played more. We suffered a lot in the first half because we did not make those passes together.\"\nThe match summed up City's maiden season under ex-Barcelona and Bayern Munich coach Guardiola, as they started brightly, dropped off significantly and ultimately lost their way.\nDespite the re-emergence of title talk, the Spanish coach has much to do in order to craft a championship-winning side out of a talented - if flawed - squad.\n(Reporting by Ed Dove; Editing by Ken Ferris)", "Aaron Ramsey hit a hat-trick with Arsenal fans treated to their first showing of their January transfers in tandem as both Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang shone in a comfortable 5-1 win over Everton.\nAaron Ramsey hit a hat-trick with Arsenal fans treated to their first showing of their January transfers in tandem as both Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang shone in a comfortable 5-1 win over Everton.\nAubameyang joined from Borussia Dortmund on deadline day for a club-record fee, uniting with his former team-mate Mkhitaryan who had come in earlier in the window from Manchester United in a swap deal for Alexis Sanchez.\nRamsey would go on to shine alongside his all-star team-mates as he hit his first career hat-trick with the Gunners wrapping up a well-deserved win. The new arrivals needed just six minutes to have an impact as the pair combined to allow Ramsey to tap in the opening goal of the contest.\nLaurent Koscielny added the second and Ramsey struck again before close friends Mkhitaryan and Aubameyang combined as the latter scored on his debut – albeit from an offside position. Substitute Dominic Calvert-Lewin pulled one back for Sam Allardyce, who will want to forget his 500th Premier League game as a manager in a hurry, before Ramsey completed his hat-trick with a fine strike.\nMesut Ozil, challenged by Gunners boss Arsene Wenger to become the leader of his side after opting to sign a new deal at the Emirates Stadium, was involved in the first goal. He laid a pass in to Aubameyang, who freed Mkhitaryan to cross low for Ramsey to tuck home from close-range for his first goal since October.\nMkhitaryan had looked a little lost as he came off the bench to make his debut in defeat at Swansea but he soon found his feet here, flashing a shot inches wide of Jordan Pickford’s right-hand post as Arsenal went in search of a second. The home fans were not made to wait too long.\nA 14th-minute Ozil corner was flicked on by Shkodran Mustafi and Koscielny arrived in front of Aubameyang to send a diving header past Pickford.\nAs with the recent home win over Crystal Palace, the early goals kept on coming for the Gunners, as Ramsey scored his second with a long-range shot which deflected off Everton debutant Eliaquim Mangala.\nEverton had offered very little until the returning Theo Walcott latched onto a simple through ball which split the under-fire Arsenal defence and set him away, only for Shkodran Mustafi to make a late block. Aubameyang showed his blistering pace soon after as he left the Everton defence for dead to latch onto a sumptuous Ozil throughball, only to run wide and fire in a low shot which Pickford saved. The Gabon striker did score his first Arsenal goal with a deft chip from Mkhitaryan’s pass, although he should have been flagged offside.\nThe onslaught continued and only the post prevented Nacho Monreal heading in his third goal in as many league games with the Everton defence all over the place.\nAllardyce switched to a back four for the second half and it almost paid dividends as Walcott’s low cross was turned onto the post by Oumar Niasse. Walcott’s unhappy return ended when he was replaced by Calvert-Lewin, who then headed home past Petr Cech before the Arsenal goalkeeper limped off. Ramsey would complete his hat-trick courtesy of another Mkhitaryan assist as Arsenal’s superb home form continues in stark contrast to their away showings.\nPress Association", "Arsenal won 5-2 at Everton on Oct. 22\nEverton last won at Arsenal in Jan. 1996\nArsenal leads all-time 104W-45D-60L\nArsenal’s newly-flipped squad hosts hopeful Everton as the marquee match-up of Saturday’s Premier League action at 12:30 p.m. ET (Watch live on NBC and online via NBCSports.com).\nTheo Walcott returns to Arsenal for the first time since Everton bought him, bringing the fine form of a brace against Leicester City.\n“He’ll be doing the team talk tomorrow,” said Everton boss Sam Allardyce. “I think he is looking forward to it. I am sure he will get a good reception when he goes back to the Emirates considering the time he spent there.\n“Everyone can understand why he has left because now he has the opportunity to be one of the key players for Everton now. I think he saw that was going to be the case (for Arsenal) last season when he played 30-plus games and scored 19 goals. Then all of a sudden this season that hasn’t been the case, but he can be a pivotal figure for us in the future. Hopefully he can go and perform as well as he did on Wednesday night.”\nHaving passed one big test with that win over the Foxes, Allardyce hopes to prove himself as capable of leading Everton higher up the table with a trip to the Emirates Stadium.\nWATCH LIVE, ONLINE, HERE\nHenrikh Mkhitaryan will start while Pierre-Emerick Aubemeyang and Jack Wilshere are both hopeful of playing despite sickness.\nAllardyce says Eliaquim Mangala, on loan from Man City, could play down the left for Everton.\nThe Toffees are now eight points clear of the drop zone and 11 behind sixth place Arsenal, who themselves have slipped eight points behind the Top Four.\nWhat they’re saying\nArsenal’s Arsene Wenger on Mesut Ozil’s new deal: “He has committed his future to the club in a period where we are in a trick position on that front, in qualifying for the Champions League. You expect that he becomes the leader and takes the responsibility to lead the team to success.”\nEverton’s Michael Keane on building on Leicester win: ““It’s a big confidence boost. It was a massive game against Leicester because we had to get ourselves away from the pack behind us, as they were creeping up on us. We feel we can go to Arsenal and play with a bit more freedom. We will go there to win the game and there is no reason why we can’t. Swansea showed this week that Arsenal can be beaten. We will go there confident after Wednesday and hopefully we can pick up some points.”\nPrediction\nWalcott gets involved in an Everton goal, but so does Mkhitaryan. It finishes 2-2.\nFollow @NicholasMendola", "Arsene Wenger praised Olivier Giroud's scorpion kick goal, as well as Arsenal's overall performance.\nLONDON -- Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has criticised the Premier League's holiday fixture schedule, calling it \"absolutely unbelievable\" that leaders Chelsea get more rest than other teams.\nArsenal travel to Bournemouth on Tuesday just two days after hosting Crystal Palace at home on Sunday, while most teams that played on Saturday also had games on Monday. However, Chelsea -- who are nine points ahead of the third-place Gunners -- were given three days' rest between Saturday's win over Stoke and Wednesday's key clash at Tottenham.\n\"It is, in 20 years, the most uneven Christmas period I have seen on the fixture front,\" said Wenger, who took the Arsenal job in 1996. \"The difference in rest periods is absolutely unbelievable.\"\nWenger's situation is made worse by Mesut Ozil's illness and short-term injuries to Theo Walcott and Kieran Gibbs that forced all three out of Sunday's 2-0 win over Palace and could limit his ability to rotate the squad unless they recover quickly. However, Arsenal were boosted by the return of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain from a hamstring problem, and the midfielder could be among a handful of changes to Wenger's starting XI at Bournemouth.\nAaron Ramsey, Francis Coquelin and Shkodran Mustafi could also start after being on the bench against Palace.\n\"We go now into another game in 48 hours with a big handicap in our fixtures, and I have to try to find some fresh legs,\" Wenger said.\nSam Allardyce was dissatisfied with his club's carelessness with the ball in Crystal Palace's defeat to Arsenal.\nPalace boss Sam Allardyce also complained about the tight scheduling, saying that \"I don't know who does the fixtures, but he really needs sacking.\"\nWenger, however, said there was no point in complaining to the Premier League as it's the TV rights holders who select the games they want to broadcast live.\n\"Honestly, I don't know any more if the Premier League masters the fixtures,\" Wenger said. \"We have sold the rights to the television for a lot of money so we have to accept that the television chooses the games.\n\"But I must say on that front, some teams have a bit more luck than others. We are privileged in our job, we get a lot of money to play football and it is part of it. But sometimes it goes for you, sometimes against you.\"\nMattias is ESPN FC's Arsenal correspondent. Follow him on Twitter: @MattiasKaren.", "Arsenal coasted to victory against Everton thanks to a hat-trick from Aaron Ramsey and goals from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Laurent Koscielny.\nThe Gunners had victory wrapped up after 20 minutes thanks to Ramsey’s brace that started with an early goal assisted by Henrikh Mkhitaryan on his full Arsenal debut.\nIt was Theo Walcott’s return to the Emirates after making his January move to Goodison Park and the winger was the catalyst for the limited amount of Everton attacks.\nSam Allardyce’s side were abject from the start and only three tackles inside the first 45 minutes. In the build-up to the game, the Everton boss said he was looking for more consistency from his team following the midweek win against Leicester City but the only consistent pattern he got from his side was the Blues' inability to trouble teams away from home.\nDominic Calvert-Lewin headed home for the Blues with half an hour to go but it was little more than a consolation as Ramsey would complete his hat-trick.\nGunners romp to first-half lead\nThe hosts got started after six minutes with the Welsh midfielder getting the first of his three goals.\nMesut Özil flicked the ball wide to Mkhitaryan who played a ball across the Everton 18-yard-box. The waiting and unmarked Ramsey poked home past Jordan Pickford to give the Gunners the lead.\nThe Armenian, desperate for a goal for his new side, drilled a shot just wide of Pickford’s post minutes after the hosts take the lead.\nHowever, the Gunners doubled their lead less than 10 minutes later.\nÖzil's corner was flicked on by Shkodran Mustafi and following a number of errors from the Everton back-line with Ashley Williams failing to win the header, Cuco Martina failing to clear and Eliaquim Mangala asleep, Koscielny was able to head home and double the visitors lead.\nThe German was left unmarked again on the left-hand side and teed up Alex Iwobi. The youngsters played in Ramsey and the Welshman was allowed to shoot from 25 yards.\nHis shot deflected off the debutant Mangala, wrongfooting Pickford and trebled the Gunners lead as the ball settles in the net behind the ‘keeper.\nJanuary signing Aubameyang, on his debut, got his first in Arsenal red 10 minutes before half-time. He was played in by his former Dortmund team-mate Mkhitaryan and despite being in an offside position, lifted the ball over a beaten Pickford.\nBlues better but beaten\nEverton started the second-half much brighter than the first with Tom Davies replacing Michael Keane and Allardyce changing his system to accommodate more in midfield.\nThe former England boss' attempt to play three in defence - after making five changes from midweek - had failed and was epitomised by a litany of errors from Keane, Mangala and Williams.\nDavies' introduction gave the Blues an added boost of energy and he helped create chances for Walcott and Oumar Niasse but the Everton attack was unable to capitalise.\nNiasse, cutting a lone figure up front, hit the post shortly after the half-time break but like Wednesday's win, he was unable to find the back of the net.\nThe returning Walcott was replaced by Calvert-Lewin and the young forward had an almost instant impact.\nHe headed home from Martina's cross but it was little more than the Blues salvaging a sliver of pride following their abject performance.\nRamsey completes his hat-trick\nThe Gunners answered back almost instantly when Ramsey, who was set to be replaced, again slotted home and low from a perfectly weighted ball from Mkhitaryan and completed his hat-trick.\nRamsey was replaced, to a standing ovation, by Jack Wilshere shortly after as the day belonged to the Welshman.", "Melanie Sykes, 47, showcases incredible figure – and fans are envious The TV presenter flaunted her toned body while practising yoga by the poolside\nMelanie Sykes looks incredible! The 47-year-old TV presenter showcased her enviable figure in a new photograph posted on Instagram on Monday. The snap saw Melanie practice her yoga moves in front of a pool, dressed in a pink crop top and matching shorts, which showcased her rock-hard abs. Melanie told her followers that she had spent the last 20 minutes following an online yoga programme, but that she had been suffering from hay fever as a result. While some fans were quick to give her tips on how to cure it, others were quick to comment on her toned appearance. One wrote: \"You look amazing Mel,\" while another said: \"You look so good!\" A third added: \"Strong lady, gorgeous snap too! Hope you're well Mel!\"\nMelanie Sykes showcased her toned physique as she practiced yoga\nIn the past, Melanie – a mum to sons Roman, 16, and Valentino, 13 – has spoken out about her love of fitness. As well as yoga, the star is also a fan of running and Pilates classes, and she makes sure to exercise regularly. She told Fit & Well magazine: \"There are so many women in that age group that don't wear vests because of the tops of their arms. I'd rather work out and wear what I want. It's been a huge confidence and mood booster. It's made the transition into my 40s a lot easier.\"\nRELATED: Melanie Sykes poses topless to encourage fans to go for a health check\nThe TV presenter has been encouraging fans to stay fit and active\nEarlier in the month, Melanie urged her followers to stay active in a motivational Instagram post. The mum-of-two made a bold stand and posted a topless picture of herself to encourage people to go for regular breast cancer checks. She wrote in the caption that she was off to get a mammogram and ultrasound, later updating the post to say she had been given the all clear. The disease is especially close to home for Melanie, whose mum is a breast cancer survivor. The star also wrote about the shocking statistics, saying: \"It's a crazy fact that in the UK 1 in 8 women will get breast cancer at some point in their lives.\"\nRELATED: Melanie Sykes shows off gym-honed physique in sizzling bikini snap\nMelanie went on to urge people to get active and increase their heart rate to help prevent their risk of developing breast cancer. Suggesting a way to keep fit, she said: \"So to get you all revved up @BreastCancerUK virtual #50kmyway is a great way to build up a fitness habit. You can break it up with as many runs, jogs and walks as you need over the month of June. Tell your mums, sisters and girlfriends, better still sign up with them today and together get moving.\"", "He formed a close bond with road manager Carl Machin seven years ago.\nAnd Peter Andre, 44, and his gorgeous wife Emily MacDonagh, 27, were guests of honour at the music boss' wedding to bride Emily Obradovic earlier this month, posing for a cute picture during the ceremony on the Greek island of Kefalonia.\nThe couple revealed that the beautiful nuptials reminded them of their own 2015 wedding day, bringing tears to their eyes.\nScroll down for video\nWedding bells: Peter Andre, 44, and his gorgeous wife Emily MacDonagh, 27, were guests of honour at his road manager Carl Machin's wedding to bride Emily Obradovic on the Greek island of Kefalonia earlier this month\nPete told OK! magazine: 'It brought back memories of our wedding. I knew what Carl was going through – that moment when we were pronounced man and wife was such an incredible moment.\n'Seeing both their families together reminded me of our families being with us on our wedding day. It was a beautiful day.’\nEmily said: ‘When you see another wedding, you always think of your own. I’ve been going through all the pictures from our wedding and it’s just so lovely looking at them all.\nEmotional: The pair both cried during the ceremony, with Emily explaining, ‘When you see another wedding, you always think of your own'\n'I feel very nostalgic. I’ve ordered loads with frames and I’m just waiting for them to arrive so I can put them up around the house.’\nRoad manager Carl previously looked after the likes of Atomic Kitten and has appeared on the Mysterious Girl singer's reality show Peter Andre: My Life in the past.\nPete enthused: ‘Carl is such a good, kind-hearted soul who goes above and beyond for people.\nPete joked: 'I did shed a tear. But mine was definitely because of the sand!’\n'It was also especially gratifying to see him get married after all the grief he used to give me for being in a relationship, and now three years later he’s married!\nRead all about it: Peter and Emily tell all in the new issue of OK! magazine\n'I did shed a tear. But mine was definitely because of the sand!’\nEmily added: ‘We both cried, we’re both a bit soppy. Carl’s not a very soppy guy, so when we saw him getting emotional, it made us get emotional.’\nPeter and Emily tied the knot at Mamhead House in Exeter two years ago.\nShowman Pete grabbed a mic to perform on stage before going on to smash plates on the floor in line with his Greek heritage.\nAfter dancing in to the early hours of the morning, the union ended in true celebratory form with a dazzling array of fireworks.\nThe couple raise children Theo, eight months, Amelia, three and Junior, 11 and Princess, 9, who Peter shares with ex-wife Katie Price, together.\nRead the full story in this week's OK! Magazine - out today.\nFamily ties: The couple raise children Theo, eight months, Amelia, three and Junior, 11 and Princess, 9, who Peter shares with ex-wife Katie Price, together", "Campaigners hailed an 'historic day' at Wimbledon today with more women's matches on show courts as men - but one of Britain's challengers crashed out three days into the tournament.\nNineteen-year-old Katie Swan - who is ranked 204th in the world - was beaten 6-0, 6-3 by 29th-seeded Mihaela Buzarnescu of Romania after she was given a wild-card entry to the tennis tournament.\nDavid Beckham's son Romeo, TV presenter Melanie Sykes, Michael and Carole Middleton and celebrity chefs Michel Roux Jr and Marcus Wareing were among the famous faces in the crowd at the All England club in SW19.\nMrs Middleton was seen chatting to Spanish footballer Gerard Pique while Lady Gabriella Windsor and Lord Frederick Windsor were in the royal box.\nBut the attending celebrities and players were plagued by flying ants, which have infested parts of the club in the hot weather.\nCaroline Wozniacki complained about the bugs getting in her mouth, ears and hair to the umpire during her match with Ekaterina Makarova, saying: 'You want to focus on playing tennis and not eating bugs.'\nAt Wimbledon today, British hope Katie Swan's run was emphatically ended by 29th seed Mihaela Buzarnescu\nNineteen-year-old Swan won a main-draw match for the first time at the All England Club on Monday but found Romanian Buzarnescu just too good\nSwan did not manage to win a game until the start of the second set and her hopes of a comeback were ended when Buzarnescu wrapped up a 6-0 6-3 victory\nShe later tweeted: 'Tough one today but overall a great experience. First main draw slam win, first top 50 win & into the top 200 for the first time. Pumped to get back out there for doubles later with @KatieBoulter1 come show us some support !!'\nPlayers were bothered by flying ants invading the pitches, with Denmark's Caroline Wozniacki complaining about the issue\nWozniacki was seen shaking her head on court as flies got in her mouth, ears and hair, before complaining to the umpire\nA number of famous were in the royal box 1. The Duke of Kent 2. Philip Brook 3. Gill Brook 4. Prince Michael of Kent 5. Princess Michael of Kent 6. Lady Gabriella Windsor 7. Lord Frederick Windsor 8. Will Poulter 9. Matt Dawson 10. Carolin Hauskeller 11. Tom Watson 12. Michael Middleton 13. Carole Middleton 14. Gerard Pique 15. Michel Roux Jr\nThe Australian Open champion complained to the chair umpire about the bugs that invaded No. 1 Court after she lost the first set 6-4 against Ekaterina Makarova of Russia. After shaking her head repeatedly on court to get the flying insects out of her hair, the Dane asked for bug spray to be used.\nThat seemed to do the trick - at least when it came to improving her own game. Wozniacki won the second set 6-1 to level the match.\nCrowds witnessed an historic day at the championship as, for the first time in 25 years, there were more women's matches scheduled on the club's six main courts than men.\nEleven women's matches were played on the six main court, compared to 10 men's games. There were four women's games on the two most famous courts, compared to two men's.\nMs Buzarnescu of Romania was the first player to book a place in the third round of the women's singles tournament.\nShe was joined in the third round minutes later by 10th-seeded Madison Keys of the United States, who dispatched Luksika Kumkhum of Thailand 6-4, 6-3.\nBuzarnescu is making her first appearance at the grass-court Grand Slam, having risen from 213th in the rankings a year ago to No. 28.\nMs Swan later tweeted: 'Tough one today but overall a great experience. First main draw slam win, first top 50 win & into the top 200 for the first time. Pumped to get back out there for doubles later with @KatieBoulter1 come show us some support !'\nThe Duchess of Cambridge's parents Carole and Michael Middleton attended the tennis tournament in south-west London\nMrs Middleton was seen chatting to Spanish footballer Gerard Pique, who is the boyfriend of singer Shakira\nTV presenter Melanie Sykes was also at the tournament wearing an elegant purple and white dress\nDavid and Victoria Beckham's son Romeo was also seen among the tennis fans at the event this afternoon\nLady Gabriella Windsor and Lord Frederick Windsor, the children of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, were in the Royal Box\nMade in Chelsea star Oliver Proudlock, who runs his own fashion business, was seen in centre court with a glamorous friend\nDespite the famous faces in the royal box during the first games of the day, it was almost empty when Serena Williams played\nComplaints over Sue Barker being 'sidelined' Tennis fans have complained that long-time Wimbledon presenter Sue Barker is being side-lined over news she is to share hosting coverage of the tournament with Clare Balding. However BBC bosses have reassured viewers that Barker, 62, will remain the 'lead anchor' and the cut in air-time was merely to help the presenter with the demands of the job. But fans complained Balding a regular host on BBC, Channel 4 and BT Sport fronting football, horse racing and athletics is used to often for sports coverage. One viewer posted: 'Clare Balding in place of Sue Barker ? Really no! Can BBC Sport fix it?' Another added: 'Why is Clare Balding doing Wimbledon commentary? Does she have to do all sport?' A source said it was a 'joint decision to share the load' and followed conversations before the tournament.\nMichel Roux Jr and his wife arrived in good spirits before making their way to the members' area.\nFellow Michelin-starred chef - Marcus Wareing - said he was excited for a day of tennis.\nHe added: 'Last time we watched Federer, and we really, really enjoyed that - to see him play was fantastic and it will be nice to watch him again.'\nWareing said he had been up watching England's clash with Colombia in the World Cup and that it was a 'great feeling' to have won.\nElsehere in the tournament, Venus Williams overcame a scare to book her place in the third round.\nThe 2017 runner-up came from a set down to beat Alexandra Dulgheru 4-6 6-0 6-1.\nShe was sloppy in losing the opening set but got her act together, dropping just one game on her way to the three-set success.\nKarolina Pliskova won a Wimbledon battle between former world number ones against Victoria Azarenka.\nThe Czech seventh seed triumphed 6-3 6-3 in the Centre Court opener and kept alive her hopes of a maiden grand slam title.\nAzarenka, who is ranked 87th in the world, is only just getting back to tour action after a custody dispute involving her son. She was competitive throughout the second-round clash, but Pliskova won out in the big moments.\nFormer England rugby player Matt Dawson (centre) was among the stars in the Royal Box in Centre Court\nCrowds were treated to tennis from a number of the games best-known players, including Swiss star Roger Federer\nVictoria Azarenka lost a battle between former world number ones when she was knocked out by Karolina Pliskova\nThe area known as 'Murray Mound' or 'Henman Hill' was packed as crowds enjoyed the 25C (77F) temperatures\nThere was a visible security presence at the tournament, with teams of armed police patrolling the All England Tennis Club" ]

[ "Well Zain boy, it seems you have married to hide your sexual reality. You probably done that to go with the flow of your society. \\n\\nIn my opinion, you have chosen to conceal your needs not to be outed. Therefore you should honor your commitment. \\n\\nThink about your wife and kids. What fault is it of theirs that you should cheat on them simply to satisfy your desire? How would you feel if your wife cheated on you?\\n\\nBe a man and honor your marriage and family." ]

[ "r u sure its not 40 m less, if it is here:\\nLet w=width\\n w+40=length\\nw(w+40)=21^2\\nw^2+40w=441\\nw^2+40w-441=0\\n(w+49)(w-9)=0\\nw=-49 or w=9\\nthe width is 9 m and the length is 13 m", "the sperm is only lower because you are ejaculating so much. The body reproduces it everyday. I don't want you to think you can't have kids or something. i used to do it like four times a day when i was a kid i am married now and i still do it like once a day", "I married my best friend and our sex life is STILL Fabulous after 5 years!", "You should have married before five years. I am the same you are only 9 month 10 days younger then me? I have married 3 years ago. What you are looking for? hurry up Sangeeta? If you want to marry with my friends I will tell them to contact you....? You be married once in a life..feel it and if you do not like it just do not go for it second time!", "A SIG is a heaver gun and cost more. I am thinking of getting a .40 or .45 in the SPRINGFIELD XD, AND ABOUT 1/2 OF the cost of a SIG. I now carry a 9mm TAURUS and it works fine for me. I just want one that is made of polymer. The XD comes in 9mm-.357SIG-.40S&W-.45GAP,and .45ACP...I hope this is some help to you, and as we say at the range KEEP IT IN THE 10 RING.......", "I saw on GMA about a year or so ago, that there are actually more men who want to get married than women. Honestly, I don't want to get married. I have a daughter and don't want any more kids I'm very independent and really don't need a man for anything.", "Do you want middle school girls chugging booze and having multiple sex partners? According to what I am hearing these kids these days do that stuff already.", "I have met individuals of other cultures who were mature enough at 13. On the other hand, I know some 40 something year olds who still behave like they should be learning about dating and relationships without the complications of sex. Personally, I was married 17. I do not recommend this for most other people.", "I myself am not inclined to date a guy more then a year or two younger then me. The stereotype says that young men are immature and while it does have it's truth I think it's more about life experience and I couldn't handle a guy that not on my level. I am not saying relationships with large age gaps don't work, just that I would pass on that scene. On the flip side women are sometimes attracted to older men, again that whole stereotype that older men are more mature. For one that's not always true and in most cases older guys looking for younger women are just using them for sex and half of those guys are still married. I guess what I am trying to say is they have to much baggage. They have been screwed over by too many other women generally and so again not that those relationships don't work out but I have no intention on venturing there either.", "Knew him since I was 15. Got married at 19 and 17 years and 2 kids later we're still happy and together.", "i am not sure if there is a legal age to have sex. f a 2 year old has sex with a 2 year old they wont be arested for it. It is more matter of what age can you have sex with anyone you want(regardless of age) and it be consider consentual. that depens on the state but an 18 year old can have sex with who ever they want to because they are legaly an adult. in my state you have to be with in to years of the age of the person you have sex with( if they are 18 or over) for in mot to be consider stat. rape", "I think there are three forms of sex...there's making love, just sex and downright dirty monkey love (you know what I mean by that). My sister defined the three for me at my coming of age...dirty monkey love (I don't think I can actually use the word on here) is what you do w/ a stranger you pick up and plan to toss aside after one night. Sex is w/ someone you like, and making love is w/ someone you are in love w/. Mostly, women associate sex as an emotional act, and men associate it as a physical act. That's simply how our bodies are wired. From my own experience, after the whole dirty monkey love was over, there was an emptiness there. Wild monkey love, or sex is good every once in a while, but generally men do not get into the whole making love thing. I think it's good to take time with sex...even if there is no actual love involved. Men should take time w/ the woman they're w/ to explore, discover and share. The saying that once you've had one you've had them all isn't true. For men and for women. Men don't bother w/ a whole lot of foreplay. Usually they just stick it in, start going to town, then wonder why the woman isn't getting hers in. Or they just get themselves done, roll over and go to bed. Ever head of the saying 'men are like ovens, they get hot very fast, while women are like crockpots, they take time to get hot.' Hope I've been helpfull.", "I am married. 2 kids. We DO NOT go out socially,at all, ever...\\nYep. It sucks to be me.", "why younger for women than men people?\\n15 is good i mean hell kids are having sex at 10 - 12 now", "I have been w/ my husband for 10 years and I still wouldn't clip his toenails. Not a toenail person.", "My fiance and I have been toghether for 6 years. We know we are going to be together, and I would probably end up losing the ring somewhere anyway.. SERIOUSLY. If he HAD to get me something, I would prefer he spend the money on something we can have or do together, or put the money he would have spent on the ring into savings. Because no one should ever get married until they can support each other. That is what being married is all about. I don't know why all these KIDS are getting married, but they are living with their parents, or having to call home for money, or having kids...it makes no sense. My sister got married 2 years ago, had a big wedding, and now she is divorced. We have been toghether for 6 years, and we are still together. We just finished college two years ago, and will not be married until we are in a financially stable position to be married.", "I am still a virgin, because I am not married. It annoys me so much that people now think that marriage is an option before having sex.", "Humans are the only Animal who can enjoy Sex as much as the want, So enjoy Sex. I m ready to marry You.", "it is an orientation issue because if you legally change your sex then you are entitled to all of the same rights as a person of that sex you have become.\\nif 2 men want to get married and one of those men legally becomes a woman then legally they are able to get married because it is then seen that they are a heterosexual couple (in the broadest sense of the term).\\nto be more specific, i would say that it's more of a legal issue rather than an orientation of gender issue but in the context of your question i would have to side with orientation.", "It's sad to see girls who put getting a boyfriend up there in such high an importance as school work.\\n\\nIf I were you, I would take a hard look at what you want out of life. High school is an important foundation for building on a career. What do you want to do in life, what are you good at, and what do you like?\\n\\nWhat courses are you having problems with, and how can you improve them?\\n\\nI did not have a boyfriend in High School. I liked math and science, and focused on these type of subjects. I took electrical engineering in University.\\n\\nIt was hard, it was lonely but my family helped me through it. I got a job and moved away. When I got to my new city, I mixed in singles groups. I met a guy, we dated for 2 years, got married. I'm now 40, I have a son, and we've been married for 13 years. I have a rewarding job, making good money, and I am happy. But most of all, I am PROUD of myself. \\n\\nI've been happy for 15 years with the same guy, and that's almost twice as long as the 8 years I went to High School and University. Who knows what my life would have been if I chased young immature stupid boys in High School? My man is also an engineer, and is just as intelligent as I am.", "No, absolutely not. The entitled to 1/2 rule applies only to married couples and surprisingly enough it only applies after you've been married 10 yrs. Of course people married less than 10 years can still have battles over entitlement to property especially if they've acquired a lot during the course of a marriage or had children. As far as an unmarried couple though, neither of you is entitled to half of anything. You leave the relationship with what you went into it with.", "It's up to you and your boyfriend/girlfriend. I was married when I was 18 and now I am 20. My husband and I decided not to have sex before we got married. I know that some people regret having sex before they are married becasue it causes problems in their future relationships. But this is what worked for us. You would have to talk it over with your sigificant other to decide what will work for you.", "Been there, done that. I was 17 when I got married, I am now 34 and yes, we are still married. I had my son when I was 19, my daughter when I was 20 and my other daughter when I was 22. My hubby had a career when we got together but since he was still young(he was 20) he still had more he wanted to do with his life. More dreams he wanted to accomplish. I loved him and wanted him to be succesful and do his thing so that his dreams could come true and I figured it was all ok because I would take care of the kids and the house. I figured I could go back to school later. We struggled, financially and emotionally. We loved each other(and still do) and thought that was all we needed to get us through.I got a job to help with the bills and tried to take a class at the local community college. It was hard working full time all day, going to class twice aweek at night doing homework, keeping up with the house work and trying to find time to spend with hubby and the kids. The kids spent alot of time with a sitter(she was good but a sitter is not mom) It was exhausting. I finished my class and decided to wait until he was finished with all his schooling and until I had more time and money.\\nIt's funny how when you don't live your dreams at the right time, and think that you can do it later, later never comes.\\nLife got in the way so I never went back to school. My kids are teenagers now and we aren't rich, sometimes we still struggle financially. I still want to go back to school but I know that in 3 years my son will be graduating from high school so I am saving MY education money so he can go to college and so his sister can the year after that.Then 2 years after her, my youngest will need the funds to go to college. They will all go to college because I don't want them to be where I am right now. Not regretting that I got married, especially to the guy I am with, but , wishing I had waited until I had done the things that needed to be done to make me feel accomplished. I could have had more to offer my children, ( more time with them, the ease of knowing that the electric will always be on instead of them having to worry about things like that). I'm not gonna tell you not to get married, that's a decision you will have to make on yur own. I will tell you though, to think it over, in a mature fashion, without your feelings for your guy getting in the way. Think about the things you need to do for you, what you want out of life. Think about your future children and how you want to live. Then make your decision. \\nDon't be 34 and wishing you had done things differently. \\nThere's only one road in life and it is a one way road going forward. You can't go back to change things, so, make your choices count.", "i knew there was something i wanted to do this morning. i saw this question last night was excited about answering it but used up my alotment... anyway, YES, in fact i have that exact same dream! whats up w/ that. i'm out of school 40 yrs now and about once a year i find myself anxiously roaming the crowded halls of rsvlt high hopelessly trying to find my next class. i,m usually on the 1st floor near the stairs thinking i have to go up, but i'm confused, dont know what period it is or which rm to go to ... hmm now that ive actualy written it down i think i have some ideas on whats going on here.. how cathartic! thank you .. send me your bill......", "Teenagers should NOT get married. They are incapable of knowing what its like in the REAL world. and a marriage is hard enough for adults, what makes a teenager think they can handle it. Rent,mortgage,food,phone bills,electric bills,gas bills,unexpected things that pop up. Kids do not understand what interest is, or what happens if you send late payments, what about kids. I assume if the moronic kids wanna get married then they are going to have a kid pretty soon, that adds more stress into the equation. What about health insurance, life insurance, Can a 16 year old handle that? Also a side thought, is this 16 year old marrying another 16 year old or an older person who promises to take care of them. BULLSh!* Dirty old men will only use them and get another young girl when she gets too old to play with.", "After talking to men, I realized that they want to be sexually involved as soon as possible, but they do NOT respect you if you give in too fast. My husband said that If I would have slept with him on the first date he would not have married me, and a friend's boyfriend said that men do not respect easy women, but they do take advantage of their easyness. It seems all too unfair, since they are falling over themselves to get into your pants, that if you give them what they want they do not like you as a person! I for one, am not easy and have only had one partner. I hope that more women learn that being easy just gets them std's.", "Notice how the two comments that say to stick with white are both from guys. \\nA lot of people think white has to be used because it is tradition, blah blah blah. Just do whatever you want. \\nI am getting married and I am considering something different also. I thought about pink, but now I am thinking about red or burgundy. It doesn't matter. \\nIf you still want to get married in white, maybe you can choose a white dress with some pink designs or flowers on it. \\nI am having two weddings, one w/a judge, and one in Mexico. So I have two options. \\nYou can also wear a nice white dress for the ceremony and later on change into a fabolous pink dress.\\n\\nGOOD LUCK!", "are you asking if someone has had sex before getting married in general? or are you asking if someone has had sex before marriage with the person s/he are married to? or are you asking if someone has lost their virginity to the one person they are married to? those are all very different questions and have very different answers with different meanings.\\n\\ni can say- yes, yes and no. i am very happy i did not marry the guy i lost my virginity to. i was too young and dumb. i am glad that i have had some experience before i met my current husband. do i wish i had waited until marriage to my husband to have sex, not necessarily. but i do wish i had waited a lot longer. \\n\\ni am happy that my husband and i lived together and loved together BEFORE marriage. we were married a little over a year after we met. we've been together several years now. the marriage is AWESOME, our sex life is great (7+ times a week- no lie). but we were not virgins when we met, but we did have sex out of wedlock and became married. it all depends on your heart's intent, level of religiousness (interpretation) and commitment level. it CAN and DOES work (against my strict protestant upbringing)!", "Has this really been a good year for NHS? I used to work for them, too many manager positions, not enough employees, today's Evening Standard newspaper wrote that 10 000 student nurses will not have nursing jobs after they graduate. What is this.. 40% of senior nurses would resign if they could. Me too, I'd love to do something else.", "Well it's not a modern world issue for one - it's a human nature issue. I have had a girlfriend w/o sex and been in love, etc. It's a matter of being open and honest about what you want with that person. I actually wish more women were open to have friendships w/o worrying about getting in to the relationship thing. However, I'd love to have a good relationship, including sex, with someone because that's a need I have also. Don't have the expectation that guys however go w/o sex and necessarily like it. Most guys do but it's not to take advantage. We have icomprehensible drives. They are incredibly strong and overwhelming.\\n\\nI don't want to get married for the wrong reasons either - I think most people are on the same page with you. \\n\\nThe modern world gives you more options than ever because you can define the relationships you want with the guys you know and they're all more open to suggestions, instead of just date - marry - or not - period. Just go for more intelligent types of guys.", "(NO)I,M a P.I. AND I HAVE TRYED TO FIND A WAY TO GET FREE RELIABLE INFORMATION SEARCH ON UNLISTED PEOPLE, I HAVENT FOUND ONE.YOUR GOING TO HAVE TO PAY AROUND 40 TO 100 DOLLARS A YEAR, OR AROUND $10 FOR A ONE TIME RELIABLE INFORMATION SEARCH ON A PERSON.I USE A GREAT SOURCE,BUT I PAY $90 A YEAR.GOOD LUCK.", "No, they are accurate. Sorry, even back then 9 was still to young to have sex and 6 was WAY too young to get married. I am thinking the age was 11 or 12 to be considered an adult and be married." ]

[ "La La Land Math: Are the Dodgers Really Worth $2.15 Billion? Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles (Reuters) Mired in financial distress and a messy ownership divorce, the Los Angeles Dodgers and their aging stadium were estimated to be worth about $800 million a year ago. That valuation from Forbes surged to $1.4 billion this month as the club looked to clean up on a new TV deal." ]

[ "The skinny. The Dodgers are caught in the middle of legal battle between owner Frank McCourt and his estranged wife, Jamie, a former executive with the team. McCourt may have to sell the Dodgers if he cannot come up with the money to buy out Jamie, who thinks the team is worth more than $1 billion.", "This team is best remembered as it was described in Roger Kahn's acclaimed book, The Boys of Summer.. Following the 1957 season, the team left Brooklyn. In just their second season in Los Angeles, the Dodgers won their second Worl. Los Angeles Dodgers Net Worth, 4.0 out of 5 based on 1 rating.", "Dodgers sold to Magic Johnson's group. Dodgers sold to Magic Johnson's group. GLENDALE, Ariz. -- A deal has been struck between the Dodgers and legendary Laker Magic Johnson's bidding group for the Dodgers and Dodger Stadium for $2 billion, the club announced on Tuesday night. The purchase price is the highest amount ever paid for a North American sports franchise.", "(USA TODAY Sports). Time Warner Cable is expected to lose $1 billion in its messy dea l involving the Los Angeles Dodgers ' television rights, according to the New York Post. The company acquired the right to air Dodgers' games on SportsNet LA in 2013. The reported contract was worth $8.35 billion over 25 years.", "In fact, both these teams should be! The LA Dodgers, who inked a 25-year $8.35 billion TV deal with Time Warner Cable in 2013, make it in the top nine, while the final team to make up the ten is the Washington Redskins, who are worth $2.4 billion.", "Trump was a Vietnam draft dodger, Kuby said. PunditFact decided it was worth taking a closer look at what the term draft dodger actually means, and whether Trump's actions fit the definition. Read the whole story here.", "Los Angeles Dodgers. Franchise player Yasiel Puig may be scared of thunderstorms, but it doesn't seem to be hurting the team's $2 billion valuation. 5. Dallas Cowboys Though he may be polarizing, Jerry Jones owns the most valuable NFL team, worth $2.3 billion.", "Dodgers is a shortened form of Trolley Dodgers what fans of the Dodgers were called because they had to Dodge the trolleys that crisscrossed Brooklyn in the early 20th century.", "What is Jennifer Beals Net Worth? Jennifer Beals was born in Illinois and has an estimated net worth of $6 million dollars. An actress and model, Jennifer Beals shot to fame after being plucked out of Yale University to star in the film, Flashdance. She has appeared in multiple other projects including, Rodger Dodger, The Book of Eli, and the television series, The L Word.", "Thus, due to its highest earning, this team has found its place in the top 10 list of richest sport team in world. 5. Los Angeles Dodgers: – This team has a net worth of $2 billion and is the richest team that is located in California, Los Angeles.", "Turner: Dodgers were on the top of my list Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner joins Mason & Ireland to talk about re-signing with the Dodgers, his role with the team and what Vin Scully meant to him. about 90 days ago.", "But Wednesday was... 1 Dodgers put Logan Forsythe on disabled list because of broken toe. 2 Dodgers suffer painful loss to the Rockies, 4-3, and a Justin Turner scare. 3 Survey: Dodgers pass Lakers as L.A.'s favorite team. As Rich Hill continues to throw, Dodgers unsure about what's causing his 1 blister. Dodgers. 2 Dodgers. Dodgers.", "The Dodgers cut the price of some club-level seats but raised every other price, generally in the range of 10% to 25%. Prices that ranged from $5 to $120 this year will range from $8 to $150 next year. David Siegel, the Dodgers' vice president of ticket sales, said the team maintains the lowest prices of any of the major pro sports teams in Los Angeles.", "If the Dodgers' new mascot isn't actually a mascot, then what is it? The Los Angeles Dodgers showed off their new mascot at the team’s home opener this week. Except the big-headed fellow in a Dodgers jersey isn’t a mascot. Or so they claim. From LATimes.com: “It’s not a mascot,” said Dodgers executive vice president of marketing Lon Rosen.", "Whats the largest crowd ever to attend a Dodgers game? The largest crowd to attend a Dodgers game at Dodgers Stadium was 57,099 on April 13, 2009. It was the Dodgers' home opener against their longtime rivals, the San Francisco Gi…ants. Los Angeles won the game 11-1.", "Somehow, though, the ESPN survey has managed to pull together 2014 data for the CFL's teams, and there are some interesting results in it. Dodgers' avg salary is $8 mill/yr, highest among U.S. pro teams.", "Dodgers sale Dodgers owners through the years. March 27, 2012 9:58 p.m. Ending months of uncertainty for the storied but troubled baseball franchise, a group led by Lakers legend Magic Johnson emerged Tuesday night as the new owners of the Dodgers. The winning group agrees to $2 billion for the team — a record for a sports franchise.", "The Dodgers are a distant second with an estimated value of $2.4 billion. The Yankees generated an estimated $508M in revenue last year — the Dodgers were again second at $403M — again the most in baseball, though their $8.1M operating income ranked only 22nd out of the 30 clubs. The Cardinals ($73.6M), Cubs ($73.3M), and World Series champion Giants ($68.4M) had by far the highest operating incomes.", "The Los Angeles Dodgers and Major League Baseball announced today that they have agreed to a court-supervised process to sell the team and its attendant media rights in a manner designed to realize maximum value for the Dodgers and their owner Frank McCourt.", "Mike Piazza Net Worth is $80 Million. Mike Piazza was born in Pennsylvania and has an estimated net worth of $80 million dollars. A former professional baseball player, Mike Piazza was a successful catcher for the L.A. Dodgers, the Florida Marlins,. Michael Joseph Piazza ( /pi:'...", "Dodgers Hats '47 Dodgers Hats; New Era Baseball Dodgers Hats; Men's '47 Dodgers Hats '47 Curved Brim Dodgers Hats '47 Baseball Dodgers Hats", "Los Angeles Dodgers Tickets Information. The Los Angeles Dodgers average ticket price for regular season MLB games remained relatively consistent between 2011-2015 before surging in 2016. The Los Angeles Dodgers recent success has has definitely been reflected in ticket prices as the team saw a 94% increase from 2015 to 2016. The average ticket price for the Los Angeles Dodgers regular season MLB tickets for 2016 is currently at $35, which is almost double 2015’s average ticket price of $18.", "Dodgers sold to Magic Johnson group. NEW YORK -- One Los Angeles institution is buying another. A group that includes former Los Angeles Lakers star Magic Johnson and longtime baseball executive Stan Kasten agreed Tuesday night to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers from Frank McCourt for a record $2 billion.", "The Dodgers cut the price of some club-level seats but raised every other price, generally in the range of 10% to 25%. Prices that ranged from $5 to $120 this year will range from $8 to $150 next year.", "I have not seen this yet. I plan to order it as soon as possible. What I was originally looking for the HBO Documentary on The Brooklyn Dodgers. This was a gift for my son-in-law, a Brooklyn native and a lover of the original Brooklyn Dodgers.", "The Mets fretted and fumed as the Dodgers scored the game-tying run in National League Division Series Game 2, a 5-2 Dodgers victory that evened this best-of-five series at one game apiece. With all that as a backdrop, so much of what unfolded late Saturday night at Dodger Stadium remained shrouded in confusion.", "Los Angeles Dodgers Gear; Los Angeles Dodgers Men; Los Angeles Dodgers Men Caps 215 items", "The Dodgers are on the rise once again, and GoTickets.com has your Los Angeles Dodgers tickets for every game at Dodger Stadium, plus spring training tickets. Put on your Dodger blue and order your 2015 Dodgers baseball tickets now.", "MLB Playoffs TV schedule: What time, channel is Cubs vs. Dodgers NLCS Game 3? (10/18/16) Livestream, watch online. Grounds crew puts on the finishing touches to the field for today's NLCS workout for the game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs at Dodger Stadium. With the best-of-seven National League Championship Series tied at a game apiece, the Chicago Cubs travel to Los Angeles to play the L.A. Dodgers at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, Calif.", "Men's Los Angeles Dodgers Chris Taylor Majestic White Cool Base Player $119.99 Women's Los Angeles Dodgers Cody Bellinger Majestic White 2017 World S $114.99 Men's Los Angeles Dodgers Justin Turner Majestic White 60th Anniversar $263.99 Men's Los Angeles Dodgers Hyun-Jin Ryu Majestic White 60th Anniversary $263.99", "When comparing the level of play on the field to ticket prices, Los Angeles Dodgers tickets represent one of the best deals in Major League Baseball. Only three games in Los Angeles this season have an average price above $100. On the other side, six games have an average price below $30 this season.", "World Records. The biggest baseball contract is an average of $15 million per year for seven years. It was signed by Kevin Brown of the LA Dodgers on December 12, 1998. On completion, Brown's contract will be worth a total of $105 million." ]

[ "MTV" ]

[ "things are what they are", "Rain Is a Good Thing", "Good Morning to All", "good", "It's a Beautiful Thing", "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things", "goods", "What Good Am I Without You", "Good people all this Christmas time", "No Good But So Good", "No Good", "disgraceful things", "the existence of a thing", "nobody's thing", "What's Up?", "What a Friend", "an unsavoury thing", "Living Thing", "What's in It for Me", "Cosmic Thing", "What If Nothing", "What A Night", "What If It's You", "What a Life!", "Girl Thing", "Ion channels", "Channel Ports", "What Are Words", "microscopic channels", "What Not to Wear", "What Car?", "what is visible" ]

[ "5 key points. 1 Body temperature is one of the four main vital signs that must be monitored in a patient. 2 Wide variations in practice exist across the healthcare system for measuring body temperature. 3 Body temperature should be measured and recorded regularly with precision, consistency and diligence." ]

[ "hypothermia occurs when a person s body temperature drops below 35c 95f normal body temperature is around 37c 98 6fhypothermia can quickly become life threatening and should be treated as a medical emergencyntroduction hypothermia occurs when a person s body temperature drops below 35c 95f normal body temperature is around 37c 98 6f hypothermia can quickly become life threatening and should be treated as a medical emergency", "1 Quickly learn your body fat, lean mass, and bone health with 98% accuracy using DXA technology. 2 Easily discover your cardio fitness level and metabolic health with the same tools trusted by medical, health, and fitness professionals as the most accurate and reliable. Quickly learn your body fat, lean mass, and bone health with 98% accuracy using DXA technology. 2 Easily discover your cardio fitness level and metabolic health with the same tools trusted by medical, health, and fitness professionals as the most accurate and reliable.", "In this lesson you will examine some of the characteristics of thermistors and the circuits they are used in. 1 Why Use Thermistors To Measure Temperature? 2 They are inexpensive, rugged and reliable. 3 They respond quickly. 4 What Does A Thermistor Look Like? 5 Here it is. 6 What Does A Thermistor Do? 7 A Thermistor is a temperature dependent resistor. 8 How ...n this lesson you will examine some of the characteristics of thermistors and the circuits they are used in. 1 Why Use Thermistors To Measure Temperature? 2 They are inexpensive, rugged and reliable. 3 They respond quickly. 4 What Does A Thermistor Look Like? 5 Here it is. 6 What Does A Thermistor Do? 7 A Thermistor is a temperature dependent resistor. 8 How ...", "Abstract. Technology advances in the field of temperature measurement have led to a huge variety of sensors and measuring instruments now being available for making accurate measurements at relatively low costs.ny difference between the temperature of the sensor and the temperature you are trying to measure will be a direct error. For example, if you clamp a temperature sensor around a pipe (figure 2) it would be wrong to assume you are measuring the temperature of what is flowing in the pipe.", "What class of temperature is used to measure temperature in the Metric System? In the metric system, temperature is measured using Celsius temperature. Example 1:", "An epinephrine autoinjector, is a medical device for injecting a measured dose or doses of epinephrine (adrenaline), by means of autoinjector technology; it is most often used for the treatment of anaphylaxis.n epinephrine autoinjector, is a medical device for injecting a measured dose or doses of epinephrine (adrenaline), by means of autoinjector technology; it is most often used for the treatment of anaphylaxis.", "These temperatures are the core body temperature. It is in the normal range if the orally measured temperature of adults is 98.2°F, with fluctuation of 1.3°F higher or lower. If the adult shows oral temperature of more than 99.5°F, then it is considered as fever or some other medical conditions.In elderly people, the temperature is lower.hese temperatures are the core body temperature. It is in the normal range if the orally measured temperature of adults is 98.2°F, with fluctuation of 1.3°F higher or lower. If the adult shows oral temperature of more than 99.5°F, then it is considered as fever or some other medical conditions.", "The temperature of the air is a measure of how quickly the molecules are moving. The more energy of motion the molecules have, the higher the temperature you feel in the air. Air temperature is measured with thermometers.", "Depending on how quickly you need to lose the weight and the temperature of the area you are in, you will get a feel for what style you need to use. In addition to the exercise, athletes commonly use plastic suits and heavy clothing to increase the body temperature and enhance the sweating response.", "For children, the normal body temperature range is between 96.8°F to 98.2°F. It is the same as the range of normal body temperature for adults. If the rectal temperature of children reaches 100.4°F, then it need call for immediate medical attention for fever.hese temperatures are the core body temperature. It is in the normal range if the orally measured temperature of adults is 98.2°F, with fluctuation of 1.3°F higher or lower. If the adult shows oral temperature of more than 99.5°F, then it is considered as fever or some other medical conditions.", "About our High-Tech Testing with BioMeridian. State of the art technology and proven medical science come together in this unique meridian stress assessment tool. It is a safe, non-invasive, and painless system which measures the electrical energy of the body's organ systems.tate of the art technology and proven medical science come together in this unique meridian stress assessment tool. It is a safe, non-invasive, and painless system which measures the electrical energy of the body's organ systems.", "1 Change in basal body temperature. 2 Your body's temperature at rest (basal body temperature) might increase slightly during ovulation. 3 Using a thermometer specifically designed to measure basal body temperature, take your temperature every morning before you get out of bed. Your body's temperature at rest (basal body temperature) might increase slightly during ovulation. 2 Using a thermometer specifically designed to measure basal body temperature, take your temperature every morning before you get out of bed.", "Medical Definition of CORE TEMPERATURE. : the temperature deep within a living body (as in the viscera). What made you want to look up core temperature?", "For drugs and biologics, the focus of animal testing is on the drug’s nature, chemistry, and effects (pharmacology) and on its potential damage to the body (toxicology). Animal testing is used to measure.1 how much of a drug or biologic is absorbed into the blood. 2 how a medical product is broken down chemically in the body.3 the toxicity of the product and its breakdown components (metabolites).4 how quickly the product and its metabolites are excreted from the body.nimal testing is used to measure. 1 how much of a drug or biologic is absorbed into the blood. 2 how a medical product is broken down chemically in the body. 3 the toxicity of the product and its breakdown components (metabolites). 4 how quickly the product and its metabolites are excreted from the body.", "Medications for Pain/Fever. The following drugs and medications are in some way related to, or used in the treatment of this condition. What is Pain/Fever: Fever is the temporary increase in the body's temperature in response to some disease or illness.", "The most severe form of heat illness is heatstroke. Heatstroke is a life-threatening medical emergency. In heatstroke, the body cannot regulate its own temperature. Body temperature can soar to 106°F (41.1°C) or even higher, leading to brain damage or even death if it isn't quickly treated.", "A full-body scan is a scan of the patient's entire body as part of the diagnosis or treatment of illnesses. If computed tomography (CAT) scan technology is used, it is known as a full-body CT scan, though many medical imaging technologies can perform full-body scans. full-body scan is a scan of the patient's entire body as part of the diagnosis or treatment of illnesses. If computed tomography (CAT) scan technology is used, it is known as a full-body CT scan, though many medical imaging technologies can perform full-body scans.", "What we did was correlate body-fat percentage to BMI, allowing us to take the first big step toward linking body-fat percentage to disease risk. This new research reveals the value of assessing body fat more directly using the latest scientific technology to measure body-fat percentage, he added.", "Animal testing is used to measure. 1 how much of a drug or biologic is absorbed into the blood. 2 how a medical product is broken down chemically in the body. 3 the toxicity of the product and its breakdown components (metabolites) 4 how quickly the product and its metabolites are excreted from the body. more information...", "The reason the temperature increases with increasing altitude is because of what temperature is measured by: the speed of molecules. In the stratosphere, there is very little … gas, and molecules can move very quickly because they are not bouncing off of each other (and other factors).", "What is low-grade fever? A fever is an increase in the body temperature above normal. A low-grade fever is a mild elevation of the temperature above normal. Your temperature measurements fluctuate through the day and vary depending upon the site of measurement.", "Technology Keeps Shipped Medications Cool Jul 20, 2016 The Express Scripts Pharmacy uses innovative technology to keep medications shipments cool even in a summer of record-setting temperatures. As the weather heats up, patients need not worry about their delivery of their prescription medications.", "In addition to knowing what is phenazopyridine used for, you need to be aware of the potential side effects of this medication. Certain common side effects of phenazopyridine will typically disappear quickly as your body gets used to the medication. These include: Itching of skin; Stomach pain or cramps; Indigestion; Headache Dizziness", "Normal human body temperature 1. Normal human body temperature. Normal human body temperature, also known as normothermia or euthermia, is a concept that depends upon the. place in the body at which the measurement is made, and the time of day and level of activity of the person. There is. no single number that represents a normal or healthy temperature for all people under all circumstances using any. place of measurement. Different parts of the body have different temperatures.", "2.0 The history of temperature measurement There are a wide variety of temperature measurement probes in use today depending on what you are trying to measure, how accurately you need to measure it, if you need to use it for control or just man monitoring, or if you can even touch what you are trying to monitor.", "Blood pressure is a measurement of the force applied to the walls of the arteries as the heart pumps blood through the body. Blood pressure is continually changing depending on activity, temperature, diet, emotional state, posture, physical state and medication use.", "Anthropometry involves the systematic measurement of the physical properties of the human body, primarily dimensional descriptors of body size and shape.nthropometric measurements also have uses in epidemiology and medical anthropology, for example in helping to determine the relationship between various body measurements (height, weight, percentage body fat, etc.) and medical outcomes.", "Medical imaging refers to several different technologies that are used to view the human body in order to diagnose, monitor, or treat medical conditions.", "The temperature of the air is a measure of how quickly the molecules are moving. The more energy of motion the molecules have, the higher the temperature you feel in the air. Air temperature is measured with thermometers.Common thermometers consist of a glass rod with a very thin tube in it. The tube contains a liquid that is supplied from a reservoir, or bulb, at the base of the thermometer. Sometimes the liquid is mercury, and sometimes it is red-colored alcohol.he temperature of the air is a measure of how quickly the molecules are moving. The more energy of motion the molecules have, the higher the temperature you feel in the air. Air temperature is measured with thermometers.", "The Optitherm® III infrared thermometer temperature measurement system uses fiber optics and the latest pulsed laser infrared technology to measure precisely a single or multi-wafer temperature during in-situ epitaxial growth in CVD, MBE, MOCVD or sputtering applications.", "Definition of temperature for English Language Learners. : 1 a measurement that indicates how hot or cold something is : a measurement in degrees showing the heat of something (such as air or water) : 2 a measurement of the heat in a person's body. : 3 a level of heat that is above what is normal for the human body.", "Low Body Temperature Causes. When the body temperature of an individual drops below normal levels it could be dangerous for them. Hence it is vital to be aware of the various causes and effects of such a condition. Here we discuss the probable causes of low body temperature. One of the most effective ways to judge the health of a person is by measuring their body temperature. This is an accurate means for many medical experts around the world to detect the presence of any form of disease or illness." ]

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[ "UFC welterweight Alex Garcia was supposed to fight Colby Covington this past June at UFC Fight Night 89. Ten days before the event, he told MMAjunkie Radio, he injured himself.\n“I hurt myself, and I had to pull out of the fight,” Garcia (14-3 MMA, 4-2 UFC) said.\nIt was a fight that paired two up-and-comers looking for redemption; both had lost in previous bouts. Covington (11-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC) thought something shady was up. On Twitter, he implied 29-year-old Garcia was taking the easy way out.\n“I honor the contracts I sign,” he tweeted. “Fought with torn cartilage and fracture in rib my last fight and broken foot (in my second) UFC fight.”\nOne day after the news broke, Covington implied Garcia had run afoul of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, the UFC drug-testing partner.\n“Usada saved him an ass beating,” he wrote.\nGarcia hasn’t forgotten those messages. After knocking out veteran Mike Pyle in his previous bout, he wants the UFC to rebook the fight with Covington.\n“He made some comments on Twitter, and I didn’t like him since that day,” Garcia said. “I want to shut his mouth a little bit. Either now, or in the future, or whatever he wants. I want to shut his mouth.”\nCovington’s willingness to speak up has been on display since he signed with the UFC in 2014 as a wrestling-savvy prospect. An American Top Team product, he’s made a name for himself while winning six fights with a lone setback to Warlley Alves at UFC 194.\nGarcia, meanwhile, has seesawed. Bouncing between wins and losses in his past five octagon bouts, the Tristar Team fighter has alternately looked promising and lackluster.\nGarcia said he’s feeling more comfortable in the octagon these days, and so fans will be seeing more of his true talent in the cage. The knockout of Pyle was certainly promising. But a win over Covington might go a long way toward revitalizing his image as a future title prospect.\n“I’m more comfortable being in the UFC and more relaxed,” Garcia said. “I want to be in the top 10 or 15, but if I don’t adjust my skills, I won’t get there. I want to reach that goal first, and then give myself more goals.”\nThe immediate goal, though, is to get a little payback.\n“I don’t like that dude,” Garcia said of Covington. “He talks too much. It’s a little personal.”\nFor more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.\nMMAjunkie Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by “Gorgeous” George Garcia and producer Brian “Goze” Garcia. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio." ]

[ "After six months as a light heavyweight, Sam Alvey is smiling a lot more in training camp.\nWith less weight to cut, he can focus on the important things, like staying free of injuries.\n“I hope I get injured less,” Alvey told MMAjunkie in advance of his meeting with Gian Villante at UFC Fight Night 131, which takes place Friday at Adirondack Bank Center in Utica, N.Y., and airs live on FS1. “It wasn’t a huge problem before, but everyone gets their bumps and bruises.”\nA 10-year stint as a UFC middleweight ended with a weight miss and a decision loss that left Alvey at 9-5 in the promotion. He immediately rebounded in his first bout at 205 pounds, knocking out Marcin Prachnio in February.\nNow on the cusp of his second appearance at 205 pounds, Alvey (32-10 MMA, 9-5 UFC) said he’s gotten more adjusted to the life of a light heavyweight in the gym.\n“I’m right on pace to make weight,” he said. “Hopefully, I’ll get back in that octagon close to 225, 230 – somewhere in there.”\nTaking on Villante (16-9 MMA, 6-6 UFC), whom he called out after his first win as a light heavyweight, Alvey anticipates he’ll need his extra bulk. Villante is known to many as a brawler, but he takes note of the New Yorker’s tendency to take the fight to the ground.\n“If you watch him fight, he’s more of a striker,” Alvey said. “But then you’ll see a couple of his fights when he can turn on the wrestling whenever he wants to. His fight against Keith Berry, he’s a teammate of mine, he took Keith down a dozen times in three rounds, just over and over again.\n“I kind of have to be prepared for either. But I’m pretty happy with the gameplan me and the coaches have put together, and I’ve been performing well in practice, so I hope I pull it off on Friday.”\nFight week usually is reserved for cutting weight, which for many fighters means a long slog of suffering as they shed the final pounds before stepping on the scale. Alvey said he never had much of a problem getting smaller, so his new division means even less suffering as the hours tick toward the fight.\nThe only things that irritate him now are things outside the cage – like spoilers.\n“I’ve never really felt angry about much until I did get a flash (of) anger when Colby Covington, that jerkoff, tried to ruin ‘Star Wars’ on Twitter,” Alvey said. “I had seen it already. Had I not seen it, I would have been pissed.”\nFor more on UFC Fight Night 131, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.\nMMAjunkie Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by “Gorgeous” George Garcia, Brian “Goze” Garcia and Dan Tom. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.", "UFC bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt made headlines last week when he tweeted he would be fighting T.J. Dillashaw at UFC 217.\nFor his part, Dillashaw today told MMAjunkie there still is no bout agreement but is hopeful “that’s what’s going to be going down” Nov. 4 at New York’s Madison Square Garden.\n“Fingers crossed nothing happens,” Dillashaw said. “I’m ready tomorrow, man. I’ve been staying in the gym. That’s what I love to do. I feel lazy when I’m not in the gym. So, yeah, I’m ready to go at 217. And just the fact to be able to fight in Madison Square Garden seems like a huge event.”\nIt’s shaping up that way with the scheduled return of Georges St-Pierre, who will come out of retirement to fight Michael Bisping for the middleweight championship. A bout between Dillashaw (14-3 MMA, 10-3 UFC) and Garbrandt (11-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC) would add a second title fight to the card.\nGarbrandt and Dillashaw have a tenuous history after being teammates for several years at Team Alpha Male in Sacramento, Calif. Dillashaw unceremoniously left the gym to train with striking coach Duane Ludwig in Colorado, and the disdain with former teammates has grown thicker ever since.\nThe feud grew deeper when the pair served as opposing coaches on Season 25 of “The Ultimate Fighter” reality series earlier this year, won by Team Dillashaw’s Jesse Taylor.\nGarbrandt was forced to withdraw from their planned UFC 213 bout in July due to a back injury. That caused Dillashaw to seek a shot at Demetrious Johnson’s flyweight title as a backup plan, a fight that UFC President Dana White was on board with booking.\nJohnson, who will be going for a record 11th straight UFC title defense, hated the idea, citing the fact that Dillshaw never has competed at 125 pounds. Instead, Johnson will face Ray Borg at next month’s UFC 215.\nHow things unfolded is just as well with Dillashaw. He’s wanted a shot at Garbrandt all along.\n“This is the fight I ultimately wanted,” Dillashaw said. “That was kind of like going for a consolation prize. If I couldn’t get my belt at (135), I want a belt. And I felt like it was a big, hyped-up fight I could’ve pushed with Demetrious. Unfortunately he did not want that. Unfortunately he’s too cerebral of a fighter.\n“He knows that’s not a good fight for him and wouldn’t accept it. He’s real worried about this record he needs to break. Go ahead and let him do that, I guess.”\nTo hear more from Dillashaw, check out the video above.\nFor more on UFC 217, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.\nMMAjunkie Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by “Gorgeous” George Garcia and producer Brian “Goze” Garcia. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.", "Darren Till has the solution to the controversy surrounding the UFC Liverpool decision victory over Stephen Thompson: run it back on American soil.\nDarren Till was able to solve the puzzle that is Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson at UFC Liverpool to earn a decision victory that was much narrower than the judges’ scorecards would indicate. After the bout, however, the majority of experts and fans have argued that Thompson was the rightful winner of the bout and that the main reason Till was deemed the winner is because the fight took place in Till’s backyard of Liverpool. Appearing on the MMA Hour Monday, Stephen Thompson voiced his agreement with this belief when asked if he thought the decision would have been different had the bout taken place somewhere else:\n“I know close fights are very hard in the moment. But there seems to be a lot of that happening recently. But I think [I would have won if the fight was not in Liverpool]. I really do. I think so. Darren is definitely a tough guy, man. He’s a very confident person. Definitely built for the fight game. And yeah, I think I would win that fight.”\nDarren Till has heard these same comments from the MMA community and instead of complaining or debating, has argued for the practical solution of having a rematch, only this time in the United States:\n“I know Stephen said he needs to check his knee and that, but you’ve got all these experts out here saying this, saying that because it was in Liverpool,” Till said on the MMA Hour Monday. “If anyone wants me to America and fight Stephen again, Stephen definitely wants it and he’s not injured, I can do that as soon as possible. That rematch.\n“Obviously, there are other guys that I want to fight as well. but let’s show all these critics. It’s probably going to be the same fight, definitely going to be the same outcome again. Maybe I can be more aggressive and knock him out this time. You’ll see. That’s what I’m thinking.”\nAlthough these are gracious and humble words from Till, this may not be an empty gesture and could very well lead to a rematch. Instant rematches are hard to come by in the UFC, but this may be a very rare occasion where the promotion jumps on the idea. The first fight was razor close, even White said so himself, and in addition to the decision controversy, there was also the weight controversy where Till missed weight leading into the bout. Finally, with an interim title fight already on the books, Woodley would presumably be locked in to facing the winner of the Rafael dos Anjos and Colby Covington fight on June 9th. That would only leave Kamaru Usman as the most sensible opponent for Till from a rankings standpoint, but the promotion may have reservations about putting Till against a dominant wrestler like Usman, or at least Usman seems to think so. Booking an instant rematch against Thompson would once again put Till against a striker and buy Till some time until the welterweight champion is free again. And even if Till loses the rematch, that would still have the score at 1-1 against Thompson and would not hurt Till or his star power much. Therefore, for both business and ethical reasons, a very strong case can be made for the promotion giving Thompson the rematch with Till.\nWhat do you think? Will we be seeing Thompson/Till 2?", "In an age when the volume of interim UFC title fights is a subject of scrutiny, UFC welterweight Neil Magny has a different take.\nMagny (20-6 MMA, 13-5 UFC) is currently in a weight class with an interim title fight on the horizon, with Rafael dos Anjos (28-9 MMA, 17-7 UFC) facing Colby Covington (13-1 MMA, 8-1 UFC) at UFC 225 in June. Although champ Tyron Woodley (18-3-1 MMA, 8-2-1 UFC) said he’ll be ready to fight just weeks after that scheduled fight, the promotion opted to push another belt onto the scene at 170 pounds.\nMagny, who looks to elevate his position in the division when he takes on Gunnar Nelson (16-3-1 MMA, 7-3 UFC) in May’s UFC Fight Night 130 co-headliner, said he has no problem with the interim-title situation. In fact, he said it’s a good thing for the sport.\n“I’m a fan of when the UFC decides to go with the interim title bouts,” he told MMAjunkie. “For one, it gives the champ a rest and lets them enjoy being a champ. Two, it sets the stage to hash out that true No. 1 contender. We’ve seen in the past where guys are ranked No. 5, No. 6, No. 7 – and they get a title shot over guys who are ranked No. 1.”\nAlthough Magny had only praise for what Woodley has accomplished over the course of his title run, he said there’s a place for interim belts, even if the champ won’t be out for a prolonged period. Not only do interim-title bouts provide greater paydays for the fighters, Magny said, they help establish an undeniable pecking order.\n“Woodley did his job, he defended his title four times within 12 months, and now that he’s injured, he can step away from the sport a little bit and deal with injury,” Magny said. “In the meantime, don’t clog up the division. Don’t let these guys wait around for you to come back. Let the division continue to keep moving by having an interim title fight. Now guys can go out there and earn more for their families and themselves and their future.\n“Now he doesn’t have to rush to recovery and try to get back if the doctors think he needs to come back later.”\nUFC Fight Night 130 takes place May 27 at Echo Arena in Liverpool, England. Mangy vs. Nelson co-headlines the FS1-televised card following early prelims on UFC Fight Pass.\nMagny said a win over Nelson should elevate his position in the title discussion. He’d gladly take a title-fight opportunity should it come up – be it interim or otherwise – but he knows he must get through a tough opponent first.\n“Going out there and mixing it up with Gunnar Nelson is one of the things I feel like would be a game-changer for me,” he said. “If I can go out there and get the fight on the ground or even dominate on the ground, then have some moments on the striking.”\nFor the latest on UFC Fight Night 130, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.", "After 13 months away from fighting, Ronda Rousey returned at UFC 207 hoping to regain the UFC women’s bantamweight title she lost to Holly Holm. That return lasted just 48 seconds and Rousey spent most of that time eating punches from champion Amanda Nunes.\nNunes landed her first jab four seconds into the fight. As soon as that strike landed, Nunes seemed to sense the fight was hers. She dropped her hands and stalked Rousey, using the former champion’s head for what it was: an unmoving target.\nWith unquestionable wins over Rousey and Miesha Tate, Nunes’ recent highlight reel should make her an easily promotable fighter when her next title defense rolls around.\nCody Garbrandt began 2016 as an unranked bantamweight prospect. He enters 2017 as the UFC bantamweight champion, taking the title from Dominick Cruz with the type of performance fight fans will be talking about for years.\nHere are 10 memorable moments from UFC 207, which took place this past Friday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.\n1. The future\nIt took Nunes less than a minute to let the world know that she is the undisputed women’s bantamweight champion.\nNunes’ punches hurt Rousey (12-2 MMA, 6-2 UFC) early, and when the former champ attempted to slow the onslaught by looking to clinch, Nunes (14-4 MMA, 7-1 UFC) shrugged her off and continued her assault. By the time referee Herb Dean stepped in to end the contest, the only thing that kept Rousey from tumbling to the mat was an instinctual grab for the fence.\nAnd now we’re left wondering what’s next for Rousey and for Nunes.\nWhatever Rousey decides, women’s MMA and the UFC are in a better place heading into 2017, and she played a huge role in that.\nAs for Nunes, her recent wins leave her in the position to become one of the first UFC champions to get the full-court promotional press from the WME-IMG machine.\n2. Shhhhhhhhh\nFans were unable to hear the instructions Rousey’s coach, Edmond Tarverdyan, shouted to his star pupil during her fight with Nunes, but judging from Nunes’ reaction after she closed out the fight, she sure heard what Tarverdyan had to say and didn’t appreciate it.\nAfter stopping Rousey, Nunes put a finger to her lips and stalked to Rousey’s corner and had a few words for Tarverdyan before continuing to circle the cage.\nAt the post-fight news conference, Nunes was critical of Tarverdyan’s coaching of Rousey, openly wondering why Tarverdyan tried to convince Rousey to abandon her judo base in favor of her underdeveloped striking.\n3. The kid has layers\nWhen Garbrandt entered the UFC he was viewed as little more than a power puncher. He shed that tag at UFC 207.\nGarbrandt (11-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC) stopped all seven of Cruz’s (22-2 MMA, 5-1 UFC) takedown attempts, taking a big part of Cruz’s game away from him. That left Cruz to rely on his striking and Garbrandt dealt with that, as well.\nGarbrandt refused to bite on Cruz’s feints and fakes, he remained calm, timed Cruz’s awkward movements well and showed great movement, footwork and timing of his own while landing his strikes at a higher percentage than Cruz. Garbrandt also revealed that his cardio is on point, going five rounds and earning a unanimous decision over one of the most active fighters in the UFC.\nFinally, in one of the more touching moments in UFC history, when it was his time to enjoy the spotlight, Garbrandt took the belt and wrapped it around the waist of Maddux Maple, a young leukemia survivor from Grabrandt’s hometown, whom Garbrandt later credited for giving his life direction.\nThe new bantamweight champ @Cody_NoLove fulfills a promise to his No. 1 fan #UFC207 pic.twitter.com/1w0gU3ZC3j — UFC (@ufc) December 31, 2016\n4. A champion in defeat\nBefore UFC 207, Cruz had one loss on his record: a 2007 submission to Urijah Faber. Following his defeat to Garbrandt, Cruz set the tone for his post-fight appearance right away.\n“Loss is part of life,” said Cruz. “If you don’t have loss, you don’t grow. This isn’t tough – this is life.”\nIn a sport in which the vanquished often make excuses after a loss, Cruz accepted his defeat.\n“I’m not disappointed in myself at all,” Cruz said. “All I can say is I lost, and I’ll take my loss like a man.”\n5. He wants next\nT.J. Dillashaw, the former bantamweight champion and former teammate of Garbrandt, solidified his top contender status with a dominant win over John Lineker.\nLineker did his best to put his hands on Dillashaw (14-3 MMA, 10-3 MMA), but the former champ did an excellent job at taking Lineker (29-8 MMA, 10-3 UFC) to the mat, where he was able to exploit Lineker’s ground game.\nAfter his victory, Dillashaw called for a title shot, which seems likely since Garbrandt’s final statement during his in-cage interview was, “T.J. Dillashaw, come find me, mother(expletive).”\n6. Winning in the cage, losing to the scale\nRay Borg earned a much-needed unanimous decision win over Louis Smolka at UFC 207, much needed because Borg weighed in more than three pounds heavy for the flyweight fight. It was the second time in three fights Borg missed weight.\nBorg (10-2 MMA, 4-2 UFC) dominated every aspect of the matchup, bloodying Smolka (11-3 MMA, 5-3 UFC) with elbows, taking him down four times and controlling the fight on the ground. He accomplished most of this despite injuring his ankle to the point at which he told his corner that he thought it was broken.\nBorg is one of a handful of flyweight fighters who could make big moves in 2017, but with his weight issues, the promotion will be reluctant to give him big-time opportunities until he proves himself trustworthy.\n7. Shoot out the lights\nAlex Garcia got back in the win column with a huge knockout win over Mike Pyle.\nGarcia, wearing a brace on his right knee, seemed to have trouble pushing off that leg early in the welterweight contest. But when Pyle dropped his hands to throw an inside leg kick, Garcia (14-3 MMA, 4-2 UFC) put everything he had behind a big right hand that landed right on the button, dropping Pyle (27-13-1 MMA, 10-8 UFC) to his back.\nThe knockout was the second of Garcia’s UFC career and first since his UFC debut in 2013. Garcia has alternated wins and losses over his last five fights.\nThe loss is the third knockout loss for Pyle in his last five fights and second consecutive KO defeat.\n8. A win and a promotion\nBrandon Thatch was on a three-fight losing streak entering his UFC 207 fight against the debuting Niko Price.\nPrice took the welterweight fight on short notice, but he had enough time to do some homework on Thatch, so he knew his best bet was to do what Thatch’s three previous opponents did: fight him on the ground and look for a submission.\nWhen the two hit the mat, it was Thatch (11-5 MMA, 2-4 UFC) who first went for a submission, looking for a kimura, but when Price (9-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC) worked free of that hold he threatened with an arm-triangle choke. Thatch avoided Price’s first submission attempt, but soon found himself caught in the same technique and he was forced to tap.\nNot bad for your debut! Niko Price taps out Brandon Thatch in the first round! #UFC207 https://t.co/cydGyRQAZU — FOX Sports: UFC (@UFCONFOX) December 31, 2016\nFollowing the victory, Price was awarded his Brazilian jiu-jitsu brown belt.\n#ThatFeelingWhen you get your brown belt INSIDE the Octagon after your FIRST UFC win … pic.twitter.com/8HVVisD1Jq — UFC (@ufc) December 31, 2016\n9. That was illegal and intentional\nUFC 207 started with controversy.\nWith 90 seconds left in the first round of their welterweight fight, Alex Oliveira was working his way to his feet against the cage when Tim Means (26-7-1 MMA, 8-4 UFC) landed both a right knee and a left knee to Oliveira’s (16-3-1 MMA, 5-2 UFC) head. The problem was Oliveira’s knee was down when those strikes were landed.\nWith Oliveira unable to continue, there was complete confusion in the cage when it came time to decide if the knees were illegal (they were, despite the broadcasters saying they were legal). The situation got even weirder when referee Dan Miragliotta ruled the fight a no-contest due to accidental knees to the head.\nThey were ABSOLUTELY illegal. Olivers was a down fighter with his knee on the mat #AskBJM https://t.co/y9wn5S5qbV — Big John McCarthy (@JohnMcCarthyMMA) December 31, 2016\nIn his post-fight interview Means made it clear the knees were no accident, saying, “I threw the knee intentionally; I’d rather you disqualify me.”\nMeans may get his wish. Oliveira’s manager, Alex Davis, plans to appeal the result.\n10. A quiet goodbye\nUFC 207 marked the final event for two longtime UFC employees and neither of those men was acknowledged during the broadcast.\nCommentator Mike Goldberg has been front and center on UFC broadcasts since 1997, but there was no mention of UFC 207 being his final call, other than Goldberg offering his thanks to several individuals as the credit’s rolled long after the fights ended.\nThere was no note of thanks, not a word from UFC President Dana White or even from his broadcast partner Joe Rogan.\nThis did not sit well with Goldberg’s son.\nAfter the fight, some notes of appreciation did come in via social media, but again, nothing from his now former employer.\nAlso leaving the UFC after UFC 207 was long time matchmaker Joe Silva, whose tenure also went unacknowledged by the promotion in any way other than a tweet from fellow matchmaker Sean Shelby.\n15 years together and last time I get to be onstage with my dear friend Joe Silva. You will be greatly missed. pic.twitter.com/LEKBLjyGAb — Sean Shelby (@seanshelby) December 29, 2016\nIt was an odd way for two long-tenured employees to end their employment with the promotion.\nFor complete coverage of UFC 207, check out the UFC Events section of the site.", "Former UFC bantamweight Jessica Andrade has had only two strawweight appearances, but, at least according to her camp, they have been convincing enough to earn her a title shot.\nInterpreting for Andrade (15-5 MMA, 6-3 UFC) during a chat with MMAjunkie Radio after the cancellation of her UFC 207 scrap (first against Maryna Moroz and then Angela Hill), manager Tiago Okamura said the organization gave her the option of going straight for a title shot against champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk (13-0 MMA, 7-0 UFC) instead of taking another fight.\nBut, given the financial needs of such a high-stakes camp, they felt it was best to take another scrap before making that move.\n“After all the mess, the fight being canceled, they mentioned we could go straight (to the title shot),” Okamura said. “But honestly, for us it’s not very interesting because we need to make this worth (it), this has to be a proper camp.\n“If we’re doing the title shot, we need to have money. We need to be prepared to invest on that camp because it’s a serious one, and it has to be taken with a different level of investment than a regular camp because we’re not going to go for a title fight just to be there.”\nAnother reason behind the decision to wait a little longer, Okamura said, was the timeframe for Jedrzejczyk’s return.\n“They didn’t mention a timeline,” Okamura said. “But we know Joanna has been saying she wants to fight in April, and that will be a little too late. So it would be ideal to do one more fight, make some money and put all that into camp.\n“And then if she gets the title fight and hopefully defends it once before the end of the year, that would be nice.”\nAndrade traveled to Las Vegas for this past week’s UFC 207 event with no set opponent, but still hoping she would get to fight. However, with original opponent Moroz injured and Invicta FC champion Hill kept from stepping in due to USADA guidelines, the promotion just couldn’t get her a replacement in time.\nIn spite of the inevitable financial blow of not getting a paycheck – and a basically wasted weight cut down to 115 pounds – Andrade took the trip to do some extra media and diversify her training.\n“Unfortunately the fight was canceled,” Andrade lamented. “But I came, I trained, I made the most of it. I didn’t lose the camp. I’m taking the opportunity to get even better for any upcoming fights.”\nCurrently No. 11 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA women’s strawweight rankings, Andrade doesn’t know who she’s fighting next, but she makes no secret of the perennial target on her hit list: inaugural UFC strawweight champ Carla Esparza (11-3 MMA, 2-1 UFC), ranked No. 5.\nThe Brazilian fighter’s latest callout came in form of a tweet, which she explained was sparked by an MMAjunkie story (via Twitter):\nif u wanted a fight I was available tonight @CarlaEsparza1 but if what you say is true I will beat u, any card, anywhere @danawhite @ufc — Jessica Andrade (@JessicaMMApro) December 30, 2016\n“We saw it at your website: Carla Esparza saying she didn’t have money, she didn’t have fights, etc.,” Andrade said. “I said, ‘Hey, I’m here!’ I didn’t fight because I didn’t have an opponent, and she’s asking for an opponent? I’m here. I’ll fight you anywhere, any event, any time. I’ll beat you up. … It’s all settled.\n“She just needs to want it. I’ve asked for this time several times, and unfortunately every time she ran. She actually just wants someone easy to beat. She doesn’t want someone who’ll beat her, so that’s what happens.”\nFor more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.\nMMAjunkie Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show, available on SiriusXM Ch. 93, is hosted by “Gorgeous” George Garcia and producer Brian “Goze” Garcia. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.", "UFC interim featherweight champion Max Holloway plans to stay busy if he can’t get a title-unifier with primary titleholder Jose Aldo.\n“I’m not going to wait around,” Holloway told MMAjunkie Radio. “I’ll defend the interim title 10 times if I have to.”\nHolloway’s team hopes undisputed champ Aldo will be waiting in May, when 25-year-old Holloway expects to recover from an ankle injury that forced him to decline an offer to fight Aldo at UFC 208. But if the champ isn’t ready, they’ll open the doors to other opponents.\nAsked about a fight with ex-lightweight champ Frankie Edgar (21-5-1 MMA, 15-5-1 UFC), who recently got back in the win column after a setback to Aldo (25-2 MMA, 8-1 UFC), Holloway (17-3 MMA, 13-3 UFC) said he’s already called out all the top-tier opponents, so he might as well get started fighting them.\n“I want to fight Edgar,” he said. “I’d love to fight Edgar. I’d take that fight in a heartbeat. Former champion, back on his win streak, he fought Aldo, and if I can do my thing and win the fight convincingly, (I will) prove to people (I deserve the belt). I’m not trying to race through the division; I’m trying to clean out the division.”\nEdgar might be looking at another weight division unless he can get a fight with former Holloway opponent and UFC lightweight champ Conor McGregor (21-3 MMA, 9-1 UFC). But Holloway, the No. 2 fighter in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA featherweight rankings, said he’ll take any big-name fights.\n“I’ve been calling out Chad Mendes, Jose Aldo, Frankie Edgar forever,” he said. “I’ve been calling out the top-five guys every damn time. We just wasn’t getting a fight. Now it’s here, and I want them even more. The storyline is even better.”\nBefore he signs on the dotted line, however, Holloway said he he’ll meet with UFC officials, and it sounds like he’ll ask for more money. He joked that he “maybe” would follow McGregor’s request for a piece of the company.\n“We’ve got some business moving – it’s secret,” Holloway said. “Private business.”\nThere’s certainly time to get a new deal done. The Aldo fight was a sure thing after Holloway stopped ex-lightweight champ Anthony Pettis (19-6 MMA, 6-5 UFC) at the surprise hit UFC 206 this past month. Now, it’s a question of whether it ever happens.\nUFC President Dana White recently confirmed that Aldo might be moving on. He allegedly requested an interim lightweight title with Khabib Nurmagomedov, only to lose the chance when the Russian fighter’s father advised against it (Nurmagomedov accused the promotion of lying to fans). But Holloway isn’t convinced the bout was a reality.\n“He has a better chance of showing up to a soccer game,” Holloway said. “So next contract, I’m going to tell them, put (on Aldo’s contract that) you’re playing at a soccer game, but you need to show up to make this weight. He’s going to show up that way.\n“When he signs a contract, I have a better chance of winning on red or black than him showing up to the fight.”\nHolloway, of course, has turned his criticism of Aldo over tardiness into a hashtag comparing the champ to Waldo. So far, it hasn’t brought the two into the octagon. At the moment, only one is healthy enough to fight. But Holloway said if Aldo wants to criticize him about not showing at UFC 208, he should look in the mirror.\n“I show up to every damn fight I’ve ever fought,” Holloway said. “I’ve never turned down a fight, never backed away from a fight, and we never had a contract for a fight (at UFC 208). It was just in talks.\n“I could go crazy on Doo Ho Choi, who I was supposed to fight. I didn’t get a contract, so I’m not going to talk (expletive) on that guy. I was supposed to fight Chad Mendes at one time, but we didn’t get a contract. Even Frankie – I heard we were supposed to fight. Do I talk (expletive) to him?”\nIf fans want a fighter who will show up without complaining, Holloway said, they should back another guy.\n“Brazil deserves better,” Holloway said. “Get off the Aldo train. Waldo’s train? Where is the train? My train is easy to find. Come on over.”\nFor more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.\nMMAjunkie Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show, available on SiriusXM Ch. 93, is hosted by “Gorgeous” George Garcia and producer Brian “Goze” Garcia. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.", "Several days have passed since his controversial loss to Ricky Simon at UFC Fight Night 128, but Merab Dvalishvili is still trying to pick up the pieces and figure out what happened.\nIn what was seemingly a first in UFC history, Simon (13-1 MMA, 1-0 UFC) was awarded a TKO victory at UFC Fight Night 128 despite Dvalishvili (7-4 MMA, 0-2 UFC) making it to the final horn of their bantamweight fight.\nDvalishvili, 27, was arguably getting the better of Simon until the late stages of the preliminary-card matchup at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, N.J. Then, as Dvalishvili shot in for a takedown, Simon applied a guillotine choke, which was locked in for roughly the final 50 seconds of the fight. Although Dvalishvili did not tap, the referee deemed him unable to continue at the 5:00 mark of Round 3. Simon was announced the winner by TKO.\nDvalishvili told MMAjunkie Radio today that he still hasn’t received a formal explanation from the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board about its decision process, and he remains perplexed by how his current reality came to be.\n“I’m still in shock,” Dvalishvili said. “I’m shocked. I don’t know what happened. I win fight; everyone thinks I won fight. Everyone. I controlled fight and one minute left I tried to take him down, stay on top, finish on top. But when I take him down, I hit my head on the floor. I feel something is not right. I focused only on the time. I tried to stay in. I moved my legs. I was fighting the hands also, my eyes open. I never stopped. I kept fighting, kept showing everyone that I’m not sleeping from 55 seconds until finish.”\nSince the fight on Saturday, various parties have come out and given their side of the story. Simon has no doubt Dvalishvili was “limp” from the choke at the final bell, and referee Marc Goddard, who was cageside for the bout, insists the right call was made because of Dvalishvili’s condition when time expired.\nDvalishvili rejects those notions. He said staying down on the canvas at the bell was a product of trying to recover from the exhausting 15-minute fight he’d just competed in – nothing more. Once those feelings passed, Dvalishvili got to his feet and began to celebrate what, to many, seemed like would be a decision win, which is how the judges had it scored in a split.\nThat didn’t happen, though.\n“When time is over I laid down, but I was still moving my legs,” Dvalishvili said. “My opponent pointed his fingers to me and said, ‘He’s out.’ I just took two seconds to breath, and I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ The commission told me, ‘Stay down, don’t move.’ Of course I was tired. I stayed down and got rest, because I knew I won the fight.\n“I celebrated, I jump to cage, and I celebrate my win.”\nDvalishvili is certain he’s been wronged and intends to take action to rectify the matter. His manager told MMAjunkie that plans could soon be in motion to file an appeal of the result, but those processes are often long, drawn out and end in an unsatisfying outcome. Dvalishvili is aware of as much, and he said one way to give him some peace over the situation would be to book a rematch in short order.\n“I want a rematch,” Dvalishvili said. “As soon as possible. He’s good opponent. I know he’s good.”\nFor complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 128, check out the UFC Events section of the site.\nMMAjunkie Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by “Gorgeous” George Garcia, Brian “Goze” Garcia and Dan Tom. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.", "UFC light heavyweight Gian Villante has a message for fighters struggling on the scale: Do your job.\nVillante (16-9 MMA, 6-6 UFC) walks around at 250 pounds, well into heavyweight territory. He cuts 15-20 pounds on the week of his fights and notes, “It doesn’t matter how low you get – it always sucks every time.”\nBut he guts it out and makes weight – he’s never missed on the UFC scale – because there isn’t another option.\n“You’ve seen a lot of crazy things going on in the past couple of cards with these people losing weight, and this is part of our job,” Villante told MMAjunkie Radio. “It’s not just going in there and putting on a good show. It’s coming in and making sure you’re a professional and you make weight.\n“I’ve never had a problem with it before, and I’m not going to start now.”\nVillante, who faces Sam Alvey (32-10 MMA, 9-5 UFC) at UFC Fight Night 131, didn’t mention any specific fighter’s names when he made his comments. The UFC has been plauged by combatants coming in heavy on the scale, or being forced to withdraw from an event prior to weigh-ins because of issues related to weight cutting.\nIn one week, the promotion marks the two-year anniversary of holding early weigh-ins for events. According to MMAjunkie’s Mike Bohn, the number of fighters who’ve missed weight has gone from 22 to 62 (via Twitter).\nJune 3 represents the 2-year anniversary of first-ever UFC \"early weigh-in\" The 2 years leading up that point: Just 22 instances of fighters missing weight for UFC fights. In 2 years since early weigh-ins began: Nearly triple, with 62 fighters having missed weight for UFC bouts — Mike Bohn (@MikeBohnMMA) May 26, 2018\nRegulators like the California State Athletic Commission have attempted to address excessive weight-cutting head on, implementing a 10-point plan to steepen penalties for weight offenders and increasing monitoring to ensure fighters aren’t cutting too much weight. Yet the misses on the scale continue unabated.\nVillante, who fights on the FS1-televised main card of Friday’s event at Adirondack Bank Center in Utica, N.Y., has contemplated fighting at heavyweight, where he wouldn’t have to shed any pounds and where he’s fought earlier in his career. But potential career opportunities in the UFC have kept him fighting at 205 pounds.\nPerhaps a few rounds sparring with heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic also influenced his decision.\n“I wouldn’t mind fighting at heavyweight,” Villante said. “I do see some fights that I do like. But light heavyweight’s fun. It’s a division where there’s a lot of room to move. You string together a couple good fights, and you could be there pretty close for a title shot.”\nVillante’s upcoming opponent, Alvey, knows all too well the dilemma presented with a move in weight. After a miss on the scale, he decided to compete at light heavyweight, bulking up from the middleweight division where he spent 10 years. He specifically asked to face Villante after knocking out his first opponent.\nAlvey took note of Villante’s bulk and ability to wrestle opponents. On Friday, he’ll get an idea of whether he made the right decision.\nFor now, Villante has made his, no matter how much it sucks on fight week.\nFor more on UFC Fight Night 131, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.\nMMAjunkie Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by “Gorgeous” George Garcia, Brian “Goze” Garcia and Dan Tom. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.", "UTICA, N.Y. – UFC bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw is none too happy about facing Cody Garbrandt less than one year after ending their feud with a knockout victory.\nBut for Jimmie Rivera, at least there’s a bit of clarity on its way when it comes to his standing in the division.\nRivera, who meets Marlon Moraes in the FS1-televised headliner of UFC Fight Night 131, thought he might be able to slide in to a title shot when Dillashaw knocked out Garbrandt last November. With five UFC wins and a 20-fight winning streak, he figured he had a good case.\nThen Dillashaw started pushing for a showdown with flyweight champ Demetrious Johnson. Rivera knew he’d have to take a backseat and wait his turn. Heck, he even wanted to see the fight himself.\nBut after Johnson and the UFC failed to come to terms on a deal to make the superfight happen, opportunity was suddenly on the horizon. The promotion pivoted toward a rematch between Dillashaw and Garbrandt, and Rivera figured he was back on deck.\n“Every fight and MMA fan and fighter wants to see that fight (between Dillashaw and Johnson), but right now, I’m very happy that it’s Cody and T.J. fighting,” Rivera told reporters at a media day in support of his fight with Moraes on Friday at Adirondack Bank Center in Utica, N.Y. “So this way, it clears everything out, and this ends up looking like a No. 1 contender fight. So now the winner of this and the winner of that can go head to head.”\nWhether the UFC agrees remains to be seen. Johnson could always come back into the picture, or the winner of Dillashaw vs. Garbrandt 2, set for August at UFC 227, could get injured.\nBut right now, it’s looking good for Rivera, who thinks he’ll face the current champ if everything goes as planned.\n“I think T.J.’s going to win it,” Rivera said. “If I get this win and that title shot next, I don’t care who it is I fight, as long as it’s for the belt. That’s all that matters to me.”\nTo hear more from Rivera, including his thoughts on the Moraes matchup, watch the video above.\nAnd for more on UFC Fight Night 131, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.", "Cris Cyborg, red, vs. Yana Kunitskaya during their UFC Women’s Featherweight title bout UFC 222 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Saturday, March 3, 2018. Cyborg defeated Kunitskaya by first stoppage. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)\nCris Cyborg, red, vs. Yana Kunitskaya during their UFC Women’s Featherweight title bout UFC 222 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Saturday, March 3, 2018. Cyborg defeated Kunitskaya by first stoppage. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)\nCris Cyborg, red, vs. Yana Kunitskaya during their UFC Women’s Featherweight title bout UFC 222 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Saturday, March 3, 2018. Cyborg defeated Kunitskaya by first stoppage. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)\nLAS VEGAS — Word to the wise: Questioning Cris Cyborg’s power is not good for your health.\nDays after saying she didn’t believe in Cyborg’s one-punch prowess, Yana Kunitskaya did her best in the early goings against the UFC women’s featherweight champion, but it was only a matter of time.\nCyborg patiently hunted down her Russian foe, eventually overwhelming her with a barrage of devastating punches in the first round to retain her title in the UFC 222 main event Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena.\nWhen asked about Kunitskaya’s crack questioning her power, Cyborg laughed about her first punch putting her down: “The first punch, she say, ‘Oh, why did I say that?'”\nThis was a more determined and less cautious Cyborg than against Holly Holm at UFC 219 on Dec. 30, when they went the distance and Cyborg narrowly won a unanimous decision.\nTo her credit, Kunitskaya, the former Invicta FC bantamweight champion, rose to the challenge not only in terms of weight — going up 10 pounds — but in terms of competition. After the fight, she admitted being nervous played a part in her loss.\nAfter taking a big right from Cyborg in the opening seconds, Kunitskaya smartly shot in early on Cyborg (20-1, 1 NC) and fought her from the legs down. At one point in the opening minute, the challenger actually had the champion’s back.\nOnce the Huntington Beach powerhouse via Brazil freed herself, Kunitskaya (104, 1 NC) went from opponent to prey. Cyborg stalked her and backed her up against the cage, unleashing her arsenal of head and body shots.\nKunitskaya, 28, withered under the pressure and Cyborg pounced, jackhammering right hands before referee Herb Dean stopped the fight at 3:25.\nCyborg, 32, helped save the UFC 222 card after featherweight champion Max Holloway had to pull out of his main-event fight against Frankie Edgar with a lerg injury.\nOn less than four weeks’ notice, Cyborg agreed to the fight and still came in as high as a -2000 favorite. Her coach, Jason Parillo, seems to be swaying her on fighting more often.\n“Jason, my coach, says you need to fight all the time, all the time. It’s good for you,” Cyborg said. “And we really see that. It’s really great.”\nCyborg hasn’t lost since her pro debut 14 years ago and now reigns over a sparse division.\nBut she does have another opponent in mind.\n“I wait for Amanda,” she said, referring to UFC bantamweight champ Amnda Nunes. “Amanda is calling me out. I don’t want to fight another Brazlian, but she called me out.”\nNunes has been reported to be fighting Racquel Pennington on May 12 at UFC 224 in Rio de Janeiro.\nUFC President Dana White, however, is intrigued by the champion vs. champion showdown, saying he might even try to book Cyborg instead of Pennington..\n“She’s a beast, man,” White said of Cyborg. “The fight to make is her and Nunes. That’s the fight that needs to happen. She wants the fight, Nunes wants the fight, I want the fight, and I’m sure the fans want the fight.”\nThis was Cyborg’s second title defense since winning the inaugural title with a third-round TKO of Tonya Evinger in July.\nBut fighting Nunes in May would mean four fights in less than 10 months for the greatest woman fighting today — if not all time.\n“I don’t know, it might be too soon,” Cyborg said. “I’m going to Brazil, I’ve got a lot of things to do, adopt my niece to live with me at the end of March … I don’t know. Let’s see. It’d be exciting.”", "Cody Garbrandt ‘Campaigning’ for T.J. Dillashaw Fight at UFC 217 But Not a Done Deal\nFor the first time in several months, UFC bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt is anxious to talk about fighting again.\nThat hasn’t been the case as Garbrandt has spent the majority of 2017 concentrating on rehabilitation after suffering a severe back injury in the lead up to his fight with T.J. Dillashaw that was originally scheduled for UFC 213 in June.\nIn the aftermath of that injury, Garbrandt wasn’t in a place where he wanted to talk about Dillashaw or really anything about his return to action until he was finally ready to book his next fight.\nNow Garbrandt is ready to address the matchup with Dillashaw, which he hopes will take place on Nov. 4 at UFC 217 in New York City.\n“I stayed away from talking about fighting cause I couldn’t get excited to talk about something that wasn’t happening,” Garbrandt said when speaking to MMAWeekly.com. “I’m staying positive but I wasn’t talking about a fight that wasn’t going to happen.\n“Now that I’m feeling better and I’m campaigning for this Nov. 4 card, I feel like it’s last year again. I’m unranked and I’m hungry and that’s the fight that I want and the date that I want.”\nGarbrandt released a message on Twitter last week teasing the fight with Dillashaw that led to numerous outlets speculating that he was announcing his return to action on Nov. 4. In reality, Garbrandt was hoping to create a buzz around the fight because he’s been in conversation with the UFC for weeks trying to determine the perfect date for his first title defense.\nAfter fighting four times in 2016, which was capped off with his championship win over Dominick Cruz this past December, Garbrandt was probably due a little time off anyways.\nNow he just wants time to get back into training camp at the start of September with his targeted return to action in November at UFC 217.\n“I’ve always been the company man and I’d love to fight Nov. 4,” Garbrandt explained. “Even before the whole [Madison Square Garden] thing was announced. That’s what me and my coaches have been working for, rehabbing and training and putting in countless hours, grinding in a different way to get healthy just to get to the fight camp.\n“I want this more than anything.”\nGarbrandt says the UFC wants to headline a card with his fight against Dillashaw after the former teammates engaged in a bitter war of words — often times turning physical — during this past season of “The Ultimate Fighter”.\nIn fact, Garbrandt welcomes the strategy to transform into a pay-per-view superstar where his fights will routinely pull in huge numbers for the UFC, but as much as the UFC has been talking to him about fighting in October, there’s just no way he’ll be ready.\nUnfortunately, Garbrandt says that if he’s not fighting in October there’s a good chance the UFC may push his return back as far as December or even January 2018.\n“My goal is to get a million pay-per-view buys and I think they know that and they want me to main event another card,” Garbrandt said about the UFC. “I’m really not trying to talk s–t on anybody, but I just feel like you’re rushing me to fight and they can’t put me on November cause it’s full. It’s full?\n“OK now I have to wait two more months but then they wanted me to fight before [in October] but they’re telling me they’re not trying to rush me.”\nOf course in a perfect world, Garbrandt would fight in November and headline the UFC’s return to Madison Square Garden, but he’d even be happy to take up the co-main event spot underneath Georges St-Pierre’s return fight against middleweight champion Michael Bisping.\n“I don’t even care to be a co-main. That’s why the tweet, I want to fight in November. That’s what we talked about and that’s what we discussed this whole time,” Garbrandt said.\nWhether he’s the main event or not, Garbrandt knows that a ton of people are going to want to watch him settle the score with Dillashaw once and for all and that’s just good business for everybody involved.\n“That’s the fight everybody wants to see,” Garbrandt said. “I don’t care GSP-Bisping, everyone wants to see me and T.J. and has for a while. Put the bulls–t drama, the past behind it all and look at the fight. Two of the best fighters in the world at their respective weight classes, me being the greater and T.J. being close. He’s not on my level and I’ll show that.\n“I’m excited for the T.J. fight, he’s a great fighter and I’m excited for the challenge.”\nNow it’s just a waiting game as Garbrandt hopes to wrap up his rehab from the back injury by the end of the month before he begins preparation to start his next fight camp in September.\nIf he gets his wish, Garbrandt will then engage in an eight-week training camp to then defend his title against Dillashaw on Nov. 4 in New York.\nFollow MMAWeekly.com on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram", "After months and months of speculation in regards to whether or not the fight was actually going to happen, it has now been made official that middleweight champion Michael Bisping will take on returning former longtime welterweight king Georges St. Pierre at UFC 217 on Nov. 4, 2017 from Madison Square Garden in New York City.\nSt. Pierre, who hasn’t competed since earning a highly controversial decision victory over Johny Hendricks in 2013, is widely considered to be the very best welterweight of all-time, but he has never competed at middleweight. If he does indeed beat Bisping, however, he will be required to defend the title at 185 pounds, as it’s stated in his contract with the UFC:\n“I have to defend my title,” St-Pierre said on today’s (Aug. 14, 2017) edition of The MMA Hour. “It’s written in my contract. I have to defend my title if I win.” “That wasn’t my initial plan, but I understand the UFC’s point of view,” he added. “They want to protect their titles. They don’t want to delay the defense of their titles, because they don’t want to make people wait.”\nAs far as the fight with Bisping goes, many have criticized the UFC for booking the bout given the fact that St. Pierre is a natural welterweight. “Rush”, however, admits that it’s the fight he wanted, and the fight that could offer him the biggest reward:\n“That’s the fight I wanted,” St-Pierre said. “That’s the fight Michael wanted. And I think that’s the fight people wanted to see.” “I wanted my risk to be worth it,” St-Pierre said of fighting Bisping. “I wanted to try something that I never attempted before. For me, fighting Michael Bisping is the most rewarding thing I can do right now.”\nGiven that he’s 36-years-old and hasn’t competed in four years, many have also wondered if St. Pierre’s return is simply a one-off, or if the Canadian star will stick around for a few fights. In regards to that, “Rush” said that the plan is to win the title before defending it against interim champion Robert Whittaker:\n“You never know in advance,” St-Pierre said. “But if we follow the logic, that’s what the UFC told me. That’s what they signed me for.”\nWhat do you make of St. Pierre’s plan?", "The UFC is willing to grant former light heavyweight champion Jon Jones an immediate title shot upon his return this summer, according to UFC president Dana White.\nWhite told ESPN.com on Monday he is open to booking a highly anticipated rematch between Jones (22-1) and defending champion Daniel Cormier at UFC 214 on July 29 in Anaheim, California, provided Jones wants the Cormier fight right away.\nThe 29-year-old is currently serving a one-year suspension for a failed drug test, which ends the first week of July.\nShould Jones require more time or want a tune-up fight first, White said Cormier (19-1) will face British contender Jimi Manuwa (17-2), possibly at UFC 213 on July 8 in Las Vegas.\n\"Cormier is available to fight on July 8, but that time frame doesn't work for Jon Jones,\" White said. \"Cormier already told me he's willing to fight either Jones or Manuwa.\n\"If Jon Jones is ready to fight [by UFC 214] on July 29, we'll see the Jones versus Cormier rematch, finally.\"\nRepresentatives for Jones did not immediately respond to request for comment.\nDana White is offering Jon Jones a rematch against Daniel Cormier for his light heavyweight title at UFC 214 on July 29 in Anaheim as his first fight back form a one-year suspension. Rod Mar for ESPN\nThe UFC stripped Jones of the 205-pound championship in 2015 for disciplinary reasons. Earlier that year, Jones had defended his title an eighth time, defeating Cormier via unanimous decision at UFC 182.\nA rematch between Cormier and Jones was originally scheduled to take place at UFC 197 in April 2016, but Cormier was forced to withdraw due to a knee injury. It was later scheduled to headline UFC 200 last July in Las Vegas, but Jones was pulled from the event just days prior due to the failed drug test.\nFighting out of Albuquerque, New Mexico, Jones has made just one appearance in the last two years. He received a one-year suspension from the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) last July after testing positive for estrogen blockers he later said came from an unmarked sexual enhancement pill.\nIf the Cormier-Jones rematch is added to UFC 214, it is unclear where it would fall on the card. White has stated he will not trust Jones in a headlining role in his first fight back.\nWhile Jones' situation is uncertain, Cormier and Manuwa have recently gone back and forth with one another on social media, promoting a potential fight.\nOn Monday, Cormier wrote to Manuwa via Twitter, \"Let's go! I wanna fight you! Jones needs to get his sea legs back. Where's the contract. This [is] light work.\"\n\"Jimi wants Cormier,\" White said. \"They got into it at UFC 210 [earlier this month] and Jimi told me he's never been talked to like that before. We'll see how this plays out.\"", "UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov has revealed when he plans to return to the Octagon.\nHis latest bout was the biggest fight thus far in his pro-MMA career and he had to go through some hurdles to make it happen. The main event of the UFC 223 pay-per-view event went through three official changes.\nThe UFC attempted to book Nurmagomedov against Tony Ferguson as well as Max Holloway in the main event for the lightweight title.\nHowever, Holloway and Ferguson weren’t able to make the fight due to weight cutting issues and injury, respectively. Al Iaquinta was signed to step in on short notice to take on the undefeated champ in the headliner. As many believed would happen, it did and Khabib ended up winning the fight along with the undisputed UFC lightweight title.\nAfter the fight, the UFC champion stated that he was not planning to fight once again until November or December of this year.\nHowever, that has all changed, as he stated during a live chat Tuesday that his team has started talks with the promotion to return at either for the September or October pay-per-view event. He brought up potentially fighting on September 9 or October 6 but by looking at the calendar, there is not an event on the 9th of September. However, there is an event on September 8th, which is the upcoming UFC 228 pay-per-view event. The UFC 229 pay-per-view is set to take place on October 6th at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.\nRegarding his next opponent, that’s up in the air, but it should be noted that UFC President Dana White has gone on record that he would like to book the UFC lightweight champion against former lightweight and featherweight champion Conor McGregor.\nThe problem with that fight is due to McGregor’s status up in the air as he is currently dealing with some legal issues stemming from his infamous bus attack at UFC 223.\nThey could book him against Ferguson if he can get cleared in time after recovering from knee surgery.\n“I don’t know when it’s going to be but now we talk about this with the UFC,” Nurmagomedov said (transcript courtesy of MMA Fighting). “It’s going to be maybe 9 September or maybe 6 October. I don’t know about opponent – Conor [McGregor], GSP [Georges St-Pierre], whoever. It doesn’t matter, we’ll see. Next couple of weeks it’s going to be very fun because now we’re beginning to talk about my next fight with the UFC.” “I feel great, I feel good,” Nurmagomedov said. “Now we have Ramadan. We’re training only at night. Feeling good, feeling great, my weight is good, my shape is good. I always train every day, sometimes two times.”", "Gallery Francis Ngannou: Through the years view 16 images\nSure, things are heating up between Francis Ngannou and Derrick Lewis. But if “The Predator” had his way, he’d face a different “beast” next.\n“It’s up to what (the UFC) want to give me,” Ngannou said during today’s episode of “The MMA Hour.” “There are a lot of people out there who want to fight me. … “By myself, I want Brock – Brock Lesnar.”\nThere’s no question intrigue would be high for a showdown between the two heavyweight giants. Ngannou’s (11-2 MMA, 6-1 UFC) desire, though, has obstacles in front of it.\n“The Beast Incarnate” as he’s known in pro wrestling, Lesnar (5-3-1 MMA, 4-3-1 UFC) currently is retired from MMA and reigns as the WWE’s Universal champion. The former UFC champ hasn’t fought MMA since defeating Mark Hunt at UFC 200 in July 2016, a result that was later overturned to a no-contest after Lesnar failed a pair of drug tests by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. Lesnar was handed a one-year suspension and would later retire.\nIf Lesnar did return to the UFC, he would have to unretire to re-enter USADA’s testing pool and serve out the seven months left over on his suspension.\nThat’s what Ngannou would like to have happen.\n“Please Brock, come back. Come back, my friend. We need you here,” Ngannou said. “We need you to put the fun in this division. I need you to give me that f*cking fight I’ve been waiting for for a long time, I’ve been dreaming for.”\n“I like the fight,” Ngannou continued. “He look like — I don’t know if you ever seen this guy, he looks very, very big and strong. And I really want to try that.”\nAfter winning his first six UFC fights by stoppage – five of them by either knockout or TKO – Ngannou, 31, failed in his bid for the heavyweight title. Ngannou was dominated by champ Stipe Miocic at UFC 220, en route to a decisive unanimous decision.\nSince then, Ngannou recently has received callouts from both Lewis and Mark Hunt. Things particularly have flared up with “The Black Beast” on social media, with both men trading barbs to set up a potential matchup of heavy hitters that’s more realistic than a Lesnar fight.\nAnd it’s unlikely anyone would complain about an Ngannou-Lewis booking next.\nFor more on the UFC schedule, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.", "As far as free agents go, former Bellator champion and longtime 155-pound standout Michael Chandler could soon become a hot property.\nChandler (18-4 MMA, 15-4 BMMA), who’s fresh off a first-round submission win over Brandon Girtz (15-8 MMA, 7-6 BMMA) in Bellator 197’s main event, recently told MMAjunkie Radio that his Bellator deal “ends very soon.”\nAnd while Chandler, who’s an honorable mention in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA lightweight rankings, is happy with Bellator (where he’s fought since 2010) and says the company has always “done right” by him (and vice versa), he hasn’t ruled out the possibility of a new home.\nThe 31-year-old made a quick splash in MMA after winning NCAA Division I All-American honors as the University of Missouri’s former wrestling-team captain. Now, deep in his MMA career and on a 6-1 run, he’s one of the current faces of Bellator.\nBut, will it stay that way? For example, PFL (the rebranded/relaunched WSOF) is gearing up for an ambitious 2018 campaign that includes $1 million season-long tournaments, and the rosters feature some very notable names. Could those potentially big paydays and deep tourney fields garner Chandler’s attention? He considered it while the MMAjunkie Radio hosts showed him the list of lightweight-tourney entrants.\n“Yeah, I could come in here and wreck shop and hop out, I guess,” he said.\nUltimately, though, Chandler suggested he won’t be convinced of the organization’s viability until tourney winners actually have their checks deposited. Still, as a former Xtreme Couture regular who knows PFL President Ray Sefo well, Chandler said it’s impressive to see the vet’s vision come closer to reality.\n“Honestly, I think everything is a silly idea until proven otherwise,” he said of PFL’s tourney lineup. “I think – the cool thing is I’ve heard Ray Sefo talk about this ever since … the Xtreme Couture days a long time ago. So, it’s cool to kind of see it come to fruition.”\nStill, though, Chandler remains committed to Bellator, though that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s unable to fight elsewhere. Sure, the UFC could always be an option, as well. But take, for instance, the Japanese-based Rizin FF promotion, which has ties to Bellator and company president Scott Coker.\n“I have told Bellator to send me over to Rizin, man,” Chandler said. “I want to do one of those Rizin shows.\n“One day after one of my fights, (Rizin FF founder Nobuyuki Sakakibara), he’s like, ‘I want to have you come fight in Japan. They would love you.’ I was like, ‘Absolutely.’\n“I forget, I retired Akihiro Gono too back in the day, so I’ve got a little bit of a Japanese following. But I don’t know. I’m always looking for ways to stay active.”\nRegardless of what his immediate future holds, Chandler is simply relieved to have options.\n“Either way, 2018 is a great time to be part of mixed martial arts,” he said.\nFor more on Bellator’s upcoming schedule, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.\nMMAjunkie Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by “Gorgeous” George Garcia, Brian “Goze” Garcia and Dan Tom. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.", "Much has been said about Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s potential move to MMA, but UFC #7 welterweight Darren Till believes that Mayweather’s outlandish claims show huge disrespect for the sport of mixed martial arts.\n“Floyd is the best boxer I’ve seen in my whole life, but don’t disrespect the sport I do. You’re disrespecting it by saying you’re a 7 out of 10 in wrestling”\nTill has admitted that he respects Floyd Mayweather Jr. as a boxer, proclaiming that Mayweather is the best boxer that he has ever seen, but believes that Mayweather would struggle massively to even beat the smallest woman in the UFC.\n“From the smallest girl in the UFC to the heaviest man, it’s impossible for him to win a fight. He won’t win a single fight. The people who want to crossover to MMA are clowns.”\n“I’d love to slap my left leg across his chin and just take him out.”\nHe continued, “What was Floyd doing in that clip? He was walking in with his chin in the air. I’d love to slap my left leg across his chin and just take him out. I’ll never disrespect him as a boxer, but that stuff disrespects what I do and what my teammates do.\nFloyd Mayweather Jr. is not the only well-known boxing figure who has teased a crossover to MMA, Mayweather Jr.’s protégé Gervonta Davis has also caused a huge uproar with this recent tweet.\nI think I want to fight in the UFC — Gervonta Davis (@Gervontaa) March 10, 2018\nDarren Till didn’t leave Gervonta Davis out in his grilling of crossover boxers.\n“What does Gervonta think he’s going to do? Leave boxing and come straight to the UFC? I wish I was in his weight class. It’s not boxing, it’s different. You can’t put a glove up to an elbow and you can’t stop a submission. I take offence to it.”\nIt’s clear from Till’s comments that he takes huge offence to their recent actions. There are mixed reactions surrounding Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s attempts to compete in the UFC. Some people see Floyd’s actions as disrespectful and clueless, but others truly believe that the most successful boxer in recent history could have a shot inside The Octagon.\nDo you believe that boxers should cross over to MMA?", "Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press\nCALGARY -- UFC Fight Night in Calgary has some amends to make for UFC 149.\nThe Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to the Scotiabank Saddledome on July 28 almost six years after injuries so decimated the main card that just one of 10 originally-billed fighters stepped into the Octagon.\nWhile the undercard was entertaining, some main-card bouts drew boos. UFC commissioner Dana White's assessment of his property's debut in Alberta came with his trademark brutal honesty.\n\"UFC 149, we can count on one hand on how many shows have actually sucked,\" White said that night in 2012. \"Tonight is one more finger on the hand.\"\nIt wasn't a dud from a business standpoint with 16,089 attending and a gate of $4.1 million.\nThe UFC has since been back to Alberta with last September's UFC 215 in Edmonton drawing 16,232. White wants the UFC's next foray into the province to be a spectacle, especially as his 49th birthday coincides with the upcoming Calgary card.\n\"Dana has taken a very personal and emotional approach to this card,\" UFC senior vice-president David Shaw said Wednesday.\n\"We're very grateful for the support we've got all across Canada, but especially in Alberta because Calgary and Edmonton are both tier one markets for us in addition to Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.\n\"We have more fans per capita in Alberta than in any other province in Canada. It should not have been six years since we've been back to Calgary, but it has been.\"\nTickets go on general sale Friday. Since it isn't a pay-per-view event and will be carried on CTV 2, RDS 2 and FOX, tickets are cheaper than they were for UFC 149, ranging from $56 to $320 compared to $85-650.\nThe headliner is a rematch of former lightweight champion and world No. 3 Eddie Alvarez and No. 4 Dustin Poirier. Their bout a year ago in Dallas ended in a no-contest when Alvarez illegally kneed Poirier in the head.\nBoth fighters are angling for a shot at the title, currently held by undefeated Russian Khabib Nurmagomedov\nFor Alvarez (29-5 and one no-contest), this is his last fight on his current contract.\n\"I enjoy putting everything on the line. I do really well in those situations,\" the 34-year-old said. \"As I get older and I understand myself more and how I perform more, I am purposefully putting myself in those situations because I know how to respond.\n\"The winner of this fight is fighting for the world title next. That's what on the line, but what's always on the line is my skin and my name. My name and putting Dustin Poirier's name in my resume. Another champion and formidable opponent conquered.\"\nAlvarez contends Poirier (23-5 and one no-contest) wanted to quit their last bout and that only one of three his knees to Poirier's head was illegal.\n\"Anything he says I think he's trying to save face or make himself feel better about what happened, but I'm just glad he signed again because we've been trying to get this rematch for over a year now,\" said Poirier, 29.\n\"There's a lot of big things riding on this fight for me. I believe one hundred per cent that a win over Eddie Alvarez at this point in my career puts me in line for the next shot at the world title.\"\nBrazil's Jose Aldo versus Erik Koch was to be the premiere fight in Calgary in 2012 when Aldo was featherweight champ, but both men were too injured to battle.\nAldo, now No. 2 with a career 26-4 record, gets another chance in Calgary as the co-main bout with No. 4 Jeremy Stephens (28-14).\nThe top women's fight features world No. 1 strawweight Joanna Jedrzejczyk (14-2) and No. 5 Tecia Torres (10-2).\n\"The quality of those six athletes in those three fights are ranked in the top five,\" Shaw said. \"Each of those could be a main event on a standard fight night.\"\nHomegrown fighters on the undercard include Calgary's Hakeem Dawodu (7-1-1) versus Austin Arnett (15-5), as well as Jordan Mein of Lethbridge, Alta., (30-12) taking on Alex Morono (14-4, one no-contest).", "UFC lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez speaks during a news conference for UFC 205, Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2016, in New York. UFC Fight Night in Calgary on July 28 has amends to make for UFC 149 at Scotiabank Saddledome in 2012. The main card almost six years ago was a dud due in large part to a perfect storm of injuries. Tickets go on sale Friday for the event featuring a rematch of former lightweight champion Alvarez and Dustin Poirer. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP/Julie Jacobson\nCALGARY — UFC Fight Night in Calgary has some amends to make for UFC 149.\nThe Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to the Scotiabank Saddledome on July 28 almost six years after injuries so decimated the main card that just one of 10 originally-billed fighters stepped into the Octagon.\nWhile the undercard was entertaining, some main-card bouts drew boos. UFC commissioner Dana White’s assessment of his property’s debut in Alberta came with his trademark brutal honesty.\n“UFC 149, we can count on one hand on how many shows have actually sucked,” White said that night in 2012. “Tonight is one more finger on the hand.”\nIt wasn’t a dud from a business standpoint with 16,089 attending and a gate of $4.1 million.\nThe UFC has since been back to Alberta with last September’s UFC 215 in Edmonton drawing 16,232. White wants the UFC’s next foray into the province to be a spectacle, especially as his 49th birthday coincides with the upcoming Calgary card.\n“Dana has taken a very personal and emotional approach to this card,” UFC senior vice-president David Shaw said Wednesday.\n“We’re very grateful for the support we’ve got all across Canada, but especially in Alberta because Calgary and Edmonton are both tier one markets for us in addition to Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.\n“We have more fans per capita in Alberta than in any other province in Canada. It should not have been six years since we’ve been back to Calgary, but it has been.”\nTickets go on general sale Friday. Since it isn’t a pay-per-view event and will be carried on CTV 2, RDS 2 and FOX, tickets are cheaper than they were for UFC 149, ranging from $56 to $320 compared to $85-650.\nThe headliner is a rematch of former lightweight champion and world No. 3 Eddie Alvarez and No. 4 Dustin Poirier. Their bout a year ago in Dallas ended in a no-contest when Alvarez illegally kneed Poirier in the head.\nBoth fighters are angling for a shot at the title, currently held by undefeated Russian Khabib Nurmagomedov\nFor Alvarez (29-5 and one no-contest), this is his last fight on his current contract.\n“I enjoy putting everything on the line. I do really well in those situations,” the 34-year-old said. “As I get older and I understand myself more and how I perform more, I am purposefully putting myself in those situations because I know how to respond.\n“The winner of this fight is fighting for the world title next. That’s what on the line, but what’s always on the line is my skin and my name. My name and putting Dustin Poirier’s name in my resume. Another champion and formidable opponent conquered.”\nAlvarez contends Poirier (23-5 and one no-contest) wanted to quit their last bout and that only one of three his knees to Poirier’s head was illegal.\n“Anything he says I think he’s trying to save face or make himself feel better about what happened, but I’m just glad he signed again because we’ve been trying to get this rematch for over a year now,” said Poirier, 29.\n“There’s a lot of big things riding on this fight for me. I believe one hundred per cent that a win over Eddie Alvarez at this point in my career puts me in line for the next shot at the world title.”\nBrazil’s Jose Aldo versus Erik Koch was to be the premiere fight in Calgary in 2012 when Aldo was featherweight champ, but both men were too injured to battle.\nAldo, now No. 2 with a career 26-4 record, gets another chance in Calgary as the co-main bout with No. 4 Jeremy Stephens (28-14).\nThe top women’s fight features world No. 1 strawweight Joanna Jedrzejczyk (14-2) and No. 5 Tecia Torres (10-2).\n“The quality of those six athletes in those three fights are ranked in the top five,” Shaw said. “Each of those could be a main event on a standard fight night.”\nHomegrown fighters on the undercard include Calgary’s Hakeem Dawodu (7-1-1) versus Austin Arnett (15-5), as well as Jordan Mein of Lethbridge, Alta., (30-12) taking on Alex Morono (14-4, one no-contest).", "On Saturday UFC light-heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier hopes to become a two-division titleholder when he challenges Stipe Miocic for his heavyweight belt in UFC 226’s pay-per-view main event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.\nAnd that got us thinking: Who’s the most impressive of the four UFC fighters who have already won titles in two weight classes? So, we asked that question of MMAjunkie readers and MMAjunkie Radio listeners in our latest Daily Debate.\nIn UFC history, four two-division champions have emerged, and these are their championship resumes to consider :\nRandy Couture, who claimed the heavyweight title three times with wins over Maurice Smith, Kevin Randleman and Tim Sylvia, and defended the belt on three occasions. Couture (19-11 MMA, 16-8 UFC) won the light heavyweight title, first on an interim basis against Chuck Liddell followed by a title-unification win over Tito Ortiz. Couture lost a rematch to Liddell in his only attempted title defense.\nConor McGregor, who claimed an interim featherweight title against Chad Mendes before knocking out Jose Aldo to become undisputed champ. McGregor (21-3 MMA, 9-1 UFC) became a simultaneous champion – the first in UFC history – after he claimed the lightweight belt from Eddie Alvarez. McGregor never defended either of his titles and ultimately was stripped of both.\nB.J. Penn, who submitted Matt Hughes in his welterweight debut to claim the title and later vacated it without a defense. Penn 16-12-2 MMA, 12-11-2 UFC) also later claimed the vacant lightweight title with a submission win over Joe Stevenson and defended that belt three times.\nGeorges St-Pierre, a two-time welterweight champion with wins over Matt Hughes and Matt Serra. St-Pierre’s second title reign lasted more than five years and included nine title defenses before he retired as champ. St-Pierre (26-2 MMA, 20-2 UFC) came out of retirement four years later and claimed the middleweight title with a win over Michael Bisping in 2017, but he vacated the belt one month later, citing medical issues.\nThe results of our poll, via Twitter:\nToday's #DailyDebate question for @MMAjunkieRadio: In Saturday's #UFC226 headliner, Daniel Cormier goes for his second UFC belt. But which past two-division champ's accomplishments were most impressive? — MMAjunkie (@MMAjunkie) July 3, 2018\nWhat do you make of the results with McGregor as the winner – a full 12 points over St-Pierre?\nTo hear the MMAjunkie Radio crew of “Gorgeous” George Garcia, Brain “Goze” Garcia and Dan Tom weigh in on the topic (none of them picked McGregor), watch the video above.\nAnd for more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.\nMMAjunkie Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by “Gorgeous” George Garcia, Brian “Goze” Garcia and Dan Tom. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.\nGallery Photos: Best of Conor McGregor view 74 images", "It’s the only weight class in which the UFC has a champion but no contenders, no rankings, effectively no division. It’s also the weight class in which even the all-female fight promotion Invicta FC has a hard time booking bouts.\nIn Bellator, where women’s MMA has seen a fairly recent resurgence, the division saw a total of eight bouts in 2017 – the most of any major fight promotion – even if many of them ended up as online prelims or unaired “postlims,” taking place after the evening’s main event.\nSo what’s the problem with women’s featherweight? Why is the division that once played host to marquee bouts like Cris Cyborg vs. Gina Carano on Showtime now struggling just to fill the ranks? Is it a lack of talent, a lack of interest, or something else?\nIt’s a question that Invicta FC President Shannon Knapp has asked herself many times. Even back when she worked for Strikeforce, which promoted the Cyborg-Carano bout in 2009, the women’s 145-pound division was consistently the toughest division to consistently book.\n“I honestly don’t know why that is,” Knapp told MMAjunkie. “Trust me – I look all over the world for them. We’re looking every day to try to build these rosters and fill them out, and that one’s difficult. It’s always been difficult. There’s a handful (of female featherweights) out there, but nothing like the other divisions.”\nInvicta FC promotes women’s bouts in five divisions. On any given fight card you might see multiple fights in divisions like strawweight and atomweight, where Knapp said there are plenty of fighters to choose from, but it’s increasingly rare to see more than one featherweight bout per event.\nSeveral Invicta FC events have featured no featherweight bouts at all, especially now that the former champion Cyborg has made the move to the UFC.\nSome of the problem, according to Knapp, is that the division isn’t one that can afford to be spread so thin across multiple promotions.\n“Right now, I have 145-pounders, Bellator has them, and now the UFC,” Knapp said. “It’s not a division that you can really split three ways.”\nOfficials from both Bellator and the UFC declined to comment for this story.\nAccording to Robert Sargent, who has maintained consistent women’s MMA rankings and coverage on his website MMARising.com, spreading the talent pool too thin has had a negative effect in more ways than one.\nWith female featherweights competing separately in three different promotions, Sargent said, “it’s difficult for female featherweights to develop their skills by consistently competing against higher-level opposition.”\nPlus, that lack of opportunity has other consequences as well. Getting fights already is a major challenge for many female fighters. Making it even tougher at featherweight may serve as an extra deterrent to some athletes who might otherwise end up as active fighters in the weight class.\nAs for how we got to that state of affairs, Sargent points to timing. The UFC was slow to adopt the women’s 145-pound class, which meant that many potential featherweights faced a choice between dropping down to bantamweight or giving up on any hope of fighting in a major organization like the UFC. That left the door open for Bellator.\nUnder that promotion’s previous leadership, it had begun to move away from women’s MMA. But when former Strikeforce boss Scott Coker took over as Bellator president, he saw an opportunity to sign talent in the women’s weight class that the UFC seemed intent on ignoring.\n“The UFC waited too long to pull the trigger on creating a women’s featherweight division, which allowed fighters time to sign elsewhere, and it does not appear that they are now willing to commit to anything beyond one-off fights for Cyborg,” Sargent said. “And let’s also not forget that some UFC fans will forever dislike Cyborg, no matter how many fights she wins or how impressive her performances are, because UFC President Dana White spent years publicly bashing and mocking her before finally relenting and signing her.”\nIt’s true that before the UFC embraced Cyborg, White often dismissed her attempts to challenge former UFC bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey. Back then, Rousey was the UFC’s golden goose. Cyborg was, according to White, “Wanderlei Silva in a dress.”\nBut Cyborg’s years-long domination over the division has had other effects, too. While Knapp said she has some young featherweights on her radar, she acknowledges that “no way are they ready to compete with a fighter like Cyborg.”\nThat could be a problem, since any featherweight who rises through the ranks could quickly become a potential opponent for the UFC champ, who is seemingly always in need of new challengers she hasn’t already throttled.\nHer reign as UFC champion has even reportedly motivated more than one female fighter to choose Bellator over the UFC, since at least there a featherweight has some hope for a path to the title that doesn’t run through Cyborg.\nBut one retired female featherweight sees other forces at work, too. Marloes Coenen fought at both bantamweight and featherweight during her well-traveled career, competing in multiple title fights in both divisions and winning the Strikeforce bantamweight title in 2010.\nAt 5-foot-9, Coenen said her frame made her a more natural fit at featherweight, and she doesn’t buy the explanation that just aren’t enough talented women big enough to compete in the division.\nAfter all, you look around at other women’s sports and you see plenty of gifted athletes who meet the size requirements – and, as the Olympic Games confirm every four years, many compete in sports that pay even less than MMA.\nInstead, Coenen suspects that the reluctance to promote and accept larger female fighters is rooted in deeper issues.\n“Women are forced by society to move within a certain frame to be seen as a ‘full woman,'” Coenen said. “Step out of it and you become an outcast – see the rough UFC path that Cyborg had to climb, as an example.”\nAccording to Coenen, a lot of it may have to do with MMA’s male-dominated fanbase. A woman of Cyborg’s stature and skill could be too intimidating for some.\n“So if you have a cute girl like Paige VanZant that kicks ass, she is not a threat,” Coenen said. “That is OK. Gabi Garcia, however …”\nWhatever the root cause, women’s featherweight faces an uncertain future. Invicta FC does what it can with the division, but its champions are often spirited away by the UFC, which may soon happen with current Invicta FC women’s champion Megan Anderson.\nBellator operates the most active version of the weight class, but its roster of women’s 145-pound fighters is still largely inexperienced and unknown, with the possible exception of champion Julia Budd.\nIn the UFC, Cyborg already struggles to find quality opponents her own size, and her bosses don’t seem interested in building a talent pool around her.\nPlus, even Cyborg, as invincible as she seems, can’t fight forever. Once she’s gone, it’s hard not to wonder what will become of the weight class she calls home.\nFor more on the upcoming MMA schedule, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.", "Former two-division boxing champ Paulie Malignaggi calls the videos of his infamous sparring session against Conor McGregor “cute.” He even gives the producers a thumbs up for making it look like he got schooled by the UFC lightweight champion.\nWhen he first saw the clips, Malignaggi said he had to watch two or three times to remember the moment where he spilled to the canvas. And even then, the editing didn’t give a true impression of what really happened.\n“At the end of the day, you couldn’t find 20 seconds of concurrent action out of 36 minutes to put up,” Malignaggi today told MMAjunkie Radio. “You couldn’t find 20 seconds of concurrent action where you could just show an advantage being played out in 20 seconds.”\nTo Malignaggi, they’re just a distraction from the truth that McGregor (21-3 MMA, 9-1 UFC) is vastly out of his depth heading into a fight with undefeated boxing kingpin Floyd Mayweather (49-0 boxing) on Aug. 26 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.\nMalignaggi, who retired earlier this year and commentates for Showtime, said McGregor is “probably in charge of everything.” But there’s no love lost for the promoters behind it, specifically UFC President Dana White, who released one of the videos on his Instagram.\n“I don’t know if I’m more pissed at any one of them,” Malignaggi said. “I think I was more unhappy with the situation. I think Conor is probably in charge of everything. Dana is funny. I already know about Dana – Dana robs the UFC fighters blind.\n“I’ve never met an MMA fighter that actually likes Dana or had anything good to say. I’m still looking for one. When Dana comes up in conversation, I’ve yet to hear anybody say, ‘Wow, that guy’s great.’ Or, ‘That guy treats us so good.’ Or, ‘That guy’s a good guy.’ I’m not going to hold my breath, or I might turn blue. So I would expect that.”\nAfter the fists stopped flying that day in McGregor’s camp, Malignaggi said White tried to congratulate him on his work, a change of tone after he said he berated the UFC promoter while sparring McGregor. Still, he was in no mood for niceties.\n“I just kind of brushed him off,” Malignaggi said. “I don’t personally like the guy. I’ve never met him before, but I don’t personally have any respect or like the guy. He was trying to talk to me after, like trying to be friendly. I know what you’re about, bro. Don’t give me this bull(expletive). Don’t get mad now, because I punked you and I don’t want to talk to you, and during the sparring session I was yelling at you and telling you how useless your fighter was. Don’t be childish.”\nBut that seems to be the takeaway from Malignaggi when it comes to the experience of acting as a sparring partner for McGregor. Arriving with the earnest intention of helping an MMA fighter make a massive career leap, he left with a sour taste in his mouth about the character of everyone involved with the project.\nMalignaggi said producers can make him look bad in editing, but that doesn’t change the fact that McGregor is not ready for Mayweather.\nRelated Paulie Malignaggi reacts on Twitter to Conor McGregor sparring footage released by UFC\n“It was done very well. It was a nice Hollywood edit. But at the end of the day, the fact that it made such a splash is what I think is cute and adorable,” Malignaggi said. “Because Conor is trying so hard. Like, ‘Guys, listen, I can do this. I’m going to knock Floyd Mayweather out in two rounds.’ You can keep lying all you want. If he was Pinocchio, he’d be able to hit (Floyd) from the other side of the ring with his nose, that’s how much he’s been deceiving the public.\n“Well, this isn’t a Disney movie, my friend. This is real life. August 26th, this isn’t a Disney movie. Across the ring, you’ve got Floyd Mayweather, and he knows what he’s doing.”\nFor more on “The Money Fight: Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor,” check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.\nMMAjunkie Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by “Gorgeous” George Garcia and producer Brian “Goze” Garcia. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.", "Share this article with Google Plus\nGeorges St-Pierre was a short-lived middleweight champion (Picture: Getty)\nDana White has explained he was not shocked Georges St-Pierre vacated the middleweight title because he always knew the Canadian would refuse to fight Robert Whittaker.\nSt-Pierre announced he was stepping away from the middleweight division and was giving up the UFC crown he won in November when he choked out Michael Bisping at Madison Square Garden.\nWhite previously revealed he deliberately wrote into GSP’s fight contract that he had to defend the middleweight belt and would be ‘pissed’ if the former welterweight champion did not defend his strap.\nBut, after St-Pierre confirmed he would not be fighting at middleweight again, White admitted it was hardly a shock.\n‘At the end of the day, there’s a reason I put that stuff in the contract for him to sign,’ White told reporters UFC Fresno.\n‘There’s a reason. And am I shocked? I don’t think anybody is shocked.\n‘He came out, he hand-picked Bisping and then went away again. So, whatever, it is what it is.’\nWhite insisted he was not as angry as he expected he would be and seemed to cast doubt over GSP’s future in the octagon.\nThe MMA legend revealed he was suffering from colitis, a serious condition, that could permanently force him out of action.\n‘I thought I would be (super pissed), but I’m not. I expected it,’ White said.\n‘Listen, I had him sign a contract that said he would defend against Whittaker for a reason — because I knew he wouldn’t.’\nGeorges 'GSP' St-Pierre Fights 28 Wins 26 By Decision 12 By KO 8 By Submission 6 Losses 2 Share\nHe added: ‘He doesn’t want to fight anybody at welterweight.\n‘That’s why he fought Bisping. He didn’t want to fight (Tyron) Woodley, he didn’t want to fight (Stephen) ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson.\n‘He didn’t want to fight any of those guys. He wanted to fight Michael Bisping, and he did, and now he’s off again.\n‘So, listen, I’m not shocked, I’m not mad. It is what it is.’\nWhite has already reacted to GSP’s news by booking a middleweight title fight between interim champion Whittaker and Luke Rockhold at UFC 221 in Perth.\nMORE: Brian Ortega submits Cub Swanson with powerful standing guillotine at UFC Fight Night 123\nMORE: Dana White rubbishes Manny Pacquiao’s claims he is in talks to fight Conor McGregor", "A rule in the UFC’s anti-doping policy cost Andrea Lee her spot on UFC 216. Should the same have applied to her opponent, and the replacement who took her spot?\nLee (8-2 MMA, 0-0 UFC), a first-time UFC fighter, was removed when it was discovered she had a previous anti-doping violation, which required her to enter the USADA drug testing pool for six months prior to fighting in the octagon.\nKalindra Faria (18-5 MMA, 0-0 UFC), Lee’s scheduled opponent, had no previous anti-doping violations. But as a UFC newcomer, it appeared she was subject to a rule requiring new fighters to be in the testing pool for one month. The same followed for Mara Romero Borella, the opponent who eventually replaced Lee. Yet both Faria and Boreal were exempted from the rule.\nMMAjunkie reached out to UFC anti-doping partner USADA to clarify the situation. USADA deferred questions to UFC VP of Athlete Relations Jeff Novitzky, who said the UFC considers the new bout an injury replacement, despite the fact neither replaced an injured fighter.\n“As Paige (VanZant) was injured, this fight really replaces the Paige vs. Jessica Eye fight,” Novitzky said. “So it fits under that criteria.”\nRule 5.7.6 of the UFC’s anti-doping policy indicates the exemption applies to the circumstance in which a fighter steps in for an injured fighter. An exemption is permitted “automatically” when a fighter “is named to a fight card as a replacement for an athlete who was withdrawn from the Fight Card due to loss of eligibility, injury or other event not reasonably foreseeable to UFC.”\nBut Novitzky said the rule is applied more broadly in cases in which an injury to one fighter causes an entire bout to be scrapped from the event, and a new bout is booked to replace it. As MMAjunkie previously reported, VanZant (7-3 MMA, 3-2 UFC) withdrew from UFC 216 with a back injury. Eye (11-6 MMA, 1-5 UFC) declined to face Lee on short notice, opening up a spot on Saturday’s pay-per-view card at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.\nNovitzky said the UFC and USADA work together when short-notice replacements arise, with the promotion clearing details with the anti-doping agency “to make sure they have a comfort level that the circumstances fall under any given section in the policy.”\nHowever, he added, the ultimate authority in whether an exemption is granted lies with USADA.\n“We worked with USADA to put the rules together, but they are sole authority on enforcing the rules of the policy,” Novitzky said.\nWith injuries and last-minute withdrawals a constant in the UFC’s business, the exemption is part of a balancing act for the promotion. One one side, its goal is to have the most comprehensive anti-doping program in sports. On the other, it needs flexibility when it needs to fill fight cards.\nThe issue was brought into focus this past December when Angela Hill, a strawweight UFC veteran fighting for the all-female Invicta FC, was called up on short notice only to be scratched because of a four-month window required of returning athletes. Several UFC vets then complained the anti-doping program effectively shut them out, as short-notice fights are often the only chance for a return. The UFC eventually waived Hill’s testing window, arguing it was manifestly unfair to apply it.\nThe exemption has been a source of controversy, however. The promotion was embarrassed after it granted one to returning ex-champ Brock Lesnar, only to see him fail a drug test that was collected prior to a winning fight with Mark Hunt at UFC 200, but not reported until after the event.\nIn February, when the UFC and USADA revised the anti-doping policy, the one-month injury exemption was added, while the window for athletes returning from retirement was extended to six months. For the former, Novitzky said the intention of the rule was to provide a more level playing field to athletes who’d previously competed for the UFC without any anti-doping incidents and were released by the promotion for competitive reasons.\n“We saw that that wasn’t really fair,” Novitzky said. “So we changed that scenario and added the scenario we’re talking about here.”\nNovitzky admits the one-month exemption also exposes the promotion to more possible anti-doping issues. Without prior testing, it is relying on the assurances of fighters and managers who have little vested interest in telling the truth about drug use. But he points to “checks and balances” put in place as a deterrent.\nOne check, he said, is a comprehensive review process prior to a fight booking that checks fighters’ medical, legal and anti-doping history. In the case of Lee, he said, that process was underway when the media erroneously reported the fight was booked.\n“The medical team will vet a fighter to make sure they’re medically cleared, and our legal team looks at immigration and code of conduct and criminal history, and my team as well,” he said.\nAnother is a new rule recently adopted by the Association of Boxing Commissions to include USADA suspensions in an administrative database followed by all major athletic commissions.\n“The commissions can choose what they want to do with that, but the reality is most reputable commissions are going to see those USADA suspensions and adhere to it,” he said. “And that’s good, because say in these last-minute injury replacements or other unforeseen reasons a fighter gets in there, knows they were doing something and says, ‘Hey, I want to fight anyway, this is my foot in the door.’ What’s more than likely going to happen is that fighter is tested fight night, comes back positive – now, not only are they going to be prevented from fighting in the UFC for an extended period of time, if not forever, but the odds of them returning to the regional or local show because of that suspension on the database are just diminished, as well. So it’s virtually career suicide.”\nWhen a new UFC fighter is being considered as a short-notice replacement, Novitzky said UFC matchmakers Sean Shelby and Mick Maynard emphasize the consequences if the fighter is not clean.\n“We’ve actually seen an uptick in recent instances where managers will tell Mick or Sean, ‘Ah, you know what, I think my guy’s good. He’s not interested,'” Novitzky said. “That’s a great thing. First and foremost, this program is in place to protect the UFC athletes and make our promotion healthier and safer.\n“We’re starting to see that, that the trickle-down of information as far as what our program means to these local, regional fighters. Combined that with some of the advances in testing – we’re now seeing tests, and Jon Jones’ case being a perfect example, where chlorinated steroids, there’s now tests for metabolites that go out four to six months.\n“I think what this means is that information is passing down to the aspiring UFC fighter that sees: ‘Hey, usually my foot in the door is that last-minute replacement. I never know when that call is coming, and if I’m doing anything within four to six months of that call coming, I’m screwed. I’m not going to be able to fight, and if I do, it’s one and done.’ I think really positive development.”\nOf course, as with any program, it’s not perfect. The UFC has signed first-time fighters on short-notice, only to see them subsequently fail drug tests. Novitzky, though, defends the current policy as an effective compromise in regulatory oversight.\n“The comprehensiveness and strength of the program is important, but it’s just as important to have fairness and due process,” Novitzky said. “I think a lot of these aspiring UFC fighters, their ability to have that foot in the door comes from these last-minute replacements. So to put something in place where we wouldn’t have the ability to do that wouldn’t be fair to them.\n“Now, on the other side, there are those checks and balances. We don’t want want to put fighters in that are dirty. And so we have those checks and balances. But it’s clearly a balancing act.”\nFor more on UFC 216, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.", "Khabib Nurmagomedov is putting considerable money where his considerable mouth is, but Tony Ferguson isn't backing away from what he says he needs for their fight to happen.\nNurmagomedov, who is known across the MMA world for his brash trash talk, told RT Sport (h/t MMAWeekly) he signed up for a fight with Ferguson at UFC 209 on March 4, perhaps for an interim lightweight title, but that Ferguson declined the invitation.\nNurmagomedov took it to another level Monday when he offered Ferguson an additional $200,000 to take the fight, apparently dipping into his own (or someone's) pocket to make a bout more intriguing.\nBoth men appeared later Monday on The MMA Hour (warning: NSFW language) with host Ariel Helwani to, in essence, publicly negotiate the potential terms of engagement.\nUp first was Ferguson, who insisted he receive more favorable terms from the UFC before adding his signature to the agreement.\n\"I don't like this guy,\" Ferguson told Helwani. \"My style of fighting is so much better than his. ... We're going to fight, that's what it is. But things have to be right. It has to be on good terms, you know?\"\nBut there's more to the story. California native Ferguson added his own interesting nugget, saying he was initially offered a fight with Nurmagomedov in January in Anaheim, California, but Nurmagomedov \"didn't want to sign on the dotted line, because he had too many boo-boos, or he didn't want to do it in my hometown.\"\nAlthough he declined to discuss specific numbers, Ferguson added that he now believes he has \"outperformed [his] contract,\" indicating he expected special terms for this bout—one he and plenty of others deem a special, main event-level fight.\nFerguson said he wasn't interested in accepting Nurmagomedov's offer of extra money, suggesting the offer itself was evidence that the UFC wasn't properly stepping up to make the bout happen.\n\"Let's get some chatter going, let's get the UFC involved in this,\" Ferguson said. \"If you've got Khabib willing to sacrifice his life and then give me $200,000 of his own money, something's wrong with that s--t. I'm not going to take this guy's money. ... If Khabib can afford to put up $200K of his money? So can the UFC.\"\nNurmagomedov didn't back down, either. Appearing on The MMA Hour directly after Ferguson, he ignored Ferguson's entreaties to the UFC, choosing to again question Ferguson's manhood for failing to sign the agreement for March. He also appeared to defend his higher pay grade compared with Ferguson's.\n\"Not going to talk to that clown, dude. I'm not talking to him like 2 girls on the phone.\" - @TonyFergusonXT on staying on for @TeamKhabib — Champions MMA (@ChampionsFight) January 2, 2017\n\"He's an interesting guy, talking about 'Let's go, let's do this, blah blah blah,' but UFC ask him 'Let's go, why not?'\" Nurmagomedov said in his fragmented English. \"I said, 'Let's go, I am ready, March 4.' But UFC talk about he won't make money like me, but with me is all of Russia. ... Who with him? Who with him? California?\"\nThe UFC's two highest-ranked lightweights behind champ Conor McGregor have been circling each other for months. It intensified in November after McGregor put himself on extended family leave.\nBut Nurmagomedov, the undefeated sensation from Russia's Dagestan republic, keeps charging Ferguson with failure to sign on for a match that would surely determine McGregor's first 155-pound title challenger when the champ returns.\nOn that fight, at least, the two contenders seem to agree.\n\"The fight is us or Conor, man, and I know both of us are going to smash that fool,\" Ferguson said. \"So, the real fight is this fight, and we both know it.\"", "Khabib Nurmagomedov is willing to put his money where Tony Ferguson’s mouth is.\nIn his latest effort to make a fight, Nurmagomedov today offered to close the gap between Ferguson’s asking price and the UFC’s offer (via Twitter):\nHey @TonyFergusonXT if the @ufc don't want to pay you I'll pay you 200k extra on your purse let's make this fight now you have no excuse — khabib nurmagomedov (@TeamKhabib) January 2, 2017\n“Hey @TonyFergusonXT if the @ufc don’t want to pay you I’ll pay you 200k extra on your purse let’s make this fight now you have no excuse,” Nurmagomedov wrote today on Twitter.\nFerguson (22-3 MMA, 12-1 UFC) wants “fair terms” for his next contract, which according to UFC President Dana White, means he wants the same money Nurmagomedov (24-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) is getting.\nThe only problem is, that’s apparently too much.\n“Khabib has a different deal, so that ain’t happening,” White said. “Count that one out. (Ferguson) had a contract that he just signed not long ago.”\nWhite defended his decision, saying Ferguson should honor his contract as the promotion does.\n“I honor every contract no matter what it is,” he said. “I get into some (expletive) deals too. You’ve got a guy who’s making tons of money, but he was a champion, and that was the deal I cut. I cut that deal and I signed it, and I’ve got to live my with deal, you know what I mean?”\nNurmagomedov and Ferguson, respectively No. 2 and No. 3 in the latest USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA lightweight rankings, were twice booked against each other, first at The Ultimate Fighter 22 Finale and then UFC on FOX 19. Injuries to both fighters scratched the fights. Neither has lost a fight since, placing them on a collision course for a title-eliminator.\nBoth ultimately want a fight with champ Conor McGregor, who will sit out the next 10 months, per White.\nBut Ferguson, the “TUF 13” winner, might go another direction if a compromise can’t be found. He earlier chided Nurmagomedov for getting in the middle of his struggle with the UFC (via Twitter):\n“He Answered, I Answered… Both Accepted Now Need Fair Terms,” he wrote on Twitter. “I See You Doing @DanaWhite Work Now Lol #BestFriends #Payroll #MasterofPuppets”\nNurmagomedov probably won’t appreciate the suggestion, given that just a few days ago, he called out the promotion for “lying to fans” about a scrapped interim title bout with featherweight champ Jose Aldo.\nNurmagomedov’s manager, Ali Abdelaziz, said the Ferguson bout is the best one to make and hoped Ferguson worked out terms with the UFC.\n“If he kills Tony, that’s it,” Abdelaziz said. “After that, we’re going for the head of the snake, the big cobra, Conor.”\nFor more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.", "Many have suspected that Jon Jones would be granted an immediate title shot upon his return to the UFC. Now we have clarity on the situation.\nUFC President Dana White told ESPN.com on Monday that the promotion is ready to book a highly anticipated rematch between Jones and light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier at UFC 214, provided Jones is ready to fight by the July 29 pay-per-view event in Anaheim, Calif.\nJones, who is currently serving a one-year suspension for a failed drug test, isn’t eligible to return until after the first week in July.\n“Cormier is available to fight on July 8, but that time-frame doesn’t work for Jon Jones,” White said. “Cormier already told me he’s willing to fight either Jones or (Jimi) Manuwa. If Jon Jones is ready to fight (by UFC 214) on July 29, we’ll see the Jones versus Cormier rematch finally.”\nWhite added that if Jones (22-1 MMA, 16-1 UFC) needs more time for his return to the octagon, the UFC is prepared to grant Jimi Manuwa a shot at Cormier, possibly at UFC 213 on July 8 in Las Vegas.\nSince submitting Anthony Johnson at UFC 210 earlier this month, Cormier (19-1 MMA, 8-1 UFC) and Manuwa (22-1 MMA, 16-1 UFC) have gone at each other on Twitter as “Poster Boy” continues to call out Cormier and push for his shot at the title. Jones, meanwhile, attended UFC 210 and had some choice words for Cormier, ripping the champ for his weigh-in controversy and encouraging him to “enjoy his last moments with the belt.”\nJones defeated Cormier in January 2015 at UFC 182 via unanimous decision to retain his title and hand Cormier his only loss. Later that year, the UFC stripped Jones of the belt for disciplinary reasons, leading to the first fight between Cormier and Johnson for the vacant title at UFC 187. Cormier and Jones were set to headline UFC 200 last July, but Jones failed a drug test in the lead-up because of sexual enhancement pills. As a result, Jones received a one-year suspension from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.\nIf Cormier-Jones 2 does go down at UFC 214, no word on where the bout would be placed on the card, although White has expressed concern over Jones headlining an event given his history.\nFor more on UFC 214, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.", "Poirier on his upcoming main event in Calgary, GSP, and legitimacy of Khabib\nCALGARY — UFC Fight Night in Calgary has some amends to make for UFC 149.\nThe Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to the Scotiabank Saddledome on July 28 almost six years after injuries so decimated the main card that just one of 10 originally-billed fighters stepped into the Octagon.\nWhile the undercard was entertaining, some main-card bouts drew boos. UFC commissioner Dana White's assessment of his property's debut in Alberta came with his trademark brutal honesty.\n\"UFC 149, we can count on one hand on how many shows have actually sucked,\" White said that night in 2012. \"Tonight is one more finger on the hand.\"\nIt wasn't a dud from a business standpoint with 16,089 attending and a gate of $4.1 million.\nThe UFC has since been back to Alberta with last September's UFC 215 in Edmonton drawing 16,232. White wants the UFC's next foray into the province to be a spectacle, especially as his 49th birthday coincides with the upcoming Calgary card.\n\"Dana has taken a very personal and emotional approach to this card,\" UFC senior vice-president David Shaw said Wednesday.\n\"We're very grateful for the support we've got all across Canada, but especially in Alberta because Calgary and Edmonton are both tier one markets for us in addition to Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.\n\"We have more fans per capita in Alberta than in any other province in Canada. It should not have been six years since we've been back to Calgary, but it has been.\"\nTickets go on general sale Friday. Since it isn't a pay-per-view event and will be carried on CTV 2, RDS 2 and FOX, tickets are cheaper than they were for UFC 149, ranging from $56 to $320 compared to $85-650.\nThe headliner is a rematch of former lightweight champion and world No. 3 Eddie Alvarez and No. 4 Dustin Poirier. Their bout a year ago in Dallas ended in a no-contest when Alvarez illegally kneed Poirier in the head.\nBoth fighters are angling for a shot at the title, currently held by undefeated Russian Khabib Nurmagomedov\nFor Alvarez (29-5 and one no-contest), this is his last fight on his current contract.\n\"I enjoy putting everything on the line. I do really well in those situations,\" the 34-year-old said. \"As I get older and I understand myself more and how I perform more, I am purposefully putting myself in those situations because I know how to respond.\n\"The winner of this fight is fighting for the world title next. That's what on the line, but what's always on the line is my skin and my name. My name and putting Dustin Poirier's name in my resume. Another champion and formidable opponent conquered.\"\nAlvarez contends Poirier (23-5 and one no-contest) wanted to quit their last bout and that only one of three his knees to Poirier's head was illegal.\n\"Anything he says I think he's trying to save face or make himself feel better about what happened, but I'm just glad he signed again because we've been trying to get this rematch for over a year now,\" said Poirier, 29.\n\"There's a lot of big things riding on this fight for me. I believe one hundred per cent that a win over Eddie Alvarez at this point in my career puts me in line for the next shot at the world title.\"\nBrazil's Jose Aldo versus Erik Koch was to be the premiere fight in Calgary in 2012 when Aldo was featherweight champ, but both men were too injured to battle.\nAldo, now No. 2 with a career 26-4 record, gets another chance in Calgary as the co-main bout with No. 4 Jeremy Stephens (28-14).\nThe top women's fight features world No. 1 strawweight Joanna Jedrzejczyk (14-2) and No. 5 Tecia Torres (10-2).\n\"The quality of those six athletes in those three fights are ranked in the top five,\" Shaw said. \"Each of those could be a main event on a standard fight night.\"\nHomegrown fighters on the undercard include Calgary's Hakeem Dawodu (7-1-1) versus Austin Arnett (15-5), as well as Jordan Mein of Lethbridge, Alta., (30-12) taking on Alex Morono (14-4, one no-contest).", "SINGAPORE – Despite three consecutive losses, Holly Holm remains calm and confident ahead of Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 111 headliner against Bethe Correia.\nSince winning the UFC women’s bantamweight title from Ronda Rousey at UFC 193 in November 2015, Holm (10-3 MMA, 3-3 UFC) has failed to have her hand raised. She’s dropped three straight fights and needs to get back on track when she meets Correia (10-2-1 MMA, 4-2-1 UFC) in the UFC Fight Pass-streamed main event at Singapore Indoor Stadium in Singapore.\nPrior to the current skid, Holm had never lost consecutive fights – not just in her MMA career, but in the entirety of her combat-sports career, which includes a lengthy amateur and pro boxing run. Holm admitted there’s a necessary mental requirement needed to remain positive through hard times, and she said her ability to do that stems from the knowledge she hasn’t performed at an optimum level.\n“A three-fight losing streak? I’ve never been here in my life,” Holm told MMAjunkie ahead of UFC Fight Night 111. “I’ve never had a two-fight losing streak, so it’s one of those things I have to overcome in my own mind. … It’s all me. It’s all on me. Nobody can fight for me. I’m the only one that can do it when I’m in there. I know I’m more capable than what my last three-fight records shows. That’s just something I’m going to have to overcome on my own.\n“Yes, there’s times you battle with doubt in your own mind and things like that, but in the end, it all depends on how you feel about yourself when you get in there. I know I’m capable of beating these girls, and that’s what I need to do.”\nAlthough her title-losing submission to Miesha Tate at UFC 196 in March 2016 was hard to deal with, as was the unanimous-decision loss to Valentina Shevchenko at UFC on FOX 20 in July 2016, perhaps the most frustrating result of the current run was Holm’s unanimous-decision loss to Germaine de Randamie at UFC 208 in February.\nHolm moved up to the featherweight division for the inaugural title fight, which she lost despite competing well and absorbing multiple after-the-bell blows from “The Iron Lady.” Holm took the opportunity because it gave her the chance to become just the fourth fighter in UFC history to claim belts in two weight classes, but it didn’t go according to plan. Holm is back at bantamweight for the fight with Correia, but if she can get everything right, “The Preacher’s Daughter” doesn’t rule out a change in division again in the future.\n“If they offered me a fight at 145, I’m open to it,” Holm said. “I’m open to fighting at either weight. But the last fight, everybody I know says, ‘Hey, I thought you won that fight. Even with the strikes after the bell we thought you had three rounds to two.’ But at the end of the day I know I could have done more to make that more clear, and it should never be that close anyway. I just took what I learned from it and moved forward because I can’t go back and change the past.”\nLooking forward, Holm said she likes her chances against Correia. The Brazilian is a brawler who prefers to come forward and throw aggressive strikes. That should play right into Holm’s game plan. At her best she is able to move well around the octagon and counterstrike incoming opponents.\nHolm said she can’t make any assumptions, though. After all, though some of the fights during her current skid seemed tailor-made for her style, they didn’t go her way on fight night.\n“She’s going to be aggressive, and she’s not going to turn away from you,” Holm said of Correia. “She faces a challenge, and those are sometimes the toughest opponents because they’re going to take whatever comes at them. With that being said, I know I’m tough too. I know that I have the experience, I know I’m technical, and I know that I’m capable. And I do believe that my skill set is better.\n“That doesn’t mean that it’s in the bag. That does not mean that the victory is easy. I have to take Bethe at her best, and you never know what’s going to happen when you get in there. I want to be adaptable and take the fight where it goes.”\nThe hardest part of dealing with the rough stretch was Holm wasn’t necessarily blown out in any of her losses. She was beating Tate until a stunning come-from-behind submission ended the fight, she was competitive for the most part against Shevchenko, and then arguably she should have got the nod against de Randamie.\nHolm said she’s not simply shooting for the win at UFC Fight Night 111; she wants to win emphatically.\n“I don’t want to let another opportunity go by and not make the best of it,” she said. “That’s been a sore ache in my side for the past three fights. I hate to lose, and I just want the taste of victory. I don’t want to be there just to experience it. I’m not ever there for a participation ribbon. I’m there for a victory, and that’s all there is to it.”\nFor more on UFC Fight Night 111, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.", "Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather finally have reached a multi-million dollar deal to fight, the Irish Sun has learned. After months of intense negotiations, representatives for McGregor have thrashed out a money-spinning contract with Mayweather’s camp in recent days.\nAlthough the bombshell agreement is yet to be formally signed because of a third-party hold-up, it would mean the 28-year-old Irish brawler will go toe-to-toe with the undefeated 39-year-old boxing great.\nThe MMA sensation pulled out of a scheduled meet-and-greet event in Dublin this week to go to the United States to make an anti-bullying video for schoolchildren. McGregor will shoot the video as part of a deal struck with the Nevada Sports Commission after he was deemed to have thrown a bottle of water at Nate Diaz.\nHe also will use the opportunity to finalize details with his representatives in Las Vegas as the Mayweather fight inches closer.\nHe said: “There’s a lot of business to do out in Las Vegas. They tried to fine me $150,000 for throwing a bottle of water. It was a can, but whatever. We’ll call it a bottle of water and say no more about it …”\n“Ah, no, look, I’m gonna f–k this whole s–t up again. I love the Vegas commission. We’ve come to an understanding. I’m gonna fly out there and fix it. I’m gonna get my Las Vegas boxing commission and then we’ll see where the f–k Flyod’s at!”\nThe undisputed UFC lightweight champion was due to appear at the $100-a-head bash on Friday night, but withdrew Tuesday due to “an unavoidable schedule change.”\nA source close to the star told the Irish Sun: “Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather have agreed a deal to fight and have both settled on their respective fees.\n“The contract hasn’t officially been signed yet because of a third party hold-up, but all the details have all been agreed on. The fight could even be announced within two weeks.”\nRepresentatives for McGregor could not be reached for comment when contacted by the Irish Sun.\nMcGregor has made no secret of his desire to take on the 49-0 Mayweather and has vowed to hand Mayweather his first KO.\nMcGregor recently boasted: “That fight is more than just being explored. That fight has been in the works a while now.\n“Look, there’s a lot of steps to get through to get the fight going, but it’s the fight to make. It’s the fight the people want. It’s the fight I want. I know I’m confident going in there.\n“I’ve got the reach. I’ve got youth. I’ve got the confidence. I’ve got the unpredictable style. You can’t prepare for a style like me. A guy said to me, why conquer one world when you can conquer two? So I’m going to go conquer two worlds.”\nBut speaking just last week, UFC boss Dana White insisted any contest involving under-contract McGregor was “not possible” and promised it would “never happen.”\nWhite said: “It will never happen. That’s not even possible. He’s under contract with us. You have a contract for a reason.\n“Let me tell you what, there are a lot of contracts out there, no matter what business you are in – UFC or whatever – and it’s pretty tough to get out of a contract.\n“And if that’s what Conor wants to do [fight Mayweather], he’s got four fights left. He’s got four fights left with the UFC. Fight your four fights and, you know, go out and do what you want to do.”", "LAS VEGAS – There were injuries, delays, ships leaving and returning to port – the fight between UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping and ex-welterweight kingpin Georges St-Pierre at UFC 217 was not a lock until August.\nBut through its ups and downs, Bisping (30-7 MMA, 20-7 UFC) always thought his date with St-Pierre (25-2 MMA, 19-2 UFC) would come, even if the reason wasn’t the most flattering to him.\n“I knew this fight would come off, because he hasn’t got the balls to fight anyone that he doesn’t think he can beat, like Anderson Silva, like many other people,” Bisping said today at a news conference in Las Vegas for the Nov. 4 pay-per-view event at Madison Square Garden in New York City.\nSuch a point of view fits in perfectly with the brash Brit’s style, of course. But you could also forgive him if he didn’t genuinely believe it’s true.\nDuring his reign as welterweight champ, interest in a superfight between St-Pierre and Silva went on for so long it took on a life of its own. St-Pierre kept pumping the brakes, maintaining he needed time to properly bulk up before facing Silva. Eventually, the fire underneath the fantasy bout died down. And then, St-Pierre stepped away from the sport after a highly controversial win over Johny Hendricks in 2013.\nSince word of the potential Bisping fight surfaced, St-Pierre’s motives for returning to a UFC division in which he never fought, long after the opportunity appeared ripe for the taking, have been amply questioned.\nToday, the ex-champ seemed intent to address the doubts. Bisping’s hazing certainly provided an easy opening.\n“So, one time I’ve been offered the fight (with Silva) is when I stopped fighting after my fight with Hendricks,” St-Pierre said. “After my fight with Hendricks, (UFC President) Dana (White) called me and said, ‘Do you want to fight Anderson Silva?’ But I didn’t want to fight anybody. Not Silva. You would have put a three-foot midget, and (I wouldn’t want to fight him). I just wanted to take a break. That’s the only time.\n“There’s been a lot of talk about fighting, but never has anything significant been proposed. It’s all rumor and talks. If I go up in weight class, I need time to gain weight and adjust myself for that challenge. At that time, I was very busy. I had challenge after challenge. I was fighting all these guys at 170 that were challenging me one after the other. So if I do something, I want to focus on it and do it well. That’s why I’ve been preparing myself for more than six months to fight Bisping. And I put on some weight, and I feel good now, it feels natural, and I’m ready to go.”\nNaturally, Bisping was unconvinced.\n“He didn’t want to fight because Johny Hendricks hit him in the head so many times, he thought he’d been abducted by aliens,” he shot back. “I’m surprised you’re not wearing a tinfoil hat today to stop the messages coming. Dude, I’m going to hit you so many times, you’re going to think you’re going to disappear on the mothership.”\nThe middleweight champ is happy to pick at St-Pierre, as he is with any foe who agrees to a fight. But he knows a lot about facing doubters. He’s been written off after multiple high-profile losses. When he finally managed to win the title, critics and potential opponents had a field day when he fought Dan Henderson. Getting credit has never been easy.\n“I’ve never avoided a fight in my life,” Bisping said. “And Dana is standing right here. In fact, I accepted the winner of Yoel (Romero) vs. (Robert) Whittaker (at UFC 213). We figured it all out. Prior to them fighting, in the backroom, I accepted the fight with Whittaker or Romero.\n“Whittaker won the right, so that means Romero is at the back of the line, and then Whittaker didn’t want to do ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ and injured his knee. So that leaves me without a fight again, and in the meantime, ‘GSP’ grew a pair.”\nWhatever ultimately brought them together, Bisping and St-Pierre have something else in common – a big question mark hanging over their next move.\nBoth stars have talked about retirement as an imminent possibility after UFC 217. Bisping could sail into the horizon with a win over St-Pierre, which would give him wins over two of the sport’s most celebrated and dominant champions. St-Pierre has said he could walk away for good if he loses in New York. Even if he wins, he has only one contractual obligation at middleweight before he’s afforded the opportunity to return to his native division.\nOne thing is for sure: The sight of the UFC’s former face alongside the once-dogged middleweight hopeful is something fans probably won’t see again.\nFor more on UFC 217, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site." ]

[ "Green Bay Packers The Packers have won 13 league championships, the most in NFL history, with nine pre-Super Bowl NFL titles in addition to four Super Bowl victories. The Packers won the first two Super Bowls in 1967 and 1968 and were the only NFL team to defeat the American Football League (AFL) prior to the AFL–NFL merger. The Vince Lombardi Trophy is named after the Packers' coach Lombardi, who guided them to their first two Super Bowls. Their two additional Super Bowl wins came in the 1996 and 2010 seasons.[11]" ]

[ "Bears–Packers rivalry The Bears–Packers rivalry is a National Football League (NFL) rivalry between the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers. The two clubs have won a combined 22 NFL championships (13 for Green Bay and 9 for Chicago), including 5 Super Bowl championships (4 for Green Bay and 1 for Chicago) and have 65 members in the Pro Football Hall of Fame (Chicago with 34 and Green Bay with 31.)", "History of the National Football League championship From 1966–1969 prior to the merger in 1970, the NFL and the AFL agreed to hold an ultimate championship game, first called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game and later renamed the Super Bowl after 1968. Following the merger in 1970, the Super Bowl name continued as the game to determine the NFL champion. The most important factor of the merger was that all ten AFL teams joined the NFL in 1970 and every AFL championship game and record is included in NFL record books. The old NFL Championship Game became the NFC Championship Game, while the old AFL Championship Game became the AFC Championship Game. The NFL lists the old AFL/NFL championship games with \"new\" AFC/NFC championship games in its record books. The Green Bay Packers have won the most championships with 13 total (9 NFL championships pre-merger, four (4) Super Bowl championships). The Packers are also the only team to win three consecutive championships, having done so twice (1929–1931, 1965–1967). The Chicago Bears have won the second most overall championships with nine (9) (eight NFL championships, one Super Bowl championship).", "Green Bay Packers The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) North division. It is the third-oldest franchise in the NFL, dating back to 1919,[7][8] and is the only non-profit, community-owned major league professional sports team based in the United States.[9] Home games have been played at Lambeau Field since 1957.", "Green Bay Packers The Green Bay Packers were founded on August 11, 1919[1] by former high-school football rivals Earl \"Curly\" Lambeau and George Whitney Calhoun.[12] Lambeau solicited funds for uniforms from his employer, the Indian Packing Company. He was given $500 ($6,900 today) for uniforms and equipment, on the condition that the team be named for its sponsor. The Green Bay Packers have played in their original city longer than any other team in the NFL.", "Green Bay Packers After finishing the regular season 10–6 the Packers clinched the No. 6 seed in the NFC playoffs. They first faced No. 3 seeded Philadelphia, winning 21–16. In the Divisional round, they defeated No. 1 seeded Atlanta 48–21. They then played the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field in the NFC Championship Game – only the second playoff meeting between the two storied rivals (the other a 33–14 Chicago victory which sent them to the 1941 NFL Championship Game). Green Bay won 21–14 to move on to Super Bowl XLV. On February 6, 2011, they defeated the AFC champion Pittsburgh Steelers 31–25, becoming the first No. 6 seed from the NFC to win a Super Bowl. Aaron Rodgers was named Super Bowl MVP.[36][37]", "List of Green Bay Packers stadiums As of 2016[update], the current home of the Green Bay Packers is Lambeau Field, a 81,435 seating capacity stadium in Green Bay, Wisconsin.[citation needed] By the 1950s, City Stadium was seen by the NFL as too small and outdated to host an NFL team. After threats of forcing the team to move to Milwaukee, the City of Green Bay built New City Stadium, which was funded by a voter-approved bond issue, in 1957.[3] In April 1956, Green Bay voters responded by approving (70.3%) a bond issue to finance the new stadium.[4] After the Packers founder, Curly Lambeau, died in 1965, the stadium was renamed to Lambeau Field.[citation needed] Its original capacity was 32,500 seats, although it was continually expanded from 1961 to 1995 to a capacity of 60,890 seats.[5][6][7] The stadium was farther renovated from 2001 to 2003 to a capacity of 72,515, while also updating various aspects of the stadium.[citation needed] The south endzone was expanded in 2013 and the Lambeau Atrium entrance was completed in 2015.[citation needed] These renovations increased the stadium's capacity to 81,435, making it the third largest football stadium in America.[citation needed] It has been continuously ranked as providing one of the best game time experiences for fans in the NFL.[citation needed] As of 2016[update], it is also the oldest continually operating NFL stadium, with the Packers having completed their 59th season. Only the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park and the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field have longer active home-field tenures in American professional sports.[8]", "2016 Green Bay Packers season The 2016 Green Bay Packers season was their 98th season overall, 96th season in the National Football League, and the 11th under head coach Mike McCarthy. Despite a 4-6 start to the season, the Packers went on a 6-game winning streak to finish the regular season with a 10–6 record. The team clinched the NFC North for the fifth time in six years with their week 17 win over the Detroit Lions. They routed the fifth-seeded New York Giants 38–13 in the wild card round of the playoffs and upset the top-seeded Dallas Cowboys 34–31 in the divisional round of the playoffs, but their season came to an end when they were beat by the second-seeded Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship Game 44–21.", "Vince Lombardi Trophy The Vince Lombardi Trophy is the trophy awarded each year to the winning team of the National Football League's championship game, the Super Bowl. The trophy is named in honor of NFL coach Vince Lombardi, who led the Green Bay Packers to victories in the first two Super Bowl games.[1]", "List of NFL franchise post-season streaks The New England Patriots[1] hold the longest active consecutive playoff streak with 9 appearances, starting with the 2009–10 NFL playoffs, which is tied for the longest of all-time. The Patriots have won two Super Bowls during this streak. The Dallas Cowboys[2] also hold this record with nine appearances from 1975-1983. The Cowboys won one NFL championship during the streak. The Indianapolis Colts[3] tied this record with nine straight appearances and one championship from 2002-2010. The Green Bay Packers[4] hold the longest consecutive NFL title streak with three consecutive crowns. They did this once in the 1920s, before playoff games, and once in the 1960s, by winning seven playoff games during this three year championship streak.", "NFL season ticket waiting lists The Green Bay Packers have the longest waiting list, with more than 100,000 names. The team's website says the wait is 30 years.[5] It is a common custom in Green Bay and other Wisconsin cities to put a baby's name on the list as soon as the birth certificate is obtained.[6][7][8] Transfer of standing to surviving relatives is permitted by the Packers.[5]", "Kansas City Chiefs The Chiefs have won three AFL championships, in 1962, 1966, and 1969[6] and became the second AFL team (after the New York Jets) to defeat an NFL team in an AFL–NFL World Championship Game, when they defeated the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV. The team's victory on January 11, 1970, remains the club's last championship game victory and appearance to date, and occurred in the final such competition prior to the leagues' merger coming into full effect. The Chiefs were also the second team, after the Green Bay Packers, to appear in more than one Super Bowl (the first AFL team to do so) and the first to appear in the championship game in two different decades.", "Camp Randall Stadium The Green Bay Packers have played 12 exhibition games at Camp Randall, which, up until 2013, had a larger seating capacity than the Packers' home stadium, Lambeau Field. The series began in 1986, shortly after the Chicago Bears began to use nearby University of Wisconsin-Platteville as a training camp site. The most recent pre-season Packers game at Camp Randall was played in 1999.", "Super Bowl XLV Super Bowl XLV was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Pittsburgh Steelers and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Green Bay Packers to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for the 2010 season. The Packers defeated the Steelers by the score of 31–25. The game was played on February 6, 2011, at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, the first time the Super Bowl was played in the Dallas–Fort Worth area.", "Green Bay Packers In 1951, the team finally stopped wearing leather helmets, adopting the metallic gold plastic headgear it has used ever since. The oval \"G\" logo was added in 1961 when Lombardi asked Packers equipment manager Gerald \"Dad\" Braisher to design a logo. Braisher tasked his assistant, St. Norbert College art student John Gordon. Satisfied with a football-shaped letter \"G\", the pair presented it to Lombardi, who then approved the addition.[73] Tiki Barber falsely reported[74] it to stand for \"greatness\" without a reliable source to back up his claims. Other reputable media outlets then published similar stories using Barber's false claim as a source.[75] The Packers' Assistant Director of PR and Corporate Communications had the following to say: \"There’s nothing in our history that suggests there's any truth to this. The Packers Hall of Fame archivist said the same thing.\"[76] The team used a number of different logos prior to 1961, but the \"G\" is the only logo that has ever appeared on the helmet.[77][78] The Packers hold the trademark on the \"G\" logo, and have granted limited permission to other organizations to utilize a similar logo, such as the University of Georgia and Grambling State University, in addition to the city of Green Bay itself as part of its civic logo.[79] Adopted in 1964, the Georgia \"G\", though different in design and color, was similar to the Packers' \"G\". Then-Georgia head coach Vince Dooley thought it best to clear the use of Georgia's new emblem with the Packers.[80]", "National Football League Cheerleading As of 2016, six teams do not have cheerleading squads: Buffalo Bills, Chicago Bears, Cleveland Browns, Green Bay Packers, New York Giants, and the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Packers do, however, use a collegiate squad to cheer at home games.[19] Super Bowl XLV between the Steelers and the Packers in February 2011 was the first time a Super Bowl featured no cheerleaders. The Browns and the Giants are the only NFL teams that have never had cheerleaders, while the other aforementioned teams have had cheer squads in the past.", "New York Giants The Giants were one of five teams that joined the NFL in 1925, and is the only one of that group still existing, as well as the league's longest-established team in the Northeastern United States. The team ranks third among all NFL franchises with eight NFL championship titles: four in the pre–Super Bowl era (1927, 1934, 1938, 1956) and four since the advent of the Super Bowl (Super Bowls XXI (1986), XXV (1990), XLII (2007), and XLVI (2011)), along with more championship appearances than any other team, with 19 overall appearances. Their championship tally is surpassed only by the Green Bay Packers (13) and Chicago Bears (9). Throughout their history, the Giants have featured 28 Hall of Fame players, including NFL Most Valuable Player (MVP) award winners Mel Hein, Frank Gifford, Y. A. Tittle, and Lawrence Taylor.", "List of Super Bowl champions The Pittsburgh Steelers (6–2) have won the most Super Bowls with six championships, while the New England Patriots (5–5), the Dallas Cowboys (5–3), and the San Francisco 49ers (5–1) have five wins. New England has the most Super Bowl appearances with ten, while the Buffalo Bills (0–4) have the most consecutive appearances with four (all losses) from 1990 to 1993. The Miami Dolphins are the only other team to have at least three consecutive appearances: 1972–1974. The Denver Broncos (3–5) and Patriots have each lost a record five Super Bowls. The Minnesota Vikings (0–4) and the Bills have lost four. The record for consecutive wins is two and is shared by seven franchises: the Green Bay Packers (1966–1967), the Miami Dolphins (1972–1973), the Pittsburgh Steelers (1974–1975 and 1978–1979, the only team to accomplish this feat twice), the San Francisco 49ers (1988–1989), the Dallas Cowboys (1992–1993), the Denver Broncos (1997–1998), and the New England Patriots (2003–2004). Among those, Dallas (1992–1993; 1995) and New England (2001; 2003–2004) are the only teams to win three out of four consecutive Super Bowls. The 1972 Dolphins capped off the only perfect season in NFL history with their victory in Super Bowl VII. The only team with multiple Super Bowl appearances and no losses is the Baltimore Ravens, who in winning Super Bowl XLVII defeated and replaced the 49ers in that position. Four current NFL teams have never appeared in a Super Bowl, including franchise relocations and renaming: the Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Houston Texans, though both the Browns (1964) and Lions (1957) had won NFL championship games prior to the creation of the Super Bowl.", "Lambeau Field Lambeau Field is an outdoor athletic stadium in the north central United States, located in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The home field of the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (NFL), it opened in 1957 as City Stadium, replacing the original City Stadium at East High School as the Packers' home field. Informally known as New City Stadium for its first eight seasons, it was renamed in August 1965 in memory of Packers founder, player, and long-time head coach, Curly Lambeau,[1][2][11] who had died two months earlier.[12][13]", "Super Bowl The designated \"home team\" alternates between the NFC team in odd-numbered games and the AFC team in even-numbered games.[53][54] This alternation was initiated with the first Super Bowl, when the Green Bay Packers were the designated home team. Regardless of being the home or away team of record, each team has their team logo and wordmark painted in one of the end zones. Designated away teams have won 30 of 51 Super Bowls to date (approximately 59 percent).", "Brett Favre Favre's eleven Pro Bowl invitations is the third most among quarterbacks in NFL history. He is the only player to win the Associated Press NFL Most Valuable Player Award three consecutive times, doing so from 1995 to 1997, and is one of only six quarterbacks to have won the award as well as the Super Bowl in the same season.[1] He led teams to eight division championships, five NFC Championship Games, and two Super Bowl appearances: Super Bowl XXXI and Super Bowl XXXII. He and the Packers won Super Bowl XXXI with a 35–21 victory over the New England Patriots.", "Milwaukee County Stadium The National Football League's Green Bay Packers played two to four home games per year at Milwaukee County Stadium from 1953 to 1994,[42] after using Wisconsin State Fair Park in nearby West Allis from 1934 through 1951 and Marquette Stadium in 1952.[43][44] The Packers compiled a 76–47–3 (.615) regular season record at County Stadium over 42 seasons. It hosted at least one pre-season game annually during this time as well (except 1983), including the Upper Midwest Shrine Game. Financial considerations prompted the Packers to move some of their games to Milwaukee starting with the 1933 season, with one game played at Borchert Field. By 1995, multiple renovations to Lambeau Field made it more lucrative for the Packers to play their full home slate in Green Bay again for the first time since 1932.[45] Former Milwaukee ticket holders were offered tickets at Lambeau to one pre-season game and games 2 and 5 of the regular season schedule, in what is referred to as the \"Gold package.\"", "Super Bowl I The first AFL-NFL World Championship Game in professional American football, known retroactively as Super Bowl I and referred to in some contemporaneous reports, including the game's radio broadcast, as the Super Bowl,[7] was played on January 15, 1967 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California. The National Football League (NFL) champion Green Bay Packers defeated the American Football League (AFL) champion Kansas City Chiefs by the score of 35–10.", "Green Bay Packers Indian Packing was purchased in 1920 by the Acme Packing Company. Acme continued to support the team, which played its first NFL season with \"ACME PACKERS\" emblazoned on its jerseys.", "Detroit Lions The Lions have won four NFL championships, tied for 9th overall in total championships amongst all 32 NFL franchises; however, their last was in 1957, which gives the club the second-longest NFL championship drought behind the Arizona Cardinals. They are one of four current teams and the only NFC team to have not yet played in the Super Bowl. They are also the only franchise to have been in operation for all 52 seasons of the Super Bowl era without having appeared in one. (The Cleveland Browns were not in operation for the 1996 to 1998 seasons.)[5]", "Miracle in Motown The Miracle in Motown was the final play of an American football game between the NFC North divisional rivals Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL) that was played on December 3, 2015 at Ford Field in Detroit.[1][2] On the final play of regulation, with no time remaining on the game clock, Packers quarterback (QB) Aaron Rodgers heaved a towering 61-yard (56 m) Hail Mary pass into the end-zone that was caught by tight end (TE) Richard Rodgers for the game-winning touchdown. The play resulted in a stunning 27–23 come-from-behind victory for the Packers, who had trailed 20–0 in the second half, marking the fourth-largest comeback in franchise history.[3] The game was broadcast on television nationally on Thursday Night Football, a joint production aired simultaneously by CBS and NFL Network.", "Washington Redskins The team began play as the Boston Braves in 1932, based in Boston, before relocating to Washington, D.C., in 1937. The Redskins won the 1937 and 1942 Championship games, as well as Super Bowls XVII, XXII, and XXVI. They also played in, and lost, the 1936, 1940, 1943, and 1945 Championship games, as well as Super Bowls VII and XVIII. They have made 24 postseason appearances, and have an overall postseason record of 23–18. The Redskins' three Super Bowl wins are tied with the Oakland Raiders and Denver Broncos, behind the Pittsburgh Steelers (six), San Francisco 49ers, Dallas Cowboys, and New England Patriots (five each), and the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants (four each).[5]", "NFC North The NFC North is a division of the National Football League (NFL)'s National Football Conference (NFC), based in the Upper Midwest region of the United States. Nicknamed the \"Black & Blue Division\" for the rough and tough rivalry games between the teams, it currently has four members: the Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, and Minnesota Vikings. The NFC North was previously known as the NFC Central from 1970 to 2001. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were previously members, from 1977, one year after they joined the league as an expansion team, until 2001 when they moved to the NFC South.", "List of NFL tied games There have been 24 tied games since the 1974 rule change; 17 ties occurred from 1974 to 2011 under the original overtime rules, while seven ties have occurred since the overtime rules were modified in 2012. Four seasons (1986, 1997, 2016, 2018) had two ties since the introduction of overtime.The most recent tie game occurred on September 16, 2018, when the Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers played to a 29–29 tie. The Houston Texans and Jacksonville Jaguars are the only current NFL teams that have never recorded a tied game; the New England Patriots have never recorded a tie in an NFL game, but recorded nine ties as members of the American Football League (AFL). The Chicago Bears have played to 42 ties (all prior to 1974), the most of any NFL team,[10] while the Green Bay Packers have recorded the most ties since the 1974 introduction of overtime, with six.", "Aaron Rodgers Aaron Charles Rodgers (born December 2, 1983) is an American football quarterback for the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (NFL). Rodgers played college football for California, where he set several career passing records, including lowest single-season and career interception rates.[1] He was selected in the first round of the 2005 NFL Draft by the Packers.[2]", "Minnesota Vikings Since the team's first season in 1961, the Vikings have had one of the highest winning percentages in the NFL.[11] As of 2017, they have won at least three games in every season except in 1962, and are one of only six NFL teams to win at least 15 games in a regular season. The Vikings have won one NFL Championship, in 1969, before the league's merger with the American Football League (AFL). Since the league merger in 1970, they have qualified for the playoffs 27 times, third-most in the league. The team has played in Super Bowls IV, VIII, IX, and XI, though failing to win any of them. In addition, they have lost in their last six NFC Championship Game appearances since 1978. The team currently has 14 members in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.[12][13]", "Curly Lambeau The Packers' home stadium, Lambeau Field, was named after him. The venue opened in 1957 as the second City Stadium, and was informally called \"New\" City Stadium for its first eight years.[14] It was renamed in August 1965,[15][16] two months after Lambeau's death. The Packers then won three consecutive league titles, which has yet to be repeated.", "Arizona Cardinals The team was established in Chicago in 1898 as an amateur football team and joined the NFL as a charter member on September 17, 1920.[3] Along with the Chicago Bears, the club is one of two NFL charter member franchises still in operation since the league's founding. (The Green Bay Packers were an independent team until they joined the NFL a year after its creation in 1921.) The club then moved to St. Louis in 1960 and played in that city through 1987 (sometimes referred to as the \"Football Cardinals\" or the \"Big Red\" to avoid confusion with the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball). Before the 1988 season, the team moved west to Tempe, Arizona, a college suburb east of Phoenix, and played their home games for the next 18 seasons at Sun Devil Stadium on the campus of Arizona State University. In 2006, the club moved to their current home field in Glendale, although the team's executive offices and training facility remain in Tempe." ]

[ "Protestors take part in the \"Tax March\" to call on US President Donald Trump to release his tax records on April 15, 2017 in Washington, DC (AFP Photo/Mandel Ngan)\nWashington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump on Sunday hit back at nationwide protests calling for him to release his tax returns, questioning \"who paid for\" the \"small\" rallies.\n\"Someone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday. The election is over!\" the president tweeted Sunday morning.\nThat message came about an hour after an earlier tweet when he appeared to suggest the matter was a non-issue.\nFor more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.\nTrump has previously said Americans don't care about his returns.\n\"I did what was almost an impossible thing to do for a Republican-easily won the Electoral College! Now Tax Returns are brought up again?\" Trump tweeted.\nHis messages came after thousands of protesters gathered Saturday in cities across America to pressure Trump to release his tax returns, a move of transparency he has repeatedly rejected.\nThe demonstrations were timed to coincide with the traditional April 15 deadline for annual tax filings, a key date on the calendar for US households, and resulted in dozens of arrests.\nFor decades, US presidents and presidential candidates have released their returns voluntarily, although there is no legal obligation to do so.\nUS law requires only the publication of a financial statement that estimates assets, including debt and revenue, but does not give details on the amount of taxes paid.\nTrump, a billionaire property tycoon, released a financial statement but has kept his tax returns private, both during the election campaign and since taking office in January.\nHe argues that he cannot release them because he is being audited. But tax officials have said he can in fact release them if he so wishes.\nTrump has on at least two previous occasions accused demonstrators of being paid to protest against him.\n\"Professional anarchists, thugs and paid protesters are proving the point of the millions of people who voted to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!\" he wrote on February 3 during protests against his executive order on immigration." ]

[ "Kellyanne Conway (Photo: screen capture)\nIn a Monday interview with “Fox and Friends,” White House counselor Kellyanne Conway begged Democratic leaders to stop the flood of protests that were held over the weekend.\n“Six months after Donald Trump won 306 electoral votes, you have people still trying to make it go away,” Conway said of the April 15 protests demanding Trump release his taxes.\nThe Tax Protest was an effort by economic justice groups that joined forces to encourage rallies in 200 cities across the country.\n“I would love to hear the new DNC chairman, Tom Perez, Bernie Sanders, the Democratic senator from Vermont, who are going out on the road starting today, and I would love to hear Hillary Clinton, who lost to Donald Trump handily,” Conway continued. “I would love to hear them come forward as leaders of the Democratic Party and tell the people to stop. They have a right to express their First Amendment beliefs but at the same time, violence is not going to get us anywhere.”\nOne rally in Berkeley, California turned violent as Trump supporters were caught punching anti-Trump supporters.\nTrump responded to the protests with another unhinged tirade on Twitter saying that he won the election without revealing his tax returns.\n“We need to see Trump’s tax returns as a matter of transparency. If we’re going into a tax reform debate, we need to know if what Trump wants to do is going to benefit himself, since he tends to do things that help him and not necessarily others,” said Wes Shockley, an organizer for the New York City march.\nIn a new poll from the Global Strategy Group, 80 percent of Americans, including 64 percent of Republicans, would like to see Trump’s tax returns.\nWatch the full interview below:\nKellyanne Conway begs Democratic leaders to… by sarahburris", "Protesters are gather on Capitol Hill in Washington, Saturday, April 15, 2017, during a Tax Day demonstration calling on President Donald Trump to release his tax returns. Protesters walk during a rally to encourage the release of President Donald Trump's tax returns, Saturday, April 15, 2017, in Palm Beach, Fla.\nStart the conversation, or Read more at Daily Herald.", "The Los Angeles Times calls Berkeley the “flashpoint” of political protests in the Trump era. This assessment comes after supporters and opponents of President Donald Trump exchanged blows Saturday.\nVideo of woman — apparently protesting President Trump — getting punched in Berkeley sparks outrage https://t.co/nXYaPjJ84F pic.twitter.com/bIsBBlJJMT — CBS News (@CBSNews) April 17, 2017\nFrom the Washington Post:\nDueling pro- and anti-Trump rallies in Berkeley, California turned violent Saturday as numerous fistfights broke out and protesters fired pepper spray into a crowd. Police arrested more than a dozen people and requested aid from other law enforcement agencies.\nIt was not immediately clear what protesters were charged with, or whether there would be more arrests. The Berkeley Police Department seized numerous prohibited items, including sticks and knives, according to the agency.\nIn February, violent protest erupted at the University of California, Berkeley with news that controversial Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos, a right-wing extremist, would visit the college for a talk.\nWhile the two sides fought on Saturday, dozens of protests erupted nationwide, as demonstrators called on Trump release his personal tax returns.\nThousands on the \"Tax March\" in more than 150 cities called on Donald Trump to release his tax return https://t.co/qa0xPRb6cj pic.twitter.com/oT7RdGTktw — Newsweek (@Newsweek) April 17, 2017\nTrump has said he could not release his taxes because of an IRS audit. However, the tax agency said he’s allowed to make them public during the audit. Trump has so far declined, fueling suspicion that he’s hiding something.\nSOURCE: Los Angeles Times, Washington Post\nSEE ALSO:\nTrump Faces Renewed Scrutiny Over Taxes After Russian Dossier Claims\nTrump Threatens To Cut UC Berkeley’s Federal Funding After Wednesday Protests", "Well, the tax protesters got the president’s attention.\nThe weekend rallies, with a handful of celebrities sprinkled among them, used the tax filing season to demand that Donald Trump release his returns.\nThat demand will be about as effective as North Korea’s latest missile test.\nBut the protests did produce a pair of presidential tweets: “I did what was an almost impossible thing to do for a Republican-easily won the Electoral College! Now Tax Returns are brought up again?”\nTrump’s view is that he got himself elected while defying the demands that he release his returns, and that settles the issue. And it’s true that the issue never got that much traction, except in the media.\nLeaving aside his explanation of being under audit, Trump’s essential message is: “Read My Lips. No Tax Returns.”\nIn a second tweet, he said: “Someone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday. The election is over!” One organizer denied that anyone was paid.\nThe protesters turned out in such cities as Washington, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago and Denver. In Berkeley, 21 people were arrested as the demonstrators clashed with Trump supporters in a melee that included rocks, sticks and smoke bombs—the kind of violence that gives peaceful protest a bad name.\nI doubt the protesters thought they were going to pressure the president into changing his mind. They just see it as a good club to whack him with.\nI happen to think that Trump should have followed the 40-year tradition among presidential candidates and made at least some of his returns public. But it is hardly the most burning issue now, given the airstrikes against Syria and the threats emanating from North Korea.\nOn Sunday, NBC’s Chuck Todd said: “If we ever see his tax returns, and I do think we will at some point, it is going to be because some government entity forced them public.”\nWell, maybe. It’s hard for me to imagine a subpoena from one of the Hill investigations of Russia, as Todd suggests, with Republicans controlling both houses of Congress.\nTrump critics have long suspected that he paid no taxes. But that much-hyped leak featured on Rachel Maddow’s program showed that he paid $38 million a decade ago, at a much higher rate than Mitt Romney.\nThat isn’t to say that Trump didn’t utilize all kinds of real estate tax breaks, but it has taken much of the sting out of the issue.\nThis will surface again, of course, when the White House starts pushing a tax reform bill. Detractors will demand to know how the proposed changes will affect Trump’s IRS bill, as if his sole goal is to make himself richer.\nWith tensions rising against North Korea and in the wake of the Syrian airstrikes, the tax-return flap will remain on the back burner. But after the president’s decision not to release White House visitor logs, he risks further criticism on the broader issue of transparency.\nHoward Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of “MediaBuzz” (Sundays 11 a.m.). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.", "For the first time since the violent, white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia this weekend, President Donald Trump directly denounced racist crimes on Monday, naming the Ku Klux Klan, white supremacists, and neo-Nazis as hate groups.\n“Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs,” Trump said at the White House, “including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans,”\nTrump, however, did not flatly say that such groups were responsible for the clashes in Charlottesville.\nThe remarks came amid intense criticism over Trump’s muted response to the violence in Charlottesville, where one person was killed after a suspected white supremacist struck a crowd of counter-protesters. Separately, two state troopers were killed in a helicopter crash while monitoring the situation.\nIn his initial statements this weekend, Trump refused to directly name and condemn white nationalists responsible for the Unite the Right rally, which was organized to protest the removal of a confederate statue. Instead, Trump claimed “many sides” were responsible for the violence. While his administration gradually came out to condemn such groups, Trump himself remained silent on the issue.\nBy Monday morning, Trump appeared to finally identify someone to forcefully disavow: Kenneth Frazier, the CEO of pharmaceutical company Merck, who had announced his resignation from the White House’s manufacturing advisory council over Trump’s refusal to stand against white nationalists.\nTrump kicked off his press conference by stating his reason for traveling back to Washington from his vacation: jobs, tax cut reform, and trade deals.", "Actress @DebraMessing at Trump #TaxMarchNYC: “Mr. Trump, if you have nothing to hide, then please release them. Why not?” via @MorganRadford pic.twitter.com/lje11qhcpc — Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) April 15, 2017\nReport Calls Out Just How Much Time MSNBC’s Maddow Spends on Trump & Russia\n‘Who Gave You Your Manners?’: Russia’s Lavrov Scolds NBC’s Mitchell\nA Media Research Center analyst raised questions this morning about the media’s real agenda in covering the Tax Day protests, specifically pointing to an MSNBC interview with actress Debra Messing.\nAt the rallies Saturday, many Americans called for President Donald Trump to release his tax returns and continued to push the narrative about alleged connections to Russia.\nSomeone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday. The election is over! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 16, 2017\nAt one of the rallies, the former “Will & Grace” star told MSNBC that Trump “has deep links to Russia” and said American democracy was “attacked and infiltrated by Russia.”\nMessing said if Trump has nothing to hide, then he should release the tax returns to reassure the American people about his business ties.\n“If you care about the American people, you will release your taxes,” she said.\nThe reporter, Morgan Radford, then followed up by asking whether protests are the “best way to make our voices heard” in order to “neutralize” the threat posed by the current administration.\nMedia Research Center managing editor Brittany Hughes weighed in, taking issue with the “leading” line of questioning and saying that media bias on the left does not get more blatant.\n“You might as well just put down the microphone, pick up a picket sign and a pink knitted hat and go running into the march yourself. This is Journalism 101. You don’t do this,” she said.\nWatch the Messing clip above and the “Fox & Friends” discussion below.\nHomeland’s Patinkin on Muslim ‘Fear’: White Men in Gov’t, Military Are the Problem\nThat Time Sean Spicer (Really) Dressed as the White House Easter Bunny\n‘Patriotism Triggering People’: College Votes to Remove Flag From Meetings", "CHICAGO (AP) — The latest on Tax Day protests around the nation (all times local):\n6:45 p.m.\nPolice in Berkeley, California, say 13 people have been arrested and knives and makeshift weapons confiscated after violence erupted at a park where factions that support and oppose President Donald Trump gathered for Tax Day rallies.\nAbout 200 people were at Berkeley's Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park for separate rallies Saturday when pushing began. Dozens of police officers in riot gear standing nearby quickly arrested one man. Others were taken into custody as fistfights broke out.\nPolice say demonstrators have left the park but are blocking several streets in the city's center.\nOfficials say officers have confiscated knives, flagpoles, helmets and sticks with signs on them, things that were being used as weapons.\nPhotographs of the scene published online show at least two men with bloodied faces.\n___\n5:10 p.m.\nActress and producer Justine Bateman says Americans need \"financial statement proof\" that President Donald Trump is not beholden to any business interests or country other than the U.S.\nShe addressed several thousand people Saturday at a Tax Day rally in downtown Los Angeles to demand that Trump release his tax returns.\nTrump was the first major-party nominee in four decades to not release his tax returns, saying it was because he was under audit. He later said that voters don't care.\nBut Randall Pitre, of San Dimas, California, said the issue is transparency, adding that nobody knows if it's a big deal \"because we don't know what he's hiding.\"\nSimilar protests are being held in dozens more cities including Washington, D.C., Chicago, New York and Palm Beach, Florida.\n__\n3:55 p.m.\nNorth Carolina demonstrators say President Donald Trump's refusal to release his income tax returns makes them wonder what he might be hiding.\nAbout 200 people gathered at a downtown Raleigh plaza to protest Trump's decision, as well as his performance in the White House.\nSome say Trump's tax returns might show he has paid little or nothing to run the government he now heads, or that he was deeply indebted to Russian, Chinese or other foreign interests.\nRegistered nurse Pam Craig, of Greensboro, North Carolina, says she'd like to ask Trump how much he \"contributed to this country.\"\nTrump was the first major-party nominee in four decades to not release his tax returns, saying it was because he was under audit. He later said that voters don't care.\n___\n2:30 p.m.\nCelebrities and lawmakers joined a Tax Day demonstration in New York City, where protesters planned to march to Trump Tower to demand that President Donald Trump release his tax returns.\nComedian Sarah Silverman told The Associated Press that she feels \"beholden to be an active citizen.\"\nIlene Singh said she and her friend, Geraldine Markowitz, took a bus from New Jersey to join the crowd and \"say we care\" about Trump's taxes.\nTrump was the first major-party nominee in four decades to not release his tax returns, saying it was because he was under audit. He later said that voters don't care.\nProtesters say Americans deserve to know about Trump's potential conflicts of interest.\nSimilar protests are being held in dozens more cities including Washington, D.C., Chicago and Mar-A-Lago, Florida.\n___\n2:05 p.m.\nPresident Donald Trump's motorcade took a circuitous route back to Mar-A-Lago after he spent Saturday morning at his golf course, avoiding Tax Day protesters headed toward his Palm Beach estate.\nSeveral hundred protesters marched across the bridge that divides West Palm Beach and Palm Beach, chanting and hoisting signs that read \"Don the Con,\" ''Go back to New York,\" ''Show your taxes!\" and \"Show me the money!\"\nOrganizers say similar Tax Day protests are being held in about 150 cities to demand that Trump release his tax returns.\nHe was the first major-party nominee in four decades to not release his tax returns, saying it was because he was under audit. He later said that voters don't care.\nProtesters say Americans deserve to know about Trump's potential conflicts of interest.\n___\n1:25 p.m.\nOne of Trump's sharpest critics in the House says that Democrats and Tax Day protesters \"will not be quiet\" about his taxes.\nDemocratic Rep. Maxine Waters, of California, spoke at a rally at the U.S. Capitol on Saturday before protesters began marching toward the National Mall.", "President Donald Trump is still under audit, the White House says, and won't be releasing any of his tax returns on Tuesday, the deadline this year for Americans to pay the government.\nTrump said throughout the campaign that he would not release his taxes, and his spokesman said prior to today not to expect financial documents from last year's earnings, either.\n'We're under the same audit that existed, so nothing has changed,' White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told a reporter asking if Trump would put out his most recent filings on Tuesday.\nPresident Donald Trump is still under audit, the White House says, and won't be releasing any of his tax returns on Tuesday, the deadline this year for Americans to pay the government\nTrump could plausibly ask the IRS to confirm that he is, in fact, under audit given that the agency falls under the purview of the executive branch. But Spicer rejected that suggestion on Monday as he gave reporters the administration's regular line.\nThe Trump spokesman insisted that the president's latest filings, which are not due until tomorrow but may already have been turned in, are included in the batch the president is refusing to turn over at the direction of his lawyers until the audit has concluded.\n'They are,' he interjected. 'I think its been covered before. It's the same thing that was discussed during the campaign trail. The president is under audit. It's a routine one that continues.'\nIt's probable that Trump's files from the last year he was in business will come under audit, if they aren't already, USA Today reported, because all presidents and vice presidents have their files reviewed by the IRS.\nA rule dating back to the Nixon administration requires the IRS to review the Oval Office holder's finances. That process is fast-tracked, but Trump's files will take longer to look over than previous presidents because of his immense wealth and holdings.\nSpicer did not offer the IRS rule as a reason for Trump's refusal to release his 2016 taxes on Monday. And he had previously suggested that the ex-businessman could offer those returns to the public on Tax Day.\n'We'll cross that bridge when it comes to it,' Spicer said in March. 'But the President has been very clear throughout the campaign and consistent that he’s under a routine audit.'\nPresident Trump spent Easter morning defending his decision not to show the American people his tax returns, one day after protesters took to the streets to demand their release.\n'I did what was an almost an impossible thing to do for a Republican-easily won the Electoral College! Now Tax Returns are brought up again?' Trump wrote. 'Someone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday. The election is over!'\nTrump, who was spending Easter weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, was likely responding to coverage of Saturday's Tax Day protests, which brought out droves of people in cities around the country including New York, Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia.\nPresident Donald Trump tweeted Easter Sunday morning about yesterday's tax day protests, pointing out that he did 'an almost impossible thing' by winning the Electoral College\nDuring the campaign, Trump explained that he would not be releasing his tax returns as he was under audit but would release them as soon as he could.\nNow, in the White House, he still hasn't released them, though the New York Times and journalist David Cay Johnston, who debuted his findings on the Rachel Maddow Show, have exposed partial returns to the public.\nSpicer referred to the MSNBC reveal of Trump's 2005 returns in his response to the Tax Day push, saying that those documents, which were incomplete and showed only what Trump earned and what he paid to the government.\nHe suggested that Americans could derived what they needed to know about the president's finances from the decade-old documents that were provided to Johnston by an anonymous source.\n'The one time that it was done, I think the people understand, how successful the president's been and how much he's paid in taxes,' Spicer said.\nDonald Trump dashed too two tweets about yesterday's tax day protests, suggesting the tax return issue should be over because he won the White House\nYesterday in cities across the country, including in Trump's hometown of New York (pictured), people took to the street and demanded the president release his tax returns\n'Show us your taxes' reads a sign at the New York City tax day protest Saturday. President Trump still hasn't released his returns, saying they're under an audit\nPresident Trump tweeted about Easter mid-tweet storm and then pivoted to rail against yesterday's protests against him yesterday\nSpicer told reporters on Monday not to assume that Trump's 2016 filings are not under audit yet, despite the fact that they are not due to the IRS until tomorrow.\n'No you can't. They are,' Spicer said.\nReverting to the stance the administration has taken on the president's taxes since the billionaire beat Hillary Clinton out for the Oval Office, Spicer said the American people knew what they were getting when they elected him.\n'I think that the American public knows clearly where he stands,' Spicer stated. 'This was something that he made very clear during the election cycle.'", "SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER\nPresident Donald Trump took to Twitter on Sunday to call for an investigation into “who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday” – referring to the anti-Trump Tax Day March held Saturday in Washington and at least 60 other locations.\nTrump may have missed a Breitbart News exclusive investigative article penned by this reporter on February 16 titled, “Soros Groups Behind Massive Anti-Trump Tax Day Protest Plot.”\nWhile there is no immediate information on who directly bankrolled this specific protest movement, Breitbart News found that most of the listed partners and support organizers of the march are openly financed by George Soros or have close links to Soros financing.\nSomeone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday. The election is over! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 16, 2017\nTrump’s tweet itself received widespread news media coverage. However, scores of major news media articles reviewed by this reporter failed to document the Soros ties to the tax march.\n“Trump calls for investigation into Tax Day protesters, tweets ‘election is over!’” reads a CNBC.com article.\nAfter noting an initial Trump tweet on the difficulty of a Republican winning the Electoral College, NBC News reported:\nThe president then followed up by repeating an unsubstantiated claim he’s made before that some of the protesters against him were “paid,” an allegation that became popular in some right-wing circles in the build up to the 2016 presidential election, before noting that the election was “over.”\n“Trump’s Tweets Give Tax Day Marchers at Least Part of What They Wanted,” noted the headline in a Vanity Fair report. The article’s sub-headline reads: “He may never release his tax returns, but thousands of marchers around the country got their message heard.”\nThe website for the Tax Day march claims that its mission is to get Trump to release his tax returns and more.\nThe site reads:\nPresident Trump needs to be straight with the American people. To whom does he owe favors? Who are his policies really intended to benefit? Who will he put first? Working families are struggling to make ends meet, but we pay our fair share in taxes – does Donald Trump pay any at all?\nA query about protest financing sent to the email address for press inquiries listed on the Tax Day March website was not answered as of this writing.\nOrganizers of the March claim to be “ordinary Americans, community organizers, advocates, and people from all walks of life and all backgrounds joining together to raise our voices and send a bold message to this administration.”\nIn February, Breitbart News documented a section of the Tax Day March website titled, “Who is organizing it?” The website for the Tax March listed the following eight groups, six of which are either funded by Soros or tied to Soros financing.\nThe Tax March is grateful to have the support of the following organizations: American Federation of Teachers, Americans for Tax Fairness , Center for Popular Democracy, Indivisible Project, MoveOn.Org, Our Revolution, and The Working Families Party.\nAmericans for Tax Fairness is the recipient of a grant from Soros’s Open Society Foundations’ U.S. Programs.\nMoveOn.Org is financed by Soros.\nThe American Federation of Teachers’ Educational Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the American Federation of Teachers , was financed by the Strategic Opportunities Fund of Soros’s Open Society Foundations, leaked Open Society documents show.\nThe Center for Popular Democracy is led by Soros-tied activists . In 2013, Marbre Stahly, a policy advocate at the Center, became a Soros Justice Fellow, which comes with a stipend of $58,700-$110,250 to fund full-time activism projects that last between 12-18 months. The Center was listed as Stahly’s “host” for the grant.\nAccording to her bio , the Center’s research analyst, Maggie Corser, “spent four years at the Open Society Foundations where she conducted research on the future of work, conservative political infrastructure, and a range of economic justice issues.”\nShawn Sebastian, the Center’s field director for its Fed Up Campaign, was a fellow at the so called Anti-Corruption Unit of the Open Society Foundations’ Justice Initiative.\nAnother Tax March organizer is the recently-formed Indivisible Project. In February, Breitbart News extensively reported that Indivisible leaders are openly associated with groups financed by Soros.\nLeaders of January’s Women’s March coalition reportedly helped to organize the Tax March, which USA Today described as a “sequel” to the massive march. Buzzfeed took note of the comparison to the Women’s March in a piece titled, “Progressives Want Tax Day To Be The Next Women’s March Protest.”\nSoros reportedly has ties to more than 50 “partners” of the Women’s March. This journalist first reported on the march leaders’ close associations with Soros.\nSince Breitbart’s probe in February, numerous other Soros-financed groups joined the march and are listed as “partners” on the group’s website. The Soros-funded “partners” include Demos and Public Citizen, among others.\nMeanwhile, at the protest itself, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) called for Trump to be impeached.\n“I don’t respect this president. I don’t trust this president. He’s not working in the best interests of the American people,” complained Waters.\n“I will fight every day until he is impeached,” she stated.\nAaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.\nWith research by Joshua Klein.", "That call-and-response message was chanted over and over again as more than 1,300 protesters marched through downtown Ann Arbor on Saturday, April 15, making their way to the University of Michigan campus for a rally on the Diag. It was one of many \"tax marches\" happening throughout the United States and abroad, calling on U.S. President Donald Trump to publicly release his tax returns, while also calling for a fairer tax system.\nStart the conversation, or Read more at MLive.com.", "In the world of Fox News, what a difference a president makes.\nDuring the eight years of consistent obstruction by the GOP of President Obama, led by Sen. Mitch McConnell, Fox News and many of the anchors played cheer leaders for their tactical moves, calling them principled stances and encouraged them to continued to obstruct while almost single handedly helped to create the Tea Party protests of 2009.\nSince Donald Trump refused to release his tax returns after every presidential candidate has for the last forty years, many Americans are furious and want to see if he is hiding anything.\nThis weekend, many Americans staged anti-Trump tax day rallies, demanding to see his tax returns.\nThis morning on Fox News, Trump's BFF's Fox and Friends were not happy with this display of disloyalty to their fearless leader.\nIn their minds since the election is over, (Trump won the electoral college after all) the more than half the voting country needs to get over it.\nCo-host Pete Hegseth said, \"Back at home in case you missed it folks in Los Angeles and New York apparently forgot the election is over and so they continue to call for president Trump to release his tax returns ...\"\nHe continued, \"President Trump tweeted in reaction to both of these over the weekend saying 'someone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday. The election is over.' so the question is are these protest at this point organic or are these organized?\nAinsley Earhardt replied, \"I don't know. I would imagine at this point, basically we have been covering this for how long? It wouldn't surprise me if they were paid protesters out there and do this.\"\nHer proof?\nShe explained, \"Because honestly, who has time to do this? We are all working. We all have lives going on and look at this video, this unbelievable.\"\nI wonder how all those right wing nuts had the time to protest President Obama?\nKilmeade piped in, \"Usually it's about people saying we're paying too much on taxes, now it's about Donald Trump releasing taxes which is pretty much an old story.\"\n↓ Story continues below ↓\nMove along little doggy!\nTrump made it his story (and it will never go away until we see them) when he first said he would release his tax returns and then most likely realized they contain information Americans would not be happy with and he refused, using the canard that he's under a tax audit.\nAinsley actually read off the latest polling from Pew Research, which says two-thirds of Americans want Trump to release his tax returns, but she said, \"If you read president Trump's tweets over the weekend yesterday, in fact he was saying basically -- get over it, I won and we're here to make America great again.\"\nPS. Our collegue Frances Langum has a tax question:", "President Trump took to Twitter early Sunday morning to wish a “Happy Easter to everyone!” He then took swipes at the tax day marches around the country that featured thousands of protesters demanding the president release his tax returns.\n“I did what was an almost an impossible thing to do for a Republican-easily won the Electoral College!” Trump tweeted. “Now Tax Returns are brought up again?”\n“Someone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday,” he added. “The election is over!”\nThroughout his young presidency, Trump has frequently rehashed campaign-related controversies that other presidents would have long let go. Earlier this month, Trump knocked his former rival for one from the Democratic primary debates. (“Did Hillary Clinton ever apologize for receiving the answers to the debate?” he tweeted. “Just asking!”)\nI did what was an almost an impossible thing to do for a Republican-easily won the Electoral College! Now Tax Returns are brought up again? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 16, 2017\nSomeone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday. The election is over! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 16, 2017\nThe organizers of the Tax March demonstrations said more than 120,000 protesters in nearly 200 cities participated in Saturday’s rallies — including more than 25,000 in Washington, D.C., alone.\n“Releasing your tax returns is the lowest ethical bar for a president,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said at the D.C. protest. “And we’re going to make sure he clears that hurdle.”\nIn the modern political era, Trump is the first U.S. president and first major party nominee not to release his full tax returns. During the campaign, Trump initially indicated he would release the documents, but later balked at the prospect, claiming that he has been under audit and that voters don’t care about the issue.\nAmong other things, Trump’s critics argue that the tax returns could reveal potential conflicts of interest with actions he takes as commander in chief.\n“We do care. We want to see his taxes,” Ann Demerlis, one of the protesters at the Philadelphia march, told ABC News. “It’s possible that he can now show his taxes, because his current taxes are not being audited.”\nSPLIT SCREEN FROM YESTERDAY On the right: This is what democracy looks like! On the left: Our taxpayer dollars at work ????#TaxMarch pic.twitter.com/4ovRQR85Fb — Trump Tax March (@taxmarch) April 16, 2017\nBut according to the organizers, the demonstrations were “not just about his tax returns.”\n“President Trump needs to be straight with the American people,” a statement on the Tax March website reads. “To whom does he owe favors? Who are his policies really intended to benefit? Who will he put first? Working families are struggling to make ends meet, but we pay our fair share in taxes — does Donald Trump pay any at all?”\nTrump’s Tax March-taunting tweets were bookended by a pair of messages seemingly related to the U.S. military buildup in the Korean Peninsula.\n“Why would I call China a currency manipulator when they are working with us on the North Korean problem? We will see what happens!” the president tweeted.\n“Our military is building and is rapidly becoming stronger than ever before,” he added. “Frankly, we have no choice!”\nWhy would I call China a currency manipulator when they are working with us on the North Korean problem? We will see what happens! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 16, 2017\nOur military is building and is rapidly becoming stronger than ever before. Frankly, we have no choice! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 16, 2017\nLast week, Trump boasted of the U.S. Navy strike group he deployed to the region as a show of force against North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s nuclear provocations.\n“We are sending an armada, very powerful,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business.\nOn Sunday, a North Korean missile exploded during launch, U.S. and South Korean officials said. It wasn’t immediately clear what kind of missile it was, the Associated Press reported. But the failed launch came the same day Vice President Mike Pence was scheduled to arrive in Seoul for talks on North Korea.\nRead more from Yahoo News:", "Spicer: Not taking anything off the table on North Korea 1 Hour Ago | 01:21\nThose looking for President Donald Trump's tax returns will likely have to keep waiting.\nPressed Monday about whether Trump will follow recent presidential precedent and release his tax returns, press secretary Sean Spicer claimed the president cannot do so because he is under audit by the IRS, the same explanation Trump has used since early last year. The Trump administration spokesman deflected when asked if Trump would authorize the IRS to release details of the audit, saying \"the president's view on this has been very clear\" and \"the American people understood it\" when they elected him.\n\"It's the same thing that was discussed during the campaign trail. The president is under audit. It's a routine one that continues and I think that the American public know clearly where he stands,\" Spicer said during his daily briefing to reporters.\nAlmost all major presidential candidates since the 1970s have released their tax returns, but Trump did not do so, saying he would when his audit ended. Critics have argued that he should make more financial information public due to his wealth and potential ties to countries that could pose conflicts of interest in office.\nProtesters in several American cities this weekend urged Trump to release his tax returns in demonstrations tied to Tax Day. Trump criticized the demonstrations in Sunday tweets, claiming without citing evidence that someone \"paid\" the protesters and declaring \"the election is over!\"\nIn his daily press briefing Monday, Spicer was asked specifically if Trump will ever make his tax returns public. Here's Spicer's exchange with Jonathan Karl of ABC News:\nKarl: \"Is it time to just say once and for all the president is never going to release his tax returns?\"\nSpicer: \"We'll have to get back to you on that.\"\nKarl: \"You won't ... I mean you see ... really?\"\nSpicer: \"Really.\"\nKarl: \"So he may?\"\nSpicer: \"No, I said I'd have to get back to you on that ... he is still under audit. The statement still stands.\"\nPieces of Trump's tax returns have been reported before. The New York Times anonymously received the first pages of Trump's 1995 state tax filings, which showed a net loss of about $916 million.\nIn October, Trump admitted to using the loss to avoid paying some federal income taxes and defended the practice, saying he used the tax system to his advantage and knew how to fix it.\nDocuments from Trump's 2005 federal tax returns, obtained by investigative reporter David Cay Johnston, showed the president paid $38 million in taxes on income of more than $150 million.\n— CNBC's Eamon Javers contributed to this report", "President Trump Donald John TrumpHouse GOP prepares to consider Trump's billion clawback Mexico's president fires back at Trump: We will never pay for your wall Trump in Nashville claims people were 'infiltrating' his campaign MORE lashed out at The New York Times on Wednesday for its estimate of the crowd size at a campaign rally he led in Nashville Tuesday night.\nTrump said the number of attendees at the campaign rally for GOP Senate candidate Marsha Blackburn Marsha BlackburnTrump in Nashville claims people were 'infiltrating' his campaign Trump’s mention of Corker draws boos at Tennessee rally Trump attacks Blackburn opponent, ties him to Schumer and 'MS-13 lover Nancy Pelosi' MORE was \"many times\" larger than the Times's estimate of 1,000, calling it a smear tactic by the newspaper.\n\"The Failing and Corrupt @nytimes estimated the crowd last night at '1000 people,' when in fact it was many times that number - and the arena was rockin’. This is the way they demean and disparage. They are very dishonest people who don’t 'get' me, and never did!\" Trump tweeted.\nThe Failing and Corrupt @nytimes estimated the crowd last night at “1000 people,” when in fact it was many times that number - and the arena was rockin’. This is the way they demean and disparage. They are very dishonest people who don’t “get” me, and never did! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2018\nNashville's local News Channel 5 reported that \"thousands\" gathered outside the downtown area municipal auditorium, but did not make a specific estimate.\nRaucous Trump supporters at one point during the event began shouting \"animals\" — Trump's new term for the MS-13 street gang.\nTrump drew criticism early on in his presidency for claiming that the crowd size at his inauguration was the largest in history and larger than his predecessor's. Photos indicated it was a smaller crowd than greeted former President Obama at his 2008 inauguration.", "On Sunday, the entire Trump family attended Easter church services at the Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea—the same\nchurch where Donald and Melania were married years ago. Both Tiffany and Barron attended the service, as did Melania’s\nparents.\nOnce again, Melania stole the show with her style and grace. The First Lady wished Americans a “Happy Easter!” on Twitter,\nposting a photograph wearing a stunning white dress.\nThis was an elegant response, given that just the day before hundreds of people marched from West Palm Beach toward Mar-a-\nLago, demanding that the president release his tax returns to the public.\n“I did what was an almost impossible thing to do for a Republican- easily won the Electoral College!” Trump tweeted on Saturday\nnight. “Now Tax Returns are brought up again?”\n“Someone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday,” he added. “The election is over!”\nWhat do you think? Was this past weekend’s “Tax March” a monumental waste of time and energy?", "President Donald Trump defied the media for continuing to hammer him for failing to immediately condemn alt-right protesters in Charlottesville, asserting that both sides were to blame for the violence.\n“Made additional remarks on Charlottesville and realize once again that the #Fake News Media will never be satisfied,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Truly bad people!”\nadvertisement\nTrump returned to Washington D.C. on Monday and specifically condemned neo-nazi, KKK, and white supremacist forces that attended the Charlottesville rally, calling them “criminals and thugs” who were “repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”\nDuring an event on China policy, CNN’s Jim Acosta shouted a question to the president asking him why it took him so long to condemn hate groups.\n“They have been condemned,” Trump replied.\n“Can we ask you some more questions then, sir?” Acosta added.\n“It doesn’t bother me at all,” Trump replied, pointing to Acosta. “But I like real news. You’re fake news. You’re fake news.”\nOther reporters signaled on Twitter and on television that Trump’s statement was too little too late, accusing him of acting insincere.\nReporters again shouted questions about why it took him days to denounce hate groups as he left the White House on Monday.\nTrump gave them a thumbs up and boarded Marine One to leave the White House.", "http://www.newsweek.com/trump-told-white-supremacists-attack-protesters-so-they-did-650622?spMailingID=2163279&spUserID=MzQ4OTUyNDAxNTAS1&spJobID=850600018&spReportId=ODUwNjAwMDE4S0\nPresident Donald Trump’s comments on dealing with protesters are coming back to haunt him after the violence that broke out Saturday at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The clashes between Nazis and counterprotesters left three people dead, including one anti-fascist demonstrator who was killed when a man rammed his car into the group she was with.\nThe president, whose initial statement about the rally was criticized for failing to mention racism, now finds comments he made about attacking protesters being revisited. Throughout his election campaign, Trump appeared to encourage violence toward anti-Trump protesters who showed up at his rallies, telling crowds of people that protesters should be escorted out more roughly, and offering to pay the legal fees of any of his fans who attacked them.\n“If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously, OK? Just knock the hell… I promise you I will pay for the legal fees. I promise, I promise,” Trump said at an Iowa rally on February 1, 2016.\nAt another event, Trump suggested police should be more violent with people they removed from his rallies. “You see, in the good old days, law enforcement acted a lot quicker than this,” Trump said at a rally in Oklahoma City, The New York Times reported, as security moved toward a protester.\n“A lot quicker. In the good old days, they’d rip him out of that seat so fast. But today everyone is so politically correct. Our country is going to hell—we’re being politically correct,” he added.\nHis comments are now being recalled in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, with Democratic U.S. Representative Maxine Walters tweeting on Monday: “Don’t forget, Trump offered to pay legal fees for those who attacked protesters at his rallies. Will he be making that same offer now?”\nShe added: “Trump defined himself during campaign. He encouraged violence against protesters at rallies. We should not be surprised. ‪#Charlottesviille”\nIn a tweet from Vets Against Trump, the group referenced Republican legislation that protects drivers who run over protesters in their car. The so-called common-sense legislation protects drivers “exercising due care” if they hit someone who is protesting and blocking traffic from civil liability; it does not, however, apply to a person who intentionally runs into someone.\n“After ‪#Charlottesville, remember that GOP lawmakers across the country have introduced bills to legalize hitting protesters with cars,” Vets Against Trump said.\nTrump finally denounced the KKK supporters who gathered in Virginia Saturday after nearly three days of officials on the right and left asking him to do so. “Racism is evil,” Trump said Monday. “And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”", "Protestors take part in the \"Tax March\" calling on US President Donald Trump to release his tax records on April 15, 2017 in New York Thousands of protesters gathered Saturday, April 15, 2017 in cities across the United States to pressure President Donald Trump to release his tax returns, a move of transparency he has refused to make. After tweeting his best wishes for Easter, Trump sent two tweets suggesting that the election was a referendum on his tax returns, one that he won.\nStart the conversation, or Read more at The Oak Ridge Observer.", "BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) - Northern California officials say they are seeking suspects involved in violent clashes over the weekend between supporters and detractors of President Donald Trump in downtown Berkeley.\nCity spokesman Matthai Chakko says officials will seek to arrest and prosecute anyone involved in crimes last Saturday. He says they are evaluating photographs and video of the skirmishes. Among the videos that have drawn attention is one posted online showing a man punching a female protester in the face.\nPolice on Monday released the names of 23 people arrested during the demonstrations.\nAnti and pro-Donald Trump supporters clash during competing demonstrations at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park in Berkeley, Calif., Saturday, April 15, 2017. Protesters took to the streets in dozens of cities nationwide, many calling on Trump to release his tax returns. (Anda Chu/San Jose Mercury News via AP)\nTrump supporters announced a \"Patriot Day\" rally at the park featuring speeches by members of the alt-right, an amorphous fringe movement that promotes racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny and xenophobia.\nCounter-demonstrators then announced a rally at the same place.\nA pro-Donald Trump supporter is taken into custody by police during competing demonstrations at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park in Berkeley, Calif., Saturday, April 15, 2017. Protesters took to the streets in dozens of cities nationwide, many calling on Trump to release his tax returns. (Anda Chu/San Jose Mercury News via AP)\nPepper spray is used as anti and pro-Donald Trump protesters clash during competing demonstrations at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park in Berkeley, Calif., Saturday, April 15, 2017. Protesters took to the streets in dozens of cities nationwide, many calling on Trump to release his tax returns. (Anda Chu/San Jose Mercury News via AP)", "LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Another man accused of assaulting protesters at a Donald Trump campaign rally in Louisville last year has countersued the president, saying he was following Trump’s urging to remove them.\nMatthew Heimbach is being sued over his alleged actions at the March 1, 2016, rally. In a counter claim filed Monday in federal court, Heimbach says he was relying “on Trump’s authority to order disruptive persons removed,” according to WDRB-TV (bit.ly/2onwCE9).\nIn his court filing, Heimbach said he “relied on Trump’s authority to have disruptive persons removed and that Trump was legally within his rights to have other attendees assist in defending their constitutional rights against ‘protesters.'”\nAnother defendant at the rally, Alvin Bamberger, filed a counter claim on Friday, saying that he acted on Trump’s “urging and inspiration.”\nAdvertisement\nThree people who claim they were assaulted at the Trump rally filed a lawsuit last year against Trump, his campaign, Heimbach and Bamberger. They say they were shoved and punched by audience members at Trump’s command. Video widely broadcast during the campaign showed Trump pointing at protesters and repeating the words “get them out.”\nTrump’s attorneys responded in a court filing Friday that Trump is immune as president from such suits. They also say the protesters waived their right to sue by buying tickets to the event, and they deny that Trump was urging the crowd to take action by repeatedly saying, “get them out of here.”\nA federal judge declined Trump’s preliminary request to dismiss the lawsuit, ruling on April 1 that there’s ample evidence that could be seen as supporting allegations that the protesters’ injuries were a “direct and proximate result” of Trump’s actions. The judge also noted that the Supreme Court has ruled out constitutional protections for speech that incites violence.", "WASHINGTON — Protesters from coast to coast called on President Trump over the weekend to release his tax returns.\nHe responded on Twitter, saying: “The election is over!… Now tax returns are brought up again?”\nSomeone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday. The election is over! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 16, 2017\nMr. Trump says he can’t release them because he’s under audit. But tax experts say that shouldn’t matter.\n“The only one that cares about my tax returns are the reporters, okay?” Mr. Trump said in January.\nBut in February, a CBS News poll found that 56 percent of Americans think it’s necessary for him to release his tax returns. Forty-three percent said it’s not.\nHe is the only president not to release them in more than 40 years.\nBefore taking office, Mr. Trump often criticized President Obama for being too secretive. In 2012, he tweeted: “He is the least transparent President–ever–and he ran on transparency.”\nWhy is @BarackObama spending millions to try and hide his records? He is the least transparent President–ever–and he ran on transparency. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2012\nBut on Friday, the White House said its visitor logs will no longer be made public, a practice that President Obama started.\n“Donald Trump’s White House is less transparent than Barack Obama’s White House,” said Kathleen Clark, a law professor and expert on government ethics.\n“We do not know how much money the president owes and to whom he owes it,” she said.\nCBS News\nDuring the daily White House briefing on Monday, CBS News asked White House press secretary Sean Spicer about views on transparency.\n“There are now ethics experts on both sides of the aisle who say this is the least transparent administration in decades. How do you respond?” CBS News asked.\n“Well, I think that we’ve taken several steps to allow people’s access to this White House,” Spicer replied.\n“We bring people in, we release participant lists, we give press the opportunity to come into the room, so I would respectfully disagree with that,” he said.\nThe Trump White House is even secretive about golf. Mr. Trump has visited golf courses 19 times as president, but in most of those cases the White House has refused to confirm or deny that he was actually golfing.", "By Chris Francescani and Tom Ramstack\nNEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people marched through midtown Manhattan and dozens of U.S. cities on Saturday to demand that President Donald Trump release his tax returns and to dispute his claim that the public does not care about the issue.\nOrganizers of \"Tax March\" in more than 150 cities across the country and beyond wanted to call attention to Trump's refusal to disclose his tax history, as his White House predecessors have done for more than 40 years.\nThe marches coincide with the traditional April 15 deadline for U.S. federal tax returns, though the filing date was pushed backed two days this year.\nThere were no reports of violence or arrests, in contrast to a clash between Trump supporters and opponents that erupted at a rally in Berkeley, California, where nine people were arrested.\nTwo of the biggest tax marches took place in New York and Los Angeles, with each drawing about 5,000 people, according to estimates by Reuters reporters. No official estimates were immediately available.\nIn Manhattan, a good-natured crowd rallied at Bryant Park before marching up Sixth Avenue to Central Park.\nAmong the marchers was an oversized inflatable rooster, sporting an angry expression and a sweeping metallic orange hairdo meant to resemble Trump's signature style.\n“Thanks to Trump, I think that releasing your taxes when you run for president now has to be a law,” said New Yorker Marni Halasa, 51, who arrived in a tutu and leggings made of fake dollar bills and holding a sign that read “Show Me The Money!”\nIn Washington, more than 1,500 protesters gathered on the front lawn of the U.S. Capitol, where members of Congress addressed the crowd before it marched to the Lincoln Memorial.\n\"We are taking the gloves off to say knock off the secrecy Mr. President,\" said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, which would play a leading role in tax reform measures being considered in Congress.\nHe described Trump's refusal to release his taxes as being \"like a teenager trying to hide a lousy report card.\"\nTAX REFORM\nAmong the marchers was Melinda Colwell, 34, a stay-at-home-mother from Ledyard, Connecticut. She said she was concerned that conflicts of interest in Trump's tax returns might foreshadow selfish interests in his tax reform policies.\n\"I think it's important to know how that could influence his decisions and how he could benefit from the decisions being made,\" she said.\nAs a candidate and as president, Trump has refused to release his tax returns, citing an ongoing audit by the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS has said that Trump can release his tax returns even while under audit.\nThe White House could not be reached immediately for comment on the marches.\nEvents were also planned in cities in Europe, Japan and New Zealand.\nThe marches were launched by a single tweet, organizers said. A day after the massive Jan. 21 women's march in Washington and other cities, comedy writer Frank Lesser tapped out on Twitter, \"Trump claims no one cares about his taxes. The next mass protest should be on Tax Day to prove him wrong.\" It has been retweeted more than 21,000 times.\nIn Los Angeles, television director Mike Stutz turned up at the march dressed in costume as a Russian general and said he was called General Bullshitski. He carried a sign that read: \"What Tax Returns? Putin paid cash. Trust your oligarchs,\" referring to allegations of contacts between Trump's campaign and Russia, led by President Vladimir Putin.\nJoe Dinkin, spokesman for the Working Families Party, one of the groups organizing the marches, said investigations into the Trump campaign's alleged connections to Russia underscore the need to disclose his returns.\n\"Without seeing his taxes, we'll never really know who he's working for,\" said Dinkin, who expects the marches to draw at least 100,000 protesters.\nThere have been some glimpses into Trump's tax history. Last month, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow reported on two pages of Trump's 2005 return that were obtained by investigative reporter David Cay Johnston and released by DCReport.org. They showed Trump paid $38 million in taxes on more than $150 million in income.\nAnd in October, The New York Times reported that Trump had declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 federal tax return, citing three pages of documents from the return.\n(Additional reporting by Dana Feldman in Los Angeles and Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Alistair Bell)", "Saturday was mild and cloudy in Philadelphia—good marching weather for the thousands of anti-Trump protestors who gathered at City Hall and made their way down Market Street to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. The atmosphere was upbeat—festive, almost. Many members of the crowd were carrying homemade signs, and their chants filled the spring air: “What do we want? Trump’s tax returns. When do we want it? Now.” “We want a leader, not a tax cheater. We want a leader, not a friggin’ tweeter.”\nEighty-five days into the Trump Presidency, similar scenes played out across the country: from Los Angeles to Boston, from Seattle to Raleigh. In Palm Beach, about three thousand people kicked up a racket near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, where the President was spending yet another weekend.\nThe First Golfer wasn’t pleased. To avoid the protestors, one of whom was carrying a sign that said, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Czar, Putin Put You Where You Are,” his motorcade was forced to take a circuitous route back from Trump International Golf Club, where he had played his sixteenth round since taking office. (That figure comes courtesy of a tally by the Palm Beach Post.) The following morning, Easter Sunday, Trump took to Twitter, grumbling, “Someone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday. The election is over!”\nThe protests weren’t small, of course, and nobody paid for them. They were the latest manifestation of a popular movement that Trump himself has inspired, one that has established itself as an important presence on the national political scene, and with which Trump and his Republican allies and enablers increasingly have to contend.\nDuring their two-week Easter break, many G.O.P. members of Congress were confronted by constituents upset over the Republican effort to dismantle Obamacare. Politico, which dispatched reporters to nearly a dozen town-hall meetings, reported, for example, that the Colorado representative Mike Coffman, a relative moderate, was confronted by a lifelong Republican who demanded that he commit to limiting premiums for people with preëxisting conditions. In Graniteville, South Carolina, a crowd chanted “You lie!” at Joe Wilson, the Republican congressman who famously shouted out the same phrase during a 2009 address to Congress by former President Obama.\nOf course, most of the people who are marching and protesting at Republican events might not be G.O.P. voters. But they aren’t all Democratic activists, either. Indeed, what is striking is how many people Trump has mobilized who previously didn’t pay very much attention to what happens in Washington. He has politicized many formerly apolitical people; ultimately, this may be among his biggest achievements as President.\nAt anti-Trump rallies, the organizers tend to be activists, but the protestors are of all sorts: college graduates outraged by Trump’s nativism; office workers angry that he won’t release his tax returns; doctors and nurses worried about the health-care system; retirees worried about their grandkids; and Americans from all walks of life who think that Trump isn’t fit for office and represents a grave danger to the country.\nThe troubles that Trump has encountered in office, far from diminishing the protest movement, have only encouraged it—and for good reason. If the past three months have demonstrated anything, it is that, even in a political system tainted by money and influence-peddling, political participation does matter. Federal officials, judges, Democratic and Republican congressmen, even Trump himself—they all pay attention to public activism and public opinion.\nTake the Administration’s two attempts to enact an anti-Muslim travel ban. Would the federal courts have blocked the measures without the mass protests that the first ban engendered? Or recall the Ryan-Trump health-care bill. While the defections of the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus played a big role in the bill’s failure, so did the protests at G.O.P. town-hall meetings and the campaign to highlight how the measure would undercut affordable coverage for the old and sick.\nThese were two successes for the anti-Trump forces, as was the downgrading of Steve Bannon, the White House’s chief political strategist. To the extent that the goal of the resistance is to make sure the checks and balances in the American political system work as intended, and to prevent the emergence of an overweening Presidency, or a potential despot, it seems to be succeeding. Although Trump would never admit that he is backtracking, he has been forced to make some concessions to reality. But there is no room for complacency. Far from it.\nDespite the tax-day protests, the President has no intention of releasing his returns, much less of setting up a proper blind trust for his business assets, or of separating his family from the conduct of government. Inside the White House, he appears to be relying more and more on his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Elsewhere in government, as the Times reported over the weekend, he is busy installing former lobbyists to oversee their former clients.\nIn many policy areas, the Trump Administration remains determined to roll back the clock in ways that will be difficult to stop. Protest marches won’t prevent the E.P.A. from whittling away at environmental regulations, the Justice Department from failing to enforce civil-rights laws, or the National Labor Relations Board from ruling in favor of big businesses.\nThen there is Trump himself. Throughout his career, he has shown a willingness to do virtually anything, and to take huge risks, to protect his position. There is no reason to expect anything different now. In the past couple of weeks, he has pivoted to national security, ordered the bombing of Syria, presided over the detonation in Afghanistan of one of the biggest conventional weapons in the U.S. arsenal, and made threatening noises toward North Korea.\nIn foreign policy, unfortunately, Presidents are given wide latitude. Particularly during crises, Congress tends to defer to the Commander-in-Chief, and the judiciary can’t pull him back from the brink. But there is still the right to protest. And this seems like a good time for some peace rallies.", "President Trump on Wednesday accused The New York Times of lying about the crowd size at his rally the day before.\n“The Failing and Corrupt @nytimes estimated the crowd last night at “1000 people,” when in fact it was many times that number - and the arena was rockin’. This is the way they demean and disparage. They are very dishonest people who don’t ‘get’ me, and never did!” Mr. Trumptweeted.\nMr. Trump had a rally in Nashville on Tuesday night to support Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn who is running for the Senate seat to replace retiring Sen. Bob Corker.\nThe Failing and Corrupt @nytimes estimated the crowd last night at “1000 people,” when in fact it was many times that number - and the arena was rockin’. This is the way they demean and disparage. They are very dishonest people who don’t “get” me, and never did! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2018\nCopyright © 2018 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.", "Lawyers for a man accused of assaulting a Black woman at a 2016 Trump campaign rally claim that their client’s act of violence was inspired by #45 himself.\nAccording to The Guardian, Alvin Bamberger, 75, was recorded in a video last March pushing a woman, Kashiya Nwanguma, at a pro-Trump rally in Louisville, Kentucky. During that same event, Trump shouted “get out” and “get ‘em out of here!” referring to protesters like Nwanguma.\nSoon after, Nwanguma and two other protesters sued Trump, Bamberger and a white nationalist named Matthew Heimbach—and just last month, a judge ruled that the case can move forward in court.\nLast week Bamberger’s attorneys downplayed the assault saying that their client didn’t really hit Nwanguma— he only touched her. But they also threw Trump under the bus pointing out that throughout his presidential campaign, the billionaire businessman tirelessly incited violence at these rallies and even once told his supporters that he would pay their legal fees if they were sued by protesters.\nAccording to court filings, the his lawyers wrote: “Bamberger had no prior intention to act has he did. Bamberger would not have acted as he did without Trump and/or Trump campaign’s specific urging and inspiration.”\nThey added, “To the extent that Bamberger acted, he did so in response to – and inspired by – Trump and/or Trump campaign’s urging to remove the protesters” and if their client was found guilty the White House should be guilty too “because Trump and/or Trump campaign urged and inspired Bamberger to act as he did.”\nOf course lawyers for Trump deny any wrongdoing saying that they “lack sufficient information” about most of these accusations “and therefore deny them.” They also stated that their client’s statements of “get them out of here” was not directed toward anyone at the crowd.\nThey furthered argued that because Trump is the president he is immune to the suit and that protesters waived their claims when they received their tickets to the rally, The Guardian noted. That, and the protesters “suffered no actual injury” while also being “responsible for their own injuries.”\nYeah. That makes a whole lot of sense.\nIn the meantime, #45’s lawyers are asking for a jury trial.\nNwanguma and the two other protesters who filed charges together are seeking an unknown amount of damages.\nSOURCE: The Guardian\nRELATED LINKS:\n‘Little Miss Flint’ To Donald Trump: ‘You Broke Your Promise’\nAuntie Maxine About Donald Trump: ‘We’ve Got To Stop His Ass’\nBlack CNN Commentator Slams Trump Supporter For Comparing #45 To MLK\nAlso On Foxy 107.1-104.3:", "Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Trump: \"Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs\"\nUS President Donald Trump has spoken out against racist violence after the killing of a protester in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday.\n\"Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs,\" he told reporters.\nHe said the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and white supremacists were \"repugnant\" to everything Americans held dear.\nMr Trump was criticised for not specifically denouncing extremists in his initial comments on the violence.\nHeather Heyer, 32, died and 19 others were hurt when a car rammed into people protesting against a far-right march.\nMedia playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Photojournalist Ryan M Kelly was covering the protest when the car ploughed into the crowd\nJames Alex Fields, 20, was formally charged on Monday for second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding and one count of hit and run. He was also denied bail during his appearance in court via video from jail.\nHe is said to have harboured Nazi sympathies.\nThe justice department is opening a civil rights investigation into the incident.\n'Egregious display'\nOn Monday, Mr Trump arrived back at the White House to issue a comprehensive condemnation.\nMedia playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Marissa Blair says the Charlottesville car attack was an 'act of terror'\n\"We condemn this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence,\" he said. \"It has no place in America.\"\n\"Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America,\"\nHe paid tribute to Ms Heyer as well as two police officers killed in a helicopter crash after helping to tackle the unrest.\nA fire of Trump's own making\nAnthony Zurcher, BBC News, Washington\nOn Monday afternoon Donald Trump tried to put out yet another fire of his own making. The president prefaced his explicit condemnation of the KKK, neo-Nazis and other white supremacists with the words \"as I said on Saturday\" - but the problem was he had said nothing of the sort.\nIn the hours after the violence in Charlottesville, Mr Trump had offered a broad condemnation of \"many sides\" - and caught hell for it from liberals and members of his own party, who felt compelled to break ranks with their leader.\nTwo days later, the president was in front of cameras again, with words that should have been easy - and obvious to most in a nation that expects its presidents to be comfortable condemning racist extremism.\nEven on Monday, however, the president's strong words were undermined somewhat by his off-topic introductory boasts of the nation's economic strength and the fact that his obviously carefully crafted statement was read off teleprompters - a practice for which candidate Trump regularly mocked Barack Obama.\nAfter finishing his remarks, the president quickly exited the room, as reporters asked why he had not spoken sooner. The president did not answer, but such questions will follow him in the days ahead.\nAttorney General Jeff Sessions said earlier that the deadly violence in Charlottesville met \"the definition of domestic terrorism\".\nHundreds of white nationalists had convened in Charlottesville to protest against the removal of a statue of a general who had fought for the pro-slavery Confederacy during the US Civil War.\nThey were challenged by anti-fascist and counter-protesters and the rally erupted into violent clashes. Shortly after, Ms Heyer and several others who were leaving the area were struck by the car.\nMedia playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Racism in the US: Is there a single step that can bring equality?\nProtests and vigils in solidarity with the victims were held in many US cities on Sunday. In Seattle, police used pepper spray to stop protesters approaching a pro-Trump rally.\nAmong those to criticise Mr Trump was Ken Frazier, CEO of drugs giant Merck, who announced on Monday he would resign from the president's American Manufacturing Council.\nMr Frazier, who is African American, tweeted that he had \"a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism\".", "WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is again railing against the news media, calling them a \"stain on America.\"\nIn a tweet Sunday, Trump blasts the lack of attention over what he describes as \"false and defamatory stories\" by the \"Fake News Media.\"\n\"They are out of control - correct reporting means nothing to them. Major lies written, then forced to be withdrawn after they are exposed...a stain on America!\" Trump writes.\nOver the past two weeks, ABC News and CNN have had to issue corrections and clarifications on stories that initially had been damaging to the president but didn't live up to scrutiny. And on Saturday, Trump demanded and received an apology from a Washington Post reporter over a photo of Trump's Florida rally on Friday that made it look sparsely attended.", "Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE James Alex Fields Jr., who slammed his car through a crowd of anti-protesters at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, will not get bond. Buzz60\nJames Alex Fields Jr., left, in Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 12, 2017. (Photo: Alan Goffinski via AP)\nCHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — A judge denied bail Monday to an Ohio man accused of slamming his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one of them, during a white nationalist rally.\nJames Alex Fields Jr., 20, appeared in Charlottesville General District Court by video conference, where a judge read out the charges that include one count of second-degree murder, several counts of malicious wounding and one count of hit and run.\nClad in a striped gray and white shirt, Fields was subdued while answering questions from Judge Robert Downer. Fields said he could not afford a lawyer, and Downer assigned private attorney Charles Weber to the case.\nDowner said he could not appoint a public defender due to a conflict of interest —someone linked to the public defender's office was injured in the crash Saturday. Fields’ next court date will be Aug. 25.\nHeather Heyer, 32, was killed and 19 people were injured Saturday when a Dodge Challenger allegedly driven by Fields rear-ended a sedan, which then hit a minivan that had slowed to allow the counter-protesters to cross at an intersection, Charlottesville police said. The impact pushed the vehicles into the crowd, police said in a statement. The Challenger fled the scene, but officers stopped it a short time later and arrested Fields, police said.\nMore: Trouble in Trumpland: The president's core supporters begin to worry\nMore: Sessions defends Trump position on Charlottesville violence\nThe Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation into the car attack, and FBI Director Christopher Wray said Monday it does meet the definition of domestic terrorism.\nPresident Trump said he discussed the case with Wray and Attorney Gen. Jeff Sessions. Trump, who condemned the violence hours after the tragedy but drew criticism for blaming \"many sides,\" blasted white supremacists Monday.\n\"Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans,\" he said.\nTrump also paid homage to Heyer and to two State Troopers who died when their surveillance helicopter crashed in woods hours after Heyer's death.\nHeyer was killed shortly after police broke up the rally, which was a protest against the city's plans to remove a state of Confederate general Robert E. Lee from a park. The rally drew hundreds of white supremacists, neo-Nazis and others, some dressed in militia-type garb and carrying weapons.\nClashes between them and counter-protesters prompted Gov. Terry McAuliffe to declare a state of emergency before the rally even got underway. The crowd mostly dispersed after police stepped in, and that is when the crash occurred.\nFields' mother Samantha Bloom told CBS News she heard about the charges facing her son from a news reporter.\n\"I just knew he was going to a rally,\" she told CBS. \"I didn't know it was white supremacist. I thought it had something to do with Trump.\"\nFields graduated high school in 2015, and the Army has confirmed that Fields reported for basic training in August of 2015. He was released from active duty a few months later \"due to a failure to meet training standards,\" the Army said in a statement.\nSkip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE Graphic video: A bystander captures the moment a car slams into a crowd at a white nationalist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia. USA TODAY\nFormer Randall K. Cooper High School history teacher Derek Weimer, 45, of Florence, Ky., told The (Cincinnati) Enquirer in an interview that he was probably the closest to Fields out of everyone on the faculty.\n“I’m sure if you would ask James he would say I was his favorite or one of his favorite teachers,” said Weimer, adding that he had Fields in three classes directly and had regular interaction with him after classes and during free time.\n“I feel like I failed and that we all failed,” Weimer said of Fields. “He was a very bright kid but very misguided and disillusioned.”\nWeimer told the Associated Press that Fields was fascinated with Nazism, idolized Adolf Hitler and had \"deeply held, radical\" convictions on race.\n\"Once you talked to James for a while, you would start to see that sympathy towards Nazism, that idolization of Hitler, that belief in white supremacy,\" Weimer said. \"It would start to creep out.\"\nToy reported from Charlottesville, Bacon from McLean, Va.\nRead or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2wXdOjC", "Most Popular\nAd Age \"Media Guy\" columnist Simon Dumenco's media roundup for the morning of April 17, 2017:\nHow did you spend Easter weekend? President Trump spent it protesting anti-Trump protestors (See No. 1, below), on Twitter, naturally (No. 2). Melissa McCarthy spent it further obliterating the Sean Spicer brand (see No. 7). Much of the world apparently spent it going to see \"The Fate of the Furious\" (No. 5). And Mark Zuckerberg, we're guessing, probably spent it doing something vaguely noble and statesmanly (No. 4). Anyway, let's get started ...\n1. Slate's Daniel Politi nearly sums up the weekend's anti-Trump protests:\nProtesters gathered in dozens of U.S. cities on Saturday as part of a \"Tax March,\" in which people demanded that President Donald Trump release his tax returns. ... Organizers claimed more than 180 events were planned across 48 states in an effort to counter Trump's frequent assertions that nobody cares about his tax return. One of the largest rallies took place in Washington, D.C., where protesters gathered in front of the Capitol before marching along Pennsylvania Avenue. In Florida, marchers gathered at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort. There were also large rallies in New York and Los Angeles.\n2. President Trump is doubling down on his messaging (he's consistent on this front, at least) that any negative news about him or objections to him must be \"fake news\" and/or artificially drummed up by his opponents.\nI did what was an almost an impossible thing to do for a Republican-easily won the Electoral College! Now Tax Returns are brought up again? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 16, 2017\nSomeone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday. The election is over! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 16, 2017\n3. \"A man who allegedly killed an elderly father after he had enjoyed an Easter meal with his children -- then posted a video of the killing on Facebook -- is now the subject of a manhunt spanning several Midwest and Northeast states, police said Monday,\" per CNN. Quick question: Is anyone keeping track of how many times Facebook Live has been used to broadcast horrific, self-incriminating crimes?\n4. Speaking of Facebook, in a BuzzFeed feature headlined \"Selling Mark Zuckerberg,\" Nitasha Tiku takes a deep dive into the \"new and improved\" Mark Zuckerberg, writing that the Facebook CEO is ...\n... leading the charge for Silicon Valley tech CEOs who, post-election, have committed to leaving their bubble and interacting with the American public. ... The most obvious example of the new and improved Zuckerberg is his 2017 personal challenge: to travel to all 50 states and talk to \"folks\" about their lives and concerns for the future.\nBefore we move, let's dwell on these two sentences further down in Tiku's piece: \"It is indeed tempting to see Zuckerberg's listening tour, manifesto, and newly folksy demeanor as an attempt to beta-test a presidential bid -- perhaps for 2020, the same year he turns 35. ... If you think of Zuckerberg as a startup CEO, positioning himself like a fourth-term senator doesn't make sense -- but it does if you think of him as the head of a 14-year-old nation-state called Facebook.\"\n5. \"Fate of the Furious races past Star Wars to break global box office record,\" per The Guardian (subhead: \"Sequel speeds ahead of The Force Awakens with global opening weekend takings of $532.5m despite grossing less in North America than its predecessor\").\n6. ICYMI: \"That Time Sean Spicer (Really) Dressed as the White House Easter Bunny,\" via Fox News.\n7. And finally, also ICYMI, Melissa McCarthy was back as White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on the weekend's \"Saturday Night Live\" -- and the segment is currently No. 1 on YouTube's \"trending\" chart.\nSimon Dumenco, aka Media Guy, is an Ad Age editor-at-large. You can follow him on Twitter @simondumenco.", "President Donald Trump pauses during a statement on the deadly protests in Charlottesville, at the White House on August 14, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst President Donald Trump railed against the media on Monday, hours after he delivered his latest remarks on the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, suggesting reporters \"will never be satisfied\" with the way he responded to the violence.\nTrump initially addressed the violence during an unrelated event on Saturday.\nRepublicans and Democrats immediately criticized Trump for attempting to lay blame \"on many sides,\" while initially choosing not to call out white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and Ku Klux Klan members specifically — a move that the White House attempted to justify in a series of anonymous statements.\nHowever, it wasn't until Monday, two days after Trump's original statement, that he denounced white supremacy in a new statement, saying \"Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs — including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists.\"", "Trump had been under increasing pressure to call out the groups by name after his previous remarks bemoaning violence on “many sides” prompted criticism from fellow Republicans as well as Democrats. The president described members of the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists who take part in violence as “criminals and thugs” in a prepared statement from the White House.", "This weekend's #TaxMarch in LA drew thousands of protesters demanding the release of President Donald Trump's tax returns. Men, women, children and a few dogs joined the peaceful march from Pershing Square to City Hall. The participants (well, not the dogs) chanted \"show us your business ties, we are tired of your lies\" and \"drain the swamp, impeach Donald Trump.\" See the photos at laweekly.com/slideshows. All photos by Brian Feinzimer.\nA post shared by LA Weekly (@laweekly) on Apr 17, 2017 at 9:19am PDT" ]

[ "This weekend’s deployment of an initial six F-35A Lightning II fighters and several hundred Airmen to Europe demonstrates the aircraft’s readiness to conduct operations with America’s European partners, according to Air Force leaders.\nThe April 15, 2017, arrival at Royal Air Force Base Lakenheath, England, marks the first major overseas training deployment for the aircraft and begins several weeks of training for F-35 pilots, maintainers and support personnel with allied and partner nations.\n“Our Air Force delivers a broad range of combat airpower advantages to our partners,” said Gen. Mike Holmes, the commander of Air Combat Command, the major command responsible for organizing, training and equipping the F-35A fleet. “Thanks to our world-class Airmen, the F-35 is now part of the mix we bring to strengthening those partnerships and improving regional security.”\nThe leaders of the 388th Fighter Wing at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, the Air Force’s first operational F-35A unit, echoed those sentiments, expressing their excitement about the mission and admiration for the Airmen who made it happen.\n“As the first operational F-35 unit in the Air Force, our Airmen have been working tirelessly—from the achievement of initial operational capability to our deployment to Red Flag,” said Col. David Lyons, the 388th Fighter Wing commander. “We continue to prove the unique capabilities of this revolutionary aircraft, and this first overseas deployment is a natural step in the program.\n“A large part of ensuring air dominance in the future will involve integrating operations between platforms and across all coalition partners,” Lyons continued. “The F-35A is on the leading edge of that interoperability. We’re excited to demonstrate those capabilities as well as our commitment to our European allies and partners.”\nCol. Michael Miles, the 388th Maintenance Group commander, noted that “any time we get a chance to mobilize and deploy, it sharpens our skills,” adding that it was an exciting to be a part of the F-35A program.\n“The culmination of the combined efforts of the entire F-35 community have brought this to fruition,” Miles said. “I am extremely proud of all our Airmen, and I know they are honored to be a part of this important operational milestone.”\nDuring the deployment, Hill Airmen will train in the U.K. and deploy to NATO states in Europe, providing an opportunity for the combat-ready aircraft to perform alongside allies and other types of Air Force aircraft in a realistic training environment.\n“The Lightning’s European deployment is another great opportunity to exercise the capabilities of this aircraft and conduct valuable training alongside our allies,” Holmes said. “As we’ve proven with the F-22 Raptor and routinely with our fourth-generation fleet, our strength is the ability to project our power globally and rapidly.”\nThe F-35A is the latest addition to ACC’s deployable fifth-generation fleet. The aircraft offers air superiority, interdiction, suppression of enemy air defenses and close air support capabilities, as well as advanced tactical command and control functions through the use of fused sensors, which provide pilots with unprecedented situational awareness of the battlespace." ]

[ "Australia has wrapped up its involvement with Exercise Red Flag 17-1, following three weeks of missions that Commander of the Australian contingent Group Captain Stuart Bellingham described “as realistic as it gets”.\nRed Flag is a large force employment combat training exercise that provides a complex and highly advanced threat environment in which to practise high-end coalition warfighting skills.\nRAAF deployed 200 personnel, a C-130J Hercules tactical airlifter and an E-7A Wedgetail AEW&C platform to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada for the exercises alongside units from the United States and United Kingdom.\nThe three-week training exercise also featured the debut of the US Air Force F-35A Lightning II, as well as the participation of the US Navy EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft, both of which will soon enter service with the RAAF and are due to be on display at the Australian International Airshow at Avalon.\nThe types of missions conducted included a combat control team that parachuted in freezing conditions to a dry lake bed for an airfield survey; to air battlespace managers who controlled movements for more than 70 friendly and enemy aircraft, Defence said.\nCommander of the Australian contingent Group Captain Stuart Bellingham said the missions were “gruelling and rigorous”.\n“By coming here, we’re preparing for high-end war fighting, so we can deploy at short-notice on operations, and have confidence that we are going to be successful,” GPCAPT Bellingham said in a statement.\n“We’ll take information and training back and feed it into our force preparation, and will translate into our current operations.\n“In my 30 years of the Air Force, this is one of the highlights, being at the exercise is as realistic as it gets.”\nAn important aspect of the training focused on personnel that were embedded within the Combined Air and Space Operations Centre (CAOC), which was responsible for planning the Red Flag missions and ensuring they were coordinated with space and cyber-based efforts, which can be contested by an aggressing force.\nGPCAPT Bellingham was the first non-US participant to be Director of the CAOC, leading 250 American, British and Australian personnel. This was the first time a coalition nation has performed this role in such an exercise.\n“We are integrated with these capabilities from start to finish, from planning missions, through to debriefing the missions,” GPCAPT Bellingham said.\n“Australia has air battlespace managers from No. 2 Squadron and No. 41 Wing who are controlling the Red Flag airspace, and getting first-hand experience how these capabilities can be employed.\n“We’re getting real insight into understanding the capabilities and what Australia’s future is going to look like.”", "A strong ‘Make in India’ theme will be behind US aircraft maker Boeing’s pitch for the Indian Air Force’s order for 110 fighter jets. The order, worth around Rs 800 billion, seeks commitment from vendors to supply sensitive technologies as well to carry out a bulk of manufacturing in India.\nFor the current order, Boeing has tied up with Mahindra Defe­nce System and Hindu­stan Aero­na­utics Limited for producing F/A-18 Super Hornets. “The RFI (request for information) is much contemporary this time. It broadens the scope and competition. It focuses on the IAF’s real war-fighting capabilities. Our joint venture is an optimum mix of capability, cost and industrialisation,” Pratyush Kumar, president, Boeing India, said in an interview.\nKumar said the US government’s willingness to liberalise rules on transfer of technology (ToT) gave them a leg-up against competitors. “I don’t think ToT is an issue. It is not us but the US government is saying that rules will be more forward-looking. The US now recognises India as its ‘major defence partner’ and they are much more forward-leaning and sharing technology with India,” he said.\nRecently, Kenneth Juster, the US ambassador to India, indicated the same. “The United States plans to offer India certain technology and platforms that we have offered to no other country in the world. We are going to be very forward-leaning in technology, the transfer of technology, and indigenous production that we can offer to India,” he had said.\nSeveral foreign manufacturers have objected to ToT without a majority stake in a partnership. Under the current strategic partnership model, it is mandatory for an Indian firm to have at least a 51 per cent stake. Kumar said that having a public sector player as partner made their case of indigenisation stronger. “With a public-private partnership approach, I am bringing the best of public sector and private sector — the only two in India which have manufactured airplanes,” he said.\nALSO READ: PM Modi's 'Make in India' will not work unless there is a strategic plan\nBoeing’s probable rivals in the process, Dassault, and Lockheed, have chosen private players Reliance, Adani and the Tatas as their respective partners. “The only company which has achieved something in aircraft manufacturing is a public company. The industry I believe cannot suddenly ignore them and go for other, that’s not wise. We brought our industrial partners and spoke to almost 400 in the sector. We realised ignoring HAL is a bad idea,” he said.\nAfter criticism that the new defence policy did not envisage any role for defence PSUs, the government is now mulling a change to allow them to forge joint ventures with foreign partners.\nIn terms of capability, Boeing will be pitching the latest design of F/A-18 Super Hornet aircraft, the most advanced and cheapest to operate. “We are capable of supplying aircraft to India that we are supplying to the US today. It brings advance capability that will be supplied to US defence forces in the foreseeable future. Cost-wise, it is much more affordable, having the lowest cost per flight hour than any aircraft in the US air force inventory,” he said. Recently, the US navy ordered 24 F/A-18 Super Hornets.\nALSO READ: India's F-16 India will be exclusive, in line with Make in India: Lockheed\nKumar also stressed that an order was essential to kickstart the defence indigenisation story and encourage global giants to invest in India. “In defence, it’s a monopoly situation. You have only one buyer. So if we don’t have that buyer with any order in near foresight, it’s too much risk to invest in capacity. The best way for the government to catalyse investment is to make orders. Not simple RFI and RFPs. We need actual orders,” he said.", "Market Scenario:\nAs a statistical tool for delivering information, the big data as a service helps many enterprises to implement, understand, and gain insights from a huge set of raw and unstructured information. One of the major factors driving the growth of Big Data as a Service Market is the growing requirement of the structured data analysis. As the amount of data keeps on increasing, there is a huge requirement of data analysis helping the organizations to achieve their tasks and fulfill their requirements. Additionally, there is a huge demand for predictive analysis and data science, which is also expected to drive the market growth. The competitive analysis of big data as a service market comprises of many large vendors. IBM had recently made changes and developments to its Watson Data Platform. This platform includes features for data scientists and researchers for data cataloging and data refining. This helps higher authorities in an enterprise to analyze and prepare artificial intelligence related applications for improving the data visibility to secure private data.\nGet Sample of Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1209\nKey Players\nThe prominent players in the market of BDaaS are- IBM (U.S.), Oracle Corporation (U.S.), Microsoft Corporation (U.S.), Amazon Web Services (U.S.), Google (U.S.), SAP SE (Germany), Cazena (U.S.), Arcadia Data (U.S.), DataTorrent (U.S.), DataHero (U.S.) among others.\nSegmentation\nBy services , the market is segmented into HaaS (Hadoop as a Service), DaaS (Data as a Service), and AaaS (Analytics as a Service).\n, the market is segmented into HaaS (Hadoop as a Service), DaaS (Data as a Service), and AaaS (Analytics as a Service). By deployment , the market is segmented into on-premise, on-cloud, and hybrid.\n, the market is segmented into on-premise, on-cloud, and hybrid. By industry , the market is segmented into BFSI, manufacturing, retail, healthcare, media & entertainment, government among other.\n, the market is segmented into BFSI, manufacturing, retail, healthcare, media & entertainment, government among other. By organization size , the market is segmented into the small and medium enterprise and large enterprise.\n, the market is segmented into the small and medium enterprise and large enterprise. On the basis of region, the market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and rest of the world.\nRegional Analysis\nThe global market for big data as a service is estimated to grow at a significant rate during the forecast period. The geographical analysis of big data as a service market is covered for the regions such as North America, Europe (including Russia), Asia Pacific (including Australia and New Zealand) and rest of the world (including the Middle East, Africa, and Southern America). Among the regions and countries mentioned above, the big data as a service market was largely dominated by North America in 2016. North America is much occupied by various key players, and a majority of them reside in the United States. Additionally, higher adoption of big data as a service across various industrial segments contributes towards the growth of this market in North America.\nThe big data as a service market in Europe is going through a significant change. The big data as a service market has seen an increased application in IT & telecommunication sector. There are, at present, many developments being done in the big data and technologies related to it. Comparing with North America, Europe lacks most of the prominent players. North America holds more than 60% of the top prominent players providing services in this market. Europe and North America are the technologically advanced regions, and the factors affecting the growth of this market is increasing deployment of advanced big data as a service features.\nGet complete Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/big-data-as-a-service-market-1209\nIntended Audience\nBig Data as a Service services providers\nNetwork Component providers\nHadoop service providers\nSoftware Developers\nAnalytics software developers\nGovernment Agencies\nElectronic Device Manufacturers\nValue-Added Resellers\nSecurity agencies\nResearch Firms\nTABLE OF CONTENTS\nLIST OF TABLES\nTable1 World Population By Major Regions (2017 To 2030)\nTable2 Global Big Data As A Service Market: By Region, 2017-2023\nTable3 North America Big Data As A Service Market: By Country, 2017-2023\nTable4 Europe Big Data As A Service Market: By Country, 2017-2023\nTable5 Asia Pacific Big Data As A Service Market: By Country, 2017-2023\nTable6 The Middle East & Africa Big Data As A Service Market: By Country, 2017-2023\nTable7 Latin America Big Data As A Service Market: By Country, 2017-2023\nTable8 Global Big Data As A Service By Deployment Market: By Regions, 2017-2023\nTable9 North America Big Data As A Service By Deployment Market: By Country, 2017-2023\nTable10 Europe Big Data As A Service By Deployment Market: By Country, 2017-2023\nTable11 Asia Pacific Big Data As A Service By Deployment Market: By Country, 2017-2023\nTable12 The Middle East & Africa Big Data As A Service By Deployment Market: By Country, 2017-2023\nTable13 Latin America Big Data As A Service By Deployment Market: By Country, 2017-2023\nTable14 Global Deployment Market: By Region, 2017-2023\nTable15 Global Deployment Market: By Region, 2017-2023\nTable16 Global Deployment Market: By Region, 2017-2023\nTable17 North America Big Data As A Service Market, By Country\nTable18 North America Big Data As A Service Market, By Deployment\nContinued…\nAbout Us:\nAt Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.\nMedia Contact:\nMarket Research Future\nOffice No. 528, Amanora Chambers\nMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,\nPune – 411028\nMaharashtra, India\n+1 646 845 9312\nEmail: sales@marketresearchfuture.com", "Recent developments in China's missile forces threaten to deny US aircraft carriers and the US Navy access to vital warfighting domains, but the Marine's F-35B concept was designed to shatter those missile forces from the inside out.\nThe F-35B can land just about anywhere and take off with a fresh load of bombs and fuel, complicating China's war plan and giving the US a fighting chance.\nF-35Bs are getting ready to deploy on small aircraft carriers, where they'll come face to face with China's burgeoning navy and missile capabilities for the first time.\nAs China builds out its network of militarized islands in the South China Sea and expands a sphere of influence designed to keep the US out, the US Marine Corps is putting the finishing touches on a weapon to burst its bubble: the F-35B.\nChina's People's Liberation Army Rocket Force has turned out a massive number of so-called carrier-killer missiles, ballistic missiles that can target ships up to about 800 miles out at sea, even testing them against models of US aircraft carriers.\nWith the US Navy's longest-range platform — aircraft carriers — maxing out at a range of about 550 miles, this means China could theoretically use the missiles to shut the US out of a battle for the South China Sea.\nBut theories and lines drawn on paper won't beat the US military in a battle.\nIn pursuing the strategy of anti-access/area denial, known as A2AD in military speak, China assumes that the US must launch aircraft from bases or aircraft carriers. But the F-35B, the US Marine Corps' variant of the most expensive weapons system of all time, doesn't work that way.\n\"You can fly the F-35B literally anywhere,\" David Berke, a retired US Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, told Business Insider. \"If your traditional places of operation are unavailable\" — perhaps because Chinese missile fire cratered them, a likely tactic in a war — \"the F-35B can be there.\"\nBy taking off in just a few hundred feet or so and landing from a vertical drop, the F-35B frees up the Marine Corps from worrying about large, obvious bases.\nIf China targets carriers, the US won't use carriers\nMarines have been training for this operating concept in the Pacific as well. In mid-January, they landed an F-35B on a sloped platform, showing that future pilots could land their plane almost anywhere.\nThroughout last year, F-35B crews trained on tactics like \"hot loading\" and \"hot refueling,\" which aims to turn reloading the F-35 — usually an affair that takes time, space, and a massive air base to support — into the equivalent of a NASCAR pit stop.\nFor the F-35B, the ground crew runs up to the jet while it's still running to pump more fuel and load more bombs. In just a few minutes, atop a dirt floor with minimal support infrastructure in an improvised location China's missiles won't know to hit, the F-35B can take off again.\n\"Find me 600 feet of flat surface anywhere in the world, and I can land there,\" said Berke, who compared the F-35B to the A-10 \"Warthog,\" the US Air Force flying gun famous for its ability to land on dirt roads and fight on despite getting roughed up.\nSo while China has focused on pushing back the US's aircraft-carrier-bound fleets of F-18s, the Marines have cooked up a new strategy involving smaller carriers, like the USS Wasp, and heavy-lifting, quick-flying helicopters for support. Using the V-22 Osprey's and the CH-53's extreme-lifting capability, Marines could set up makeshift bases inside China's supposed A2AD bubble.\nFrom there, the stealth F-35Bs could take out the threats keeping the carriers at bay, poking holes in that bubble.\n\"If you're looking at warfare two-dimensionally, you're looking at it wrong,\" Berke, a former F-35 squadron commander, said of the A2AD concept. \"You don't beat me in a boxing match 'cause your arms are longer than mine.\"\nThe US is sending the F-35B to the Pacific ASAP\nThe US's faith in the F-35B's ability to shake up the balance of power in the Pacific is evident in recent deployments. The first outside the US was in Japan.\nNow, amid rising tensions with North Korea, an F-35B-capable aircraft carrier will station itself in Japan.\n\"You're about to put for the first time ever fifth-generation fighters on a ship at sea and put it into a highly contested area that is fraught with geopolitical risk and controversy and tensions,\" Berke said.\n\"The implications of a fifth-generation airplane being in [the Pacific] is impossible to overstate,\" he added. \"They're going to provide capability that nobody knows exists yet.\"", "UMC (NYSE UMC TWSE 2303), a leading global semiconductor foundry, today announced that its board of directors has appointed senior vice presidents SC Chien and Jason Wang as co presidents of the company, following Po Wen Yen's retirement as UMC CEO. The co presidents are collectively accountable for the overall performance of UMC, and will report to Chairman Stan Hung directly. The transition will become effective immediately.\n\"Co-presidents Chien and Wang bring complimentary experience and capabilities to enable UMC to have the best minds committed to our most critical decisions and execution ability,\" said Chairman Hung. \"With their respective roles clearly defined, I anticipate a very smooth transition as we enter the next stage of UMC's growth. Our priorities going forward will include a high degree of customer focus, consistent operational excellence, clear investment strategy, and maximizing shareholder value.\"\nChairman Hung continued, \"We would like to extend our sincere appreciation to CEO Yen for his 30+ years of dedicated service. Under his leadership, UMC has established a solid foundation and legacy for our co-presidents to build upon, and we wish him all the best on his retirement as he continues to provide his knowledge, experience, and service to our community and society.\"\nCEO Yen commented, \"It has been a rewarding opportunity to have helped UMC evolve during my five years as the company's CEO. I am honored to have worked with an exceptionally dedicated and skilled team of executives and managers to bring benefits to UMC and its customers, and firmly believe in the company's positive direction going forward. I have worked closely with Mr. Chien and Mr. Wang for many years, and am convinced in their ability to lead UMC to new heights as co-presidents. Meanwhile, after my retirement, I look forward to further increasing my involvement in social and charitable activities in order to bring heightened awareness to the importance of mutual prosperity with our surrounding environment and society.\"\nThe responsibilities of the co-presidents will be structured as follows:\nAbout UMC\nUMC (NYSE: UMC, TWSE: 2303) is a leading global semiconductor foundry that provides advanced IC production for applications spanning every major sector of the electronics industry. UMC's comprehensive foundry solutions enable chip designers to leverage the company's sophisticated technology and manufacturing, which include high volume 28nm High-K/Metal Gate technology, 14nm FinFET mass production, ultra-low power platform processes specifically developed for Internet of Things (IoT) applications and the automotive industry's highest-rated AEC-Q100 Grade-0 manufacturing capabilities for the production of ICs found in vehicles. UMC's 11 wafer fabs are strategically located throughout Asia and are able to produce nearly 600,000 wafers per month. The company employs over 19,000 people worldwide, with offices in Taiwan, China, Europe, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and the United States. UMC can be found on the web at http://www.umc.com.\nNote from UMC Concerning Forward-Looking Statements\nSome of the statements in the foregoing announcement are forward looking within the meaning of the U.S. Federal Securities laws, including statements about future outsourcing, wafer capacity, technologies, business relationships and market conditions. Investors are cautioned that actual events and results could differ materially from these statements as a result of a variety of factors, including conditions in the overall semiconductor market and economy; acceptance and demand for products from UMC; and technological and development risks. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in UMC's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including its registration statements and reports on Forms F-1, F-3, F-6 and 20-F and 6-K, in each case as amended. UMC does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable law.", "Market Highlights:\nInnovation Management refers to products, business processes and innovations in an organization. It is basically combination of management of innovation processes and change management. It involves introducing new and creative ideas in order to respond to internal and external opportunities. It makes use of innovation management tools for easy integration of new methods for implementation of innovations.\nThe Innovation Management Market has been segmented on the basis of type, deployment, organization size, application and vertical. The vertical segment is further bifurcated into BFSI, healthcare, education, transportation, retail and government.\nThe retail sector is expected to hold the largest market share and grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. By integrating innovation management with retail, there will be new business opportunities to improve and also maximize product distribution.\nThe global innovation management market is expected to grow at approx. USD 1,700 Million by 2023, at 27% of CAGR between 2017 and 2023.\nMajor factors driving the Innovation Management Market are the changing work culture and increasing demand for new and innovative products to satisfy consumer needs. There is a rapid growth in innovation management market which is driving the market growth.\nRequest a Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/3162\nMajor Key Players:\nQmarkets (Israel)\nBrightIdea, Inc. (U.S.)\nHype Innovation (Germany)\nIdeaScale (U.S.)\nInnosabi GmbH (Germany)\nCognistremer (Belgium)\nCrowdicity Ltd. (U.K.)\nPlanbox, Inc. (Canada)\nExago (Portugal)\nInno360, Inc. (U.S.)\nInnovation Management Market Segmentation:\nThe Innovation management market has been segmented on the basis of type, deployment, organization size, application and vertical. Deployment segment is further classified into cloud and on-premise. Out of which, the cloud deployment segment is expected to hold the largest market share and grow at the highest rate during the forecast period owing to ease of deployment and cost effectiveness which make it highly flexible.\nRegional Analysis:\nThe regional analysis of Innovation Management market is being studied for regions such as Asia Pacific, North America, Europe and Rest of the World. It has been observed that North America is estimated to account for the largest share of the market, whereas Asia-Pacific is projected to grow at the fastest rate during the forecast period. The major growth in Innovation Management market in North America attributes to the technical advancements and increasing need for innovative products to satisfy consumer needs in that region.\nMarket Research Analysis:\nThe global innovation management market, by geography, has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa (MEA), and South America. In the global innovation management market, Asia Pacific is anticipated to witness relatively faster adoption and hence the growth rate as compared to other regions. Within Asia Pacific, innovation management market is projected to contribute faster to the growth of revenue backed by increasing demand for innovative products in countries such as Japan, China and India.\nAcross Europe, countries including Germany, France and the U.K. are anticipated to drive the growth of innovation management market. In Europe, the presence of advanced infrastructure and with the increasing adoption of technology and technological advancements in numerous countries is driving the market growth of Innovation Management market. This helps in easy integration of innovation management tools which ultimately provides easy implementation of new innovative business processes or products.\nInnovation Management market in the South America region is anticipated to witness relatively slower market growth. However, Brazil and Argentina among other countries are projected to witness slow yet steady growth. In Brazil, innovation management is increasing popularity and is expected to increase significant market share during the forecast period. Innovation Management market in Middle East and Africa occupies a relatively smaller pie of the global innovation management market.\nBrowse Full Report Details @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/innovation-management-market-3162\nIntended Audience:\nTechnology investors\nResearch/Consultancy firms\nPlatform vendors\nThird party providers\nCloud service providers\nInternet service providers\nApplication service providers\nTechnology providers\nTechnology providers\nAcademic and research institutes\nGovernment associations\nAbout Market Research Future:\nAt Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.\nMRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.\nContact:\nMarket Research Future\nOffice No. 524/528, Amanora Chambers\nMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar\nPune – 411028\nMaharashtra, India\n+1 646 845 9312\nEmail: sales@marketresearchfuture.com", "Market Highlights:\nParking Management Market comprises of various programs and policies in order to make efficient use of parking resources. The growing urbanization in metropolitan areas is the reason for increasing number of vehicles and hence the need for parking management.\nThe Parking Management Market has been segmented on the basis of component, parking site type, solution and vertical. The component segment is further bifurcated into software and service segments. The service segment comprises of deployment and customization and support and maintenance segments. Out of which, the deployment and customization segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. This is owing to the rapid adoption of parking management solutions by organizations which require assistance for deployment and customization processes.\nMajor forces driving the growth of parking management market are the increasing focus on the seamless traffic flow and growing parking concerns due to increasing production of vehicles. Concern for safety, security and connectivity are other factors driving the growth of parking management market.\nThe global parking management market is expected to grow at approx. USD 7 Billion by 2023, at 12% of CAGR between 2017 and 2023.\nRequest a Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/3232\nMajor Key Players:\nXEROX Corporation (U.S.)\nSiemens AG (Germany)\nKapsch Traffic Com AG (Austria)\nAMANO Corporation (Japan)\nCubic Corporation (U.S.)\nSWARCO AG (Austria)\nINRIX, Inc. (U.S.)\nINDIGO (France)\nT2 Systems, Inc. (U.S.)\nSKIDATA AG (Austria)\nMarket Research Analysis:\nThe global parking management market, by geography, has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Others. In the global parking management market, Asia Pacific is expected to dominate the parking management market during the forecast period owing to the changing culture in organizations and increasing adoption of technological advancements. Asia Pacific is anticipated to witness relatively faster adoption and hence is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. Within Asia Pacific, parking management market is projected to contribute faster to the growth of revenue backed by increasing government initiatives in countries such as Japan, China and India.\nAcross Europe, countries including Germany, France and the U.K. are anticipated to drive the growth of parking management market. In Europe, the presence of advanced infrastructure and with the increasing adoption of technology and technological advancements in numerous countries is driving the market growth of parking management market. Early adoption of parking management solutions across large number of verticals is another major factor driving the growth of parking management market. The developed economies in these regions is the main reason for the increase in number of vehicles and ultimately showing growth in parking management market.\nParking Management Market Segmentation:\nThe parking management market has been segmented on the basis of component, parking site type, solution and vertical. The parking site type segment is classified into two types namely, off street parking and on street parking. As the name says, on street parking implies, parking of vehicles on the street. There are few streets where vehicles can always be parked. Off street parking implies both indoor and outdoor parking. It includes parking lots, garages and driveways. Off street parking holds the largest market share of parking management market owing to its efficient parking capabilities.\nRegional Analysis:\nThe regional analysis of parking management market is being studied for regions such as Asia Pacific, North America, Europe and Rest of the World. It has been observed that North America is estimated to account for the largest share of the market, whereas Asia-Pacific is projected to grow at the fastest rate during the forecast period. The major growth in parking management market in North America attributes to the technical advancements and early adoption of parking management in that region.\nSegments:\nParking management market can be segmented on the basis of following:\nBy Component\nSoftware\nParking Information Systems\nParking Payment Systems\nService\nDeployment & Customization\nSupport & Maintenance\nBy Parking Site Type\nOff Street Parking\nOn Street Parking\nBy Solution\nAccess Control\nSecurity & Surveillance\nParking Fee & Revenue Management\nValet Parking Management\nParking Fee & Revenue Management\nParking Guidance & Slot Management\nOthers\nBy Vertical\nBFSI\nRecreation\nHealthcare\nCorporate & Commercial Parks\nHospitality\nAcademia\nRetail\nTransportation\nGovernment\nOthers\nBrowse Full Report Details @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/parking-management-market-3232\nIntended Audience:\nTechnology investors\nIntegrated device manufacturers (IDMs)\nResearch/Consultancy firms\nGovernment agencies\nSoftware providers\nCloud Service providers\nProfessional Service providers\nSolution providers\nIntegration service providers\nAbout Market Research Future:\nAt Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.\nMRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.\nContact:\nMarket Research Future\nOffice No. 524/528, Amanora Chambers\nMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar\nPune – 411028\nMaharashtra, India\n+1 646 845 9312\nEmail: sales@marketresearchfuture.com", "Market Highlights:\nThe design of efficient and sophisticated security systems with user-friendly installation features enabled by wireless technology is the key factor fuelling the growth of the market. Furthermore, availability of remote monitoring with proper insurance policies is expected to boost the market over the forecast period. Whereas, large initial investment and cost of maintenance of the equipment along with lack of awareness regarding technological enhancements are hampering the market.\nIt is the defense of digital information and IT assets against internal and external threats. Defense includes detection, prevention and response to threats using policies, software tools and IT services. Increasing consumer awareness & security concerns, willingness to invest for security systems, growing demand for the use of wireless technology in security systems and adoption of IoT-based security systems are majorly driving the growth of the market.\nAccording to MRFR, The Security System Integrators Market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 10% during the Forecast Period 2017-2023. The wireless systems are not only easy to install but it helps to improve the interactive monitoring services of a system and can be remotely operated which makes it easy to use.\nAlthough the on-premise deployment of security system is more secure and reduces the risk of cyber threats, there is a more adoption and deployment of cloud services. In the U.K, the cloud adoption rate has reached nearly 85%, including the security system integration. Also, the pricing strategy of the cloud is more flexible than of on-premise, and hence becomes a prime factor for the small enterprises to adopt these services easily.\nRequest a Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/5571\nMajor Key players:\nSetronics Corporation (U.S.),\nCisco Systems, Inc. (U.S.),\nFireEye, Inc. (U.S.),\nHewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (U.S.),\nInternational Business Machines Corporation (U.S.),\nMcAfee, LLC (U.S.),\nAccenture BCR (Ireland),\nCognizant Technology Solutions Corporation (U.S.),\nDeloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (U.S.),\nHCL Technologies Limited (India),\nWipro Limited (India),\nCIPHER Security LLC (U.S.), Integrity360 (Ireland), Vandis, Inc. (U.S.), Anchor Technologies, Inc. (U.S.), and Innovative Solutions Co (Saudi Arabia)\nOther vendors include Symantec Corporation (U.S.), Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (U.S.), Sophos Group Plc (U.K), Check Point Software Technologies Ltd (Israel), RSA Security LLC (U.S.), Kaspersky Lab (Russia), Carbon Black, Inc (U.S.), F-Secure Corporation (Finland), Veracode, Inc. (U.S.), WhiteHat Security (U.S.), Akamai Technologies, Inc (U.S.) and others.\nSegmentation:\nOn the basis of organization size, the Security System Integrators market is segmented into small and medium enterprises, and large enterprises. Among these, the large enterprises are having the highest market and are expected to dominate the segment during the forecast period. This growth is mainly due to the ability of enterprises to invest large amounts in cloud deployment, application security, and mostly the network security. On the other hand, the small and medium enterprises are slowly adopting these security systems, due to budgetary restraints.\nOn the basis of vertical, the market is segmented into energy, retail, banking, manufacturing, hospitality, government, IT & telecommunication, aerospace & defense, and others. The government sector along with public sector integration of IT infrastructure is expected to grow at a fast rate due to increasing number of cyber threats and attacks. These industrial verticals possess a lot of sensitive customer data and also are dedicated to provide rapid customer service, for which there is a strong need of network and application security.\nRegional Analysis\nNorth America, at present holds the largest market share of security system integrators market and is expected to continue dominating by the end of forecast period. Europe is closely following North America in terms of growth rate. Europe and North America are advanced regions in terms of technology and its adoption. Many small, medium and large enterprises are providing their services in these regions and across the globe. As the IT sector is highly dominant in countries like the U.S., there is a strong need in terms of security. Many enterprises and government agencies are moving their services, data, and processes to cloud which is resulting in an additional risk of data loss and security threat.\nThe major factors adding to the growth of Europe market is the strict government regulations and policies regarding the data transmission. However, Asia Pacific, at present, is slowly adopting these services and has occupied third spot in the market. This growth is expected to increase, by the mid of forecast period, due to more adoption of cloud services and development in IT infrastructure.\nBrowse Complete Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/security-system-integrators-market-5571\nIntended Audience:", "Market Highlights:\nThe threat intelligence management industry is going through numerous changes due to the volatile nature of technological advancements. The amount of data available to us today is a driving the enterprises to implement Threat Intelligence Management Market. Targeted and persistent threats can compromise standard security and bring vulnerabilities in the security models adopted by the organization. The need for improving the network defenses against the risk of data breach and monitoring any malicious activity are the major drivers enforcing the organizations to build more effective defense systems and deploy Threat Intelligence Management.\nOne of the benefits of threat intelligence management solution is its ability to detect threat information and transform this information into relevant intelligence which can be utilized by analysts to upgrade the current security model and take preventive actions. Threat Intelligence Management provides the user a portal to monitor the latest threat actors, the attacks they conduct and identify frequently targeted data. With this feature, analysts can interpret various ways in which these actors and attacks can impact their business.\nGet Sample Report @\nhttps://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/6030\nHowever, a major challenge that the threat intelligence management faces today is the speed at which the threat intelligence is received to prevent an attack. Incapability of security systems to share the threat in real-time can pose a challenge to the overall market. Security Systems must share the threat in real-time to match the speed of the attack.\nKey players:\nSome of the major players in global threat intelligence management market include IBM Corporation (USA), Dell Technologies Inc. (USA), McAfee LLC (USA), Trend Micro Incorporated (Japan), Symantec Corporation (USA), Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (USA), Juniper Networks Inc. (USA), FireEye Inc. (USA), LogRhythm Inc. (USA), LookingGlass Cyber Solutions Inc.(USA), Optiv Security Inc. (USA).\nOther players include Webroot Inc. (USA), Farsight Security Inc. (USA), F-Secure Corporation (Europe), AlienVault Inc. (USA), Splunk Inc. (USA)\nSegmentation:\nOn the basis of solutions, the market is segmented into network management solutions, threat intelligence and risk management solutions, identity and access management solutions, log management and firewall.\nOn the basis of services, the market is segmented into threat intelligence feed services, threat monitoring services and consultation.\nOn the basis of deployment mode, the market is segmented into Cloud deployment and On-premises deployment.\nOn the basis of organization size, the market is segmented into Small and Medium Enterprises and Large Enterprises.\nOn the basis of end-users, the market is segmented into BFSI, healthcare, Telecommunication, manufacturing, retail, education, research organizations and transportation.\nGet Complete Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/threat-intelligence-management-market-6030\nRegional analysis:\nThe global threat intelligence management market is estimated to grow at a rapid rate due to market players focusing on improving their network defense system. The geographical analysis of threat intelligence management is carried out for for regions, namely North America, Europe (including Russia), Asia Pacific (including Australia and New Zealand), and Rest of the World (including the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America). Among these regions the market at present is dominated by North America due to higher adoption of Cyber Security solutions and threat intelligence services. This region is hub to the major key players that develop and innovate threat intelligence technology. The United States contributes a major portion towards this growth with key players like IBM, Symantec and McAfee planning to develop enchanced threat intelligent management Tools.\nAsia Pacific region is expected to achieve rapid growth over the forecast period. Many Small and Medium Enterprises and Large Enterprises in China, Japan, and India are investing in enhancing their network defenses to prevent theft of data and cyber-attacks. The increase in the volume of data and growing demand for mobile and web applications are driving the growth of threat intelligence market in Asia Pacific region.\nIntended Audience:\nNetwork Operators\nGovernment Agencies\nTelecommunication Companies\nIT Security Providers\nEnd-users\nSoftware Solutions Providers\nCybersecurity Providers\nSoftware Vendors\nMedia companies\nManufacturing companies\nRetail Companies\nTable of Contents\n1 Executive Summary\n2 Scope of the Report\n2.1 Market Definition\n2.2 Scope of the Study\n2.2.1 Research Objectives\n2.2.2 Assumptions & Limitations\n2.3 Markets Structure\n3 Market Research Methodology\n3.1 Research Process\n3.2 Secondary Research\n3.3 Primary Research\n3.4 Forecast Model\nContinues…\nList of Tables\nTable 1 Threat Intelligence Management Market: By Region, 2018-2023\nTable 2 North America Threat Intelligence Management Market: By Country, 2018-2023\nTable 3 Europe Threat Intelligence Management Market: By Country, 2018-2023\nTable 4 Asia Pacific Threat Intelligence Management Market: By Country, 2018-2023\nTable 5 the Middle East & Africa Threat Intelligence Management Market: By Country, 2018-2023\nContinues…\nList of Figures\nFigure 1 Global Threat Intelligence Management Market Segmentation\nFigure 2 Forecast Methodology\nFigure 3 Porter’s Five Forces Analysis of Global Threat Intelligence Management Market\nFigure 4 Value Chain of Global Threat Intelligence Management Market\nFigure 5 Share of Threat Intelligence Management Market In 2018, By Country (In %)\nContinues…\nAbout Market Research Future:\nAt Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.\nMRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by Solutions, Application, Logistics and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.\nContact:\nMarket Research Future\nOffice No. 524/528, Amanora Chambers\nMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar\nPune – 411028\nMaharashtra, India\n+1 646 845 9312\nEmail: sales@marketresearchfuture.com", "Cognitive Security Market\nMarket Research Future published a half cooked research report on Cognitive Security Market, Which is Expected to Reach Approximately USD 10 Billion by 2023\nPUNE, MAHARASHTRA, INDIA, August 14, 2017 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Cognitive Security Market, By Deployment (Cloud, On-Premise), By Organization Size (Small and Medium Enterprises, Large Enterprises), By Vertical (Logistics, BFSI, Healthcare, IT & Telecommunication) - Forecast 2023\nOn the basis of regional analysis the market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of the World. North America region is generating highest market share in the cognitive security market owing to better network infrastructure, digitization and higher technology implementation. Digitization in North America is mainly due to the invention of advanced technology and economies benefitting from it. North America region is leading due to presence of major players from the region in the cognitive security market. The implementation of cloud based cognitive security solutions by both small and medium enterprises is increasing rapidly, especially one into banking and finance. The cognitive security is gaining demand as organization seek to increase their business productivity by shifting from on-premise to cloud based. The initial low cost, saving amount spent on infrastructure, automatic software upgrading and seamless integration is driving the market of cloud based cognitive security solution.\nTaste the market data and market information presented through more than 30 market data tables and figures spread over 100 numbers of pages of the project report. Avail the in-depth table of content TOC & market synopsis on “The Cognitive Security Market Research Report -Forecast to 2023”.\nGet a sample report at https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/3986 .\nCognitive Security Market Segmentation\nThe cognitive security market has been segmented on the basis of deployment, organization size and vertical. In North America region there is high adoption of cloud security by small and medium size enterprises owing to dynamic benefits and cost factor. The developed infrastructure in the region is significant factor boosting the cognitive security market. By vertical, BFSI accounts for largest market share in the region owing to its numerous benefits that includes automated threat intelligence and prevention techniques, fraud analysis and investigation.\nThe prominent players in the cognitive security market are –\n• XTN (Italy)\n• Intel Security (U.S.)\n• Symantec Corporation (U.S.)\n• IBM Corporation (U.S.)\n• Cisco systems (U.S.)\n• CA Technologies, Inc. (U.S.)\n• CSC (U.S.)\n• Fortinet, Inc. (California, U.S.)\n• Cato Networks (Israel)\n• Check Point Software Technologies (Israel)\nMarket Research Analysis:\nThe cognitive security market in North America region is growing due to high adoption of cognitive systems by enterprise and need to improve cyber security in organizations. Changing banking regulation, that requires changes in documents and financial transaction is driving the market in the region. According to the study, the cognitive security market will remain steady in Europe region. Asia-Pacific market is estimated to be one of the fastest growing market as enterprises are continuously investing into research and development of cognitive security market. Increasing IT landscape is boosting the market in the region. The region is witnessing high adoption of internet of things and bring your own device technology by enterprises. Developing countries such as India and China are adopting cognitive security systems at a large scale owing to increasing IT infrastructure, digitization and robust industrialization that is boosting the market in the region. By vertical segment, BFSI and IT & telecommunication sector is driving the cognitive security market. The region is witnessing high growth in cognitive security market due to growing technological advancement in cloud, analytics and mobile technologies.\nACCESS REPORT DETAILS @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/cognitive-security-market-3986\nStudy Objectives of Cognitive Security Market:\n• To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast of the various segments and sub-segments of the cognitive security market.\n• To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth.\n• To analyze the cognitive security market based porter’s five force analysis etc.\n• To provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to four main geographies and their countries- North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of the World (ROW).\n• To provide country level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospective.\n• To provide country level analysis of the market for segment on the basis of deployment, organization size and vertical.\n• To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analyzing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market.\n• To track and analyze competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the cognitive security market.\nAsk Question to Expert at https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/enquiry/3986 .\nThe regional analysis of cognitive security market is being studied for region such as Asia Pacific, North America, Europe and Rest of the World. North America region is the leading player in the cognitive security market. The need of safety & security solutions to secure the huge existing database of the organizations is contributing to the growth of cloud security market in the region. The European region has highly developed network infrastructure. The growing healthcare industry in the region is demanding for security over cloud technology thereby driving the cloud security market. The Asia Pacific region is promoting the concept of bring your own device to the company premises which is increasing the threat of cyber-attacks for data on-cloud. To save the corporate data from unauthorized access and treats of cyber-attacks more and more companies are establishing the cloud security systems.", "American aerospace and defense technologies company Lockheed Martin reckons that the F-16 Block 70 for India — the newest and most-advanced F-16 -- will strengthen the strategic partnership between India and the United States.\n\"We have partnered with India for more than 25 years and remain committed to fostering technology development, manufacturing and strategic collaboration. Today's global security environment requires proven success to protect what matters most,\" a spokesperson said.\nLockheed Martin says the F-16 is ready for any challenge, combining innovative structural and capability upgrades, such as the Active Electronically Scanned Array radar with a new avionics architecture. The Block 70 software further enhances capabilities through an advanced datalink, precision GPS navigation and Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System.\n\"Our partnership and joint venture company with Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL) has also proven that Indian industry can manufacture airframe components for the C-130J airlifter and the S-92 helicopter. We hope to build on that success with the F-16, because when it comes to success in complex environments, we know trusted partnerships can make a world of difference,\" the spokesperson added.\nLet's have a look at Lockheed Martin's Make in India links:\nC-130J Super Hercules\nThe C-130 programme represents a strong legacy of partnership between the US and India. All C-130Js delivered to customers around the world have major aerostructure components from India included in their build through partnership with TASL in Hyderabad. This partnership with TASL also includes an on-the-job training element that supports the broader \"Skills India\" initiative.\nC-130J Super Hercules:\nIs Lockheed Martin's largest programme in India.\nRepresents the first major military contract between the US and India in more than 40 years.\nIs the world's most successful and advanced tactical airlifter.\nThe Indian Air Force operates a fleet of five C-130J-30s and it will receive an additional six C-130J-30s as well. Currently, India is one of 16 countries operating the C-130J Super Hercules, which is the world's choice for tactical airlifters. The IAF uses its C-130Js to support a variety of missions, from cargo delivery to providing vital humanitarian aid.\nThe Super Hercules is also part of India's C-130J Roll-On/Roll-Off University Design Challenge. Through this initiative, Lockheed Martin provides research grants for teams from Indian universities to work with local industry partners and mentors from Defence Research and Development Organisation to develop design specifications for proposed modules that could be used on a Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules cargo aircraft.\nS-92 Helicopter\nSikorsky – a Lockheed Martin company – also relies on TASL in Hyderabad, as the manufacturing base for its global supply of cabin aerostructures for the S-92 helicopter.\nSince production began in 2010, TASL has delivered 120 cabins to Sikorsky's S-92 assembly plant in the US.\nToday, production of more than 5,000 precision components that compose each S-92 cabin is 100 per cent indigenous to India — supplied by a joint venture company called Tata Sikorsky Aerospace Ltd., also located in Hyderabad.\nRenowned for its safety and reliability, the S-92 helicopter is operated extensively worldwide by offshore oil and gas transport companies, search and rescue agencies, and by heads of state. Sikorsky has produced more than 275 S-92 aircraft since September 2004. The worldwide S-92 fleet recently surpassed one million flight hours.\nS-70B SEAHAWK\nThe Indian Navy has selected Sikorsky's S-70B SEAHAWK helicopter for its multi-role rotorcraft requirement.\nDesigned to perform anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare (ASW/ASuW), the S-70B aircraft will be configured to meet the Indian Navy's specific and unique operational needs. The proposed Indian Navy S-70B variant will include a weapon management system that integrates an advanced sonar, 360-degree search radar, modern air-to-surface missiles, and torpedoes for the ASW role.\nThe S-70B aircraft will also enhance the Indian Navy's capabilities to perform non-combat maritime roles, including search and rescue, utility and external cargo lift, surveillance and casualty evacuation. Formalities to enable the successful delivery of 16 of these sophisticated and customised helicopters to the Indian Navy are expected to conclude soon.\nWhen delivered to the Indian Navy, the S-70B SEAHAWK helicopter will be one of the most advanced maritime rotorcraft in the world.", "Market Highlights:\nThe market is expected to grow at a rapid pace during the forecast period The Edge Analytics Market is forecasted to demonstrate a spectacular growth by 2023, surpassing its previous growth records in terms of value with a striking CAGR during the anticipated period (2017 – 2023). With such a pace MRFR anticipates the Global Edge Analytics Market to reach up to USD 11 Billion by 2023, at 31% of CAGR between 2017 and 2023.\nEdge Analytics Market is segmented on the basis of component, type, deployment, business application and vertical. The type segment is further bifurcated into descriptive analytics, predictive analytics, prescriptive analytics and diagnostic analytics. Out of these, the predictive analytics type is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period owing to its nature of predicting the outcomes of business environment before the actual occurrence of events.\nThe Edge Analytics Market is growing with the rapid pace; mainly due to the emergence of IoT and proliferation of massive amount of data through connected devices. According to a recent study report published by the Market Research Future, The global Edge Analytics market has been increasing.\nRequest a Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/3192\nMajor Key Players:\nCisco Corporation (U.S.)\nOracle Corporation (U.S.)\nSAP SE (Germany)\nSAS Institute (U.S.)\nApigee Corporation (U.S.)\nAGT International Inc. (Switzerland)\nFoghorn Systems (U.S.)\nCGI Group Inc. (Canada)\nAnalytic Edge (India)\nPrism Tech (U.K.)\nEdge Analytics Market Segmentation:\nThe edge analytics market has been segmented on the basis of component, type, deployment, business application and vertical. The component segment comprises of solutions and services. The solutions segment is expected to hold the largest market share during the forecast period owing to the increasing number of enterprises deploying edge analytics solutions.\nRegional Analysis:\nThe regional analysis of edge analytics market is being studied for regions such as Asia Pacific, North America, Europe and Rest of the World. It has been observed that North America is estimated to account for the largest share of the market, whereas Asia-Pacific is projected to grow at the fastest rate during the forecast period. The major growth in edge analytics market in North America attributes to the technical advancements and well established infrastructures in that region.\nMarket Research Analysis:\nThe global edge analytics market, by geography, has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Others. In the global edge analytics market, Asia Pacific is anticipated to witness relatively faster adoption and hence the growth rate as compared to other regions. Asia Pacific is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. Within Asia Pacific, edge analytics market is projected to contribute faster to the growth of revenue backed by advent of internet of things and emerging advanced technologies in countries such as Japan, China and India.\nAcross Europe, countries including Germany, France and the U.K. are anticipated to drive the growth of edge analytics market. In Europe, the presence of advanced infrastructure and with the increasing adoption of technology and technological advancements in numerous countries is driving the market growth of edge analytics market. The small and medium enterprises market in Europe region contributed for larger share of revenue while the industrial market is expected to gain traction during the forecast period.\nAccess Report Details @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/edge-analytics-market-3192\nIntended Audience:\nTechnology investors\nResearch/Consultancy firms\nCloud service providers\nTechnology providers\nIndependent Software Vendors\nBusiness Analytics Software Providers\nApplication Design and software developers\nSystem Integrators\nIT Service Providers\nAbout Market Research Future:\nAt Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.\nMRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.\nContact:\nMarket Research Future\nOffice No. 524/528, Amanora Chambers\nMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar\nPune – 411028\nMaharashtra, India\n+1 646 845 9312\nEmail: sales@marketresearchfuture.com", "Market Highlights:\nA data science platform is a framework of the entire life cycle of a data science project. Data science platform contains all the tools required for executing the lifecycle of the data science project spanning across different phases such as data ideation, integration and implementation, model development and model deployment. Data science platform helps organizations to enhance their analysis by helping them run, track, reproduce, share and deploy analytical models faster. In general, all these tasks require lot of engineering effort and are difficult to build and maintain analytical models. Data science platforms give the data science teams a leg up in the competitive race to leverage analytics effectively.\nThe global data science platform market is being driven by factors such as global rapid advancement in big data technologies, demand for big data analysis to gain deeper insights into consumer buying patterns, and need for ease of use technological methods to drive business effectiveness. Data science platform aid to facilitate a high level of association across data scientists, business analysts, data engineers, and developers in different fields of business. Data Science platforms help the organizations to prepare data, build models and operationalize analytics.\nThe intensity of rivalry in the global data science platform market is moderate. With the emergence of new data science technologies, vendors are either enhancing their products in line with the changing end user requirements or aggressively engaging into organic and inorganic growth strategies in the global market.\nRequest a Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/5201\nMajor Key Players\nMicrosoft Corporation (U.S.),\nIBM Corporation (U.S.),\nGoogle, Inc. (U.S.),\nWolfram (U.S.),\nDataRobot Inc. (U.S.),\nSense Inc. (U.S.),\nRapidMiner Inc. (U.S.),\nDomino Data Lab (U.S.),\nDataiku (France),\nAlteryx, Inc. (U.S.), and Continuum Analytics, Inc. (U.S.)\nAccording to MRFR, The global Data Science Platform Market is estimated to grow up to USD 115 billion with a CAGR ~ 29% through the forecast period.\nSegmentation\nThe market for global data science platform market is divided on the basis of business function, deployment model, vertical and region. On the basis of business function the segment is further classified into marketing, sales, logistics, human resources, operations, risk management, customer support and many more. On the basis of deployment the segment is further classified into on-demand and on-premise. The global data science platform covers a wide area of verticals such as BFSI, retail, healthcare, IT, transportation, energy and utilities, government and defense and many more.\nKey Findings\nFirst a real estate from Durham, using data science and machine learning to help real estate agents. Their SaaS platform analyzes over 700 personal factors such as demographics, income changes, and purchasing behavior and life events of every agent’s contact and cross-references them against national averages. The resulting seller score indicates how likely they are to sell their home, helping agents know exactly when to reach out for the best chance at landing a deal.\nVeritone, Inc., a leading provider of artificial intelligence (AI) and cognitive solutions, has acquired the advanced data analytics software and related intellectual property (IP) assets of Atigeo Corporation.\nAmerican Family Insurance is accelerating its use of data through advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) with its purchase of Chicago-based data and analytics software company Networked Insights.\nRegional Analysis\nThe market for global data science platform market is studied across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World. The North American market is expected to hold the largest market share, owing to capital intensive industries present across the region. Enterprises are looking to embrace data science platform as the revered platform which will help them have a competitive edge in the marketplace. Asia Pacific region is anticipated to have the highest growth rate during the forecast period. Industrialization, digitalization and several smart city initiatives by governments intensify the adoption of data science platform.\nNorth America leads the market for global data science platform market. Due to the presence of major market players such as IBM, Microsoft, Google and many more led to development in this sector. TD Bank Group acquired Layer 6 Inc., a world-renowned artificial intelligence (AI) company based in Toronto, Ontario. Layer 6 adds new capabilities to TD’s growing base of innovation talent and know-how. Artificial Intelligence has the potential to power a new generation of data-driven applications from personalized and real-time advice to predictive analytics that will shape the future of banking for millions of individuals.\nAsia Pacific is anticipated to grow at rapid rate through the forecast period. Data science companies are setting up in Asia Pacific to meet the growing demand to maximise in-house data production and analysis. In November 2017, French software developer Dataiku Inc., which owns predictive analytics software platform Data Science Studio, announced its intention to accelerate its expansion in this region.\nBrowse Complete Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/data-science-platform-market-5201\nIntended Audience", "The tens of millions of samples that Lastline analyzed for this report were for the most part scanned and released by other security solutions, meaning Lastline is literally \"The Last Line of Defense®.\" Reflecting the objects analyzed in the last quarter of 2017, the report found:\nEnterprises, and malware authors, use a wide range of file types, illustrating the need to have protection parity across all attack vectors\nOf the objects received via email or online and cleared by other security tools, one in 500 were found to be malicious, resulting in malware being introduced daily into enterprise networks\nSixty-five percent of malware files had never been submitted to VirusTotal and were seen only once by Lastline, leaving signature-based detection technologies ineffective\nOne in 12 malware samples exhibit particular advanced persistent threat capabilities that make them hard to detect and particularly dangerous\nNinety percent of files that Lastline determined to be malicious were given generic labels by AV tools, such as trojan.generic, providing limited guidance for successful remediation and leaving enterprises exposed to subsequent attacks resulting from compromised credentials\nThe file types that malware authors used to launch attacks varied widely across regions, as did the payloads and targets\nThe company also is announcing the Lastline Behavioral Intelligence Program, an innovative behavior-based approach to threat intelligence that will improve security effectiveness, speed to remediation, and completeness of remediation. Using data from Lastline's global deployment of millions of sensors, the program will make unique actionable information about cybersecurity threats publicly available to inform security teams' ability to detect and block attacks and improve their efforts to secure email, web access, corporate networks, and cloud storage and apps.\n\"The Lastline Behavioral Intelligence Program is built on core strengths of Lastline – our understanding of malicious behaviors and our ability to connect them to intrusions and breaches,\" noted Lastline CEO and co-founder, Chris Kruegel. \"With this program, we're overcoming serious shortcomings in existing threat intelligence systems that deliver one-time IoCs that are essentially useless for blocking future attacks, resulting in broken incident response processes and ineffective intrusion defenses.\"\nThe program initially will consist of online access to threat analysis showing how malicious files are delivered, including new trends as they emerge, which will help security teams bolster defenses. In addition, Lastline will release high-level views of malware in the wild, such as the Malscape Monitor Report, details of threats against specific market segments or geographies, and details of a particular attack's capabilities plus remediation recommendations.\nGo to the Threat Intelligence section of the company's website to access all materials available through the Lastline Behavioral Intelligence Program.\nAbout Lastline\nLastline provides breach protection products that are innovating the way companies defend against advanced malware with fewer resources and at lower cost. We deliver the visibility, context, analysis, and integrations enterprise security teams need to quickly and completely eradicate malware-based threats before damaging and costly data breaches occur. Headquartered in Redwood City, California with offices throughout North America, Europe and Asia, Lastline's technology is used by Global 5000 enterprises, is offered directly and through resellers and security service providers, and is integrated into leading third-party security technologies worldwide. www.lastline.com\nView original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-lastline-report-finds-that-90-percent-of-malware-it-analyzes-is-given-generic-unhelpful-labels-by-av-tools-among-additional-actionable-malware-insights-300634727.html\nSOURCE Lastline Inc.\nRelated Links\nhttp://www.lastline.com", "Smart Government Market Overview:\nThe smart government market has been segmented on the basis of solution, service and deployment. The solution segment is further bifurcated into security, analytics, government resource planning system, remote monitoring, open data platform, network management and others. Out of these, remote monitoring solutions are expected to grow at the fastest rate during the forecast period. Remote monitoring helps in tracking the assets, provides safety and offers maximum efficiency. Another reason for the growth of remote monitoring segment is the decrease in the costs of sensors which is making deployment of solutions feasible.\nAccording to a recent study report published by the Market Research Future, The global market of Smart Government is forecasted to gain prominence over the forthcoming years due to the growing demand for digital mediums and smart technologies attributed to technological advancements. The Market is forecasted to reach to USD 37 Billion by 2023 growing with a striking double digit – 19% of CAGR during forecast period 2017-2023. High acceptance for cloud computing, even in countries that tend to be concerned about data privacy and security has driven the Smart Government global market.\nSmart Government Market relies on information systems and communication networks. It uses business models, innovative policies and technology for making everyday challenges easier. Major driving factors for the growth of smart government market are growing demand for digital mediums and smart technologies owing to technological advancements. Increasing demand for technological advancements and emerging technical adoptions is helping in driving investments in the smart government market.\nAdditionally, growing data from multiple sources allowing the governments to process them for digital transformation, leading to the adoption of smart technologies consecutively driving the market growth of Smart Government.\nSample Copy of Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/3145\nMajor Key Players:\nAmazon Web Services, Inc. (U.S.)\nCapgemini SE (France)\nCisco Systems, Inc. (U.S.)\nEntrust Datacard Corporation (U.S.)\nHuawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (China)\nIBM Corporation (U.S.)\nImex Systems Inc. (Canada)\nNokia Corporation (Finland)\nOracle Corporation (U.S.)\nSymantec Corporation (U.S.)\nSmart Government Market – Competitive Analysis\nCharacterized by the presence of several major well-established players, the global Smart Government Market appears to be highly fragmented and competitive. Well established players incorporate acquisition, collaboration, partnership, expansion, and technology launch in order to gain competitive advantage in this market and to maintain their market position. Strategic partnerships between Key players support the growth and expansion plans of the key players during the forecast period. The Key players operating in the market compete based on pricing, technology, reputation and services. These Players invest heavily in the R&D to develop a technology that is on a completely different level compared to their competition. These Key players strive to develop products with the adept technologies, unrivalled design and features.\nSmart Government Market Segments:\nThe Smart Government Market is segmented in to 4 key dynamics for the convenience of the report and enhanced understanding;\nS egmentation by Solution: Comprises Government Resource Planning System, Security, Analytics, Remote Monitoring, Open Data Platform, Network Management and other.\nSegmentation by Service: Comprises Professional Services, Managed Services.\nSegmentation by Deployment: Comprises Cloud, On-Premise.\nSegmentation by Regions : Comprises Geographical regions – North America, Europe, APAC and Rest of the World.\nSegment – Remote Monitoring Solutions on the basis of solution is expected to grow at the fastest rate during the forecast period. Remote monitoring helps in tracking the assets, provides safety and offers maximum efficiency. Another reason for the growth of remote monitoring segment is the decrease in the costs of sensors which is making deployment of solutions feasible.\nSmart Government Market Regional Analysis:\nThe global smart government market, by geography, has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa (MEA), and South America. It has been observed that North America is estimated to account for the largest share of the market. The major growth in Smart government market in North America attributes to the technical advancements and increasing use of mobiles and tablets in that region.\nAcross Europe, countries including Germany, France and the U.K. are anticipated to drive the growth of smart government market. In Europe, the presence of advanced infrastructure ensures higher penetration of mobile devices which ultimately helps in driving the market growth.\nSmart government market in the South America region is anticipated to witness relatively slower market growth. However, Brazil and Argentina among other countries are projected to witness slow yet steady growth.\nSmart government market in Middle East and Africa occupies a relatively smaller pie of the global smart government market. Within Middle East and Africa counties including UAE, South Africa and Saudi are driving the growth. Here smart government is gaining popularity and is expected to increase significant market share during the forecast period.\nAccess Report Details @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/smart-government-market-3145\nAbout Market Research Future:\nAt Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.\nMRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.\nContact\nMarket Research Future\nOffice No. 528, Amanora Chambers\nMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,\nPune – 411028\nMaharashtra, India\n+1 646 845 9312\nEmail: sales@marketresearchfuture.com", "MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Frants Klintsevich, first deputy chairman of the Russian upper house's Committee on Defense and Security, believes that the 2018 US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) allows for another mass murder of civilians with the use of nuclear weapons similar to the atomic bombings of Japan's Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States in 1945.\n\"The whole world remembers Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The US nuclear doctrine does not taboo the repetition of such things, and this is the most concerning thing,\" Klintsevich said in a statement on Saturday, as quoted by his press service.\nThe recently issued Nuclear Posture Review significantly boosts the confrontation aspect of the US foreign policy, basing its policies not on cooperation with Russia in this area, but on the rivalry with Moscow, the lawmaker pointed out.\nBy endorsing this nuclear doctrine, including multiple \"ideological injections,\" the United States stakes on undermining global strategic balance for its own benefit, at the same time trying to depict Russia as the main reason for modernizing US nuclear forces, Klintsevich added.\nThe lawmaker noted that the United States had halted the strategic dialogue on nuclear risks with Russia using the Crimea referendum as a pretext, and had switched subsequently to groundless accusations against Moscow, as well as violations of various agreements.\nThe new US Nuclear Posture Review has become Washington’s reaction to the changing global environments, Klintsevich suggested. The situation on the Korean peninsula has shown that the United States cannot feel its full dominance even in the conflict with Pyongyang, the lawmaker pointed out.\nThe 2018 US Nuclear Posture Review also envisages short-term plans to modify existing submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) warheads to provide a low-yield option pursue a modern nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM) in the long run.\nREAD MORE: Russia Can React Swiftly to US Nuclear Arms' Deployment in E Europe — Lawmaker\nOleg Morozov, a member of the Russian upper house’s International Affairs Committee, called the US nuclear doctrine \"demagogic\" as on the one hand, the United States demonstrated peacefulness while accusing Russia of preparing for a nuclear strike, on the other hand.\n© AP Photo/ Rick Bowmer US to Equip Future F-35 Fighters with Nuke Capabilities - Nuclear Posture Review\nMorozov also called the US Nuclear Posture Review a declaration of \"a new round of the Cold War.\"\nThe atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States during the final stage of World War II remains the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in history. The bombings left over 100,000 people killed and thousands of others injured.\nAfter the end of the Cold War, the United States has seen a decrease in its weapons arsenal, particularly, due to the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty between Washington and Moscow. US President Donald Trump, however, has repeatedly vowed to build up the US nuclear arsenal.", "Market Highlights:\nAutomation as a Service (SDP) can be defined as the process of assimilating all domain and functionality tools into various automation layers to have unified interface for all workflows. It can also be defined as the process of automating events, processes, tasks and business functions.\nOrganizations are developing their techniques and solutions to gain more visibility in complex architecture. With the right solutions, they can automate the business processes with more efficiency. Automation-as-a-service enhance mechanizing business processes for quick task resolution, without wasting time on repetitive tasks. It enables organizations to maintain all the transaction records and provides the required security and privacy of the data which is a major concern for organizations. Thereby, the finance vertical is estimated to have the largest market share in 2023.\nIBM is yet another key player in automation as a service market. Sysco delivers automation service to their customers with IBM cloud automation services. Through automation service, Sysco has witnessed a decrease in critical incidents, increased server uptime and much more. According to MRFR, The Global Automation as a Service Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of approximately 29% during the forecast period 2017-2023.\nRequest a Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/5551\nMajor Key Players\nAutomation Anywhere, Inc. (U.S.),\nBlue Prism Group Plc. (U.K),\nInternational Business Machines Corporation (U.S.),\nMicrosoft Corporation (U.S.),\nUiPath (U.S.),\nHCL Technologies Limited (India),\nHewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (U.S.),\nKofax Inc. (U.S.),\nNICE Ltd. (Israel), and Pegasystems Inc.(U.S.) and others.\nIndustry Segments\nThe automation as a service market is segmented on the basis of type, component, organization size, deployment, application, and vertical. On the basis of component, the market is divided into solutions & service. The service segment further comprises of professional services and managed services. The professional service segment further consists of deployment & integration, consulting services and support & training. The deployment basis of market segmentation is divided into on-premise and cloud. The organization size segment of the market is segmented into large enterprises and small & medium enterprises. Moreover, by application, the market comprises sales and marketing, operations, of information technology (IT), finance and human resources (HR).Finally on the basis of end-user segment the market is segmented into healthcare and life science, telecommunications and IT, transportation and logistics, retail & wholesales, BFSI, media and entertainment, hospitality and others.\nRegional Analysis\nThe global automation as a service market is studied for Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, and Rest of the World. It has been observed that North America region accounts for the largest share in the global Automation as a Service market. Owing to technological advancement, well-established IT infrastructure, adoption of advanced technology across numerous industries. Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing owing to the presence of small and medium enterprises that mostly adopt cloud-based applications. Further, the increase in adoption of automation and cloud technologies among enterprise, and government initiatives, for development of smart cities in the APAC countries, that includes China, India, and Taiwan is aiding the market growth.\nBrowse Complete Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/automation-as-a-service-market-5551\nIntended Audience", "Canada plans to deploy troops and helicopters to support the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali, the government said Monday.\nForeign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan announced the deployment of two Chinook transport helicopters, four armed Griffon helicopters and accompanying troops.\n\"The deployment will come with a number of troops of the Canadian Armed Forces who will facilitate medical evacuations for troops on the ground and provide logistical support for that mission,\" Sajjan said.\nThe announcement confirms Canadian media reports on the deployment and comes after nearly three years of deliberations since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau vowed to increase Canada's contribution to UN peacekeeping missions.\nOfficials did not say how many troops would be deployed or when the 12-month mission would begin. In 2015, Trudeau said some 600 troops could be deployed to Mali.\nRead more: Sahel zone: New operation to fight terrorism\nGermany welcomes deployment\nCanada has been under pressure from allies, including the Netherlands and Germany, to contribute the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA).\nThe Canadian contingent is expected to replace German transport and combat helicopters, which Berlin plans to bring back home this summer.\nWatch video 12:03 Share Fighting Islamists - German deployment in Mali Send Facebook Google+ Whatsapp Tumblr linkedin stumble Digg reddit Newsvine Permalink http://p.dw.com/p/2Wypy Fighting Islamists - German deployment in Mali\nGerman Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the Canadian announcement.\n\"The Canadian decision is good news for this important UN peacekeeping mission, but so also for our Bundeswehr soldiers stationed in Mali,\" von der Leyen told Tagesschau.\nAlthough deploying helicopters is considered less risky than sending troops on the ground, it is not without risks. Last August, two German pilots were killed when their Tiger helicopter crashed in Mali's northern desert.\n\"We are very aware of the complexities and the difficulties of the situation in Mali. Indeed, it is the complexity and the difficulty of the situation there which requires a UN peacekeeping force,\" Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Freeland said.\nRead more: Germany to expand global military missions\nFifty-seven countries contribute to the UN mission in Mali\nUN's most dangerous mission\nMali is the UN's most dangerous peacekeeping mission. More than 150 UN peacekeepers have been killed there since they first deployed in 2013.\nThere are about 12,000 UN peacekeepers in the country, as well as 1,700 UN police officers. Germany has approved up to 1,100 soldiers to deploy to the mission.\nMali descended into a spiral of instability in 2012, when ethnic Tuareg rebels and other groups took advantage of a power vacuum left by a military coup in the capital, Bamako, to take over northern Mali in a bid for independence.\nWatch video 28:31 Share Kenya’s Lone Ranger - One Man’s Fight against Islamist Terrorism Send Facebook Google+ Whatsapp Tumblr linkedin stumble Digg reddit Newsvine Permalink http://p.dw.com/p/2uaim Kenya’s Lone Ranger - One Man’s Fight against Islamist Terrorism\nRead more: EU doubles funds for G5 Sahel military anti-terror security force\nBut the rebellion for Tuareg autonomy was quickly hijacked by Islamist militants, including al-Qaida aligned groups.\nEvents in Mali prompted France to militarily intervene in its former colony in January 2013. French forces were able to largely push back the extremist insurgency, but jihadis continue to use sparse terrain to launch attacks.\nThe UN deployed a peacekeeping mission in July 2013 to replace the French mission. It now oversees a June 2015 peace accord signed between the Malian government and Tuareg rebels and other northern rebel factions, but excludes al-Qaida linked groups. Implementation of the peace agreement is fragile.\nThe importance of Mali and the larger Sahel region have increased for Europe in recent years as criminal trafficking networks have helped bring tens of thousands of African migrants to Libya, using it as a springboard to reach Europe.\nEach evening at 1830 UTC, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here.\ncw/rs (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)", "National Conference chief Omar Abdullah National Conference chief Omar Abdullah\nNational Conference chief Omar Abdullah on Monday insisted that his party does not question the accession of Jammu and Kashmir with India but wanted “concrete shape” to be given to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assurance that there will be no fiddling with the Article 35A. He said the BJP was wrongly claiming that Jammu and Ladakh regions of the state would benefit by abrogation of Article 35A of the Indian Constitution which grants special privileges to the citizens of the state.\nJammu region will face the brunt first and Kashmir subsequently, the former chief minister said.\nHe said the Centre should file a counter affidavit in the Supreme Court where Article 35A of the Indian Constitution has been challenged by two women who have contended that they lost their citizenship rights because of this provision which grants special privileges to the citizens of the state.\nAbdullah said those tinkering with the constitutional provisions like Article 370, which grants special status to J&K, and Article 35A are threatening the concept of ‘one India’.\n“We will like the Prime Minister’s assurance be given a concrete shape and to make it a reality,” he said on Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti’s claim that Modi has given “100 per cent assurance” that he would back the PDP-BJP government’s Agenda of Alliance which says there will be “no fiddling” with Article 35A.\n“A counter affidavit should be filed (in the Supreme Court) by the Central government as well,” Abdullah said.\nHe termed as a “lie and propaganda” that industrialists like the Tatas, Birlas and Ambanis would set up factories in Kashmir once Article 35A is removed from the statute.\nIt is a “lie and mere propaganda floated by those befooling people,” Abdullah said, adding investments in Jammu and Kashmir were held up as it is perceived an “unsafe destination” and not because of the Article 35A or Article 370 of the Constitution.\nHe said such laws are also prevalent in many other states like Himachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Lakshadweep and Andaman and Nicobar where it is mandatory to be the resident of that state to purchase a land.\nHe said those people debating ‘one-India’ should first revoke such laws in those states.\n“You are not touching these states and this issue is raked up by the BJP. So, we are compelled to think that you have selected Jammu and Kashmir only because Muslims are in majority in Jammu.\n“If you really dream of ‘one-India’, then to realise that dream you should revoke such laws from the other states first. Then we will accept that your intention is right. But, when you target only J&K, then it is obvious that we will doubt your intentions,” the NC leader said.\n“We are one India. Please remember that Jammu and Kashmir became a part of the Union on the basis of a constitutional provision where in Union of India was responsible only for currency, communication, defence and foreign affairs. It has been eroded over the time,” Abdullah said.\n“There is no reason why autonomous Jammu and Kashmir ceases to be a part of India. (But) yes, if you continue to tinker with the constitution, if you continue to erode everything that was the basis of accession, then it is those, who are doing that tinkering, are threatening the concept of ‘one-India’ and not us. We don’t question accession,” he said.\nInsisting that none of the three regions of the state – Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh — would benefit by the revocation of Article 35A, he said, “This propaganda of political parties here that Jammu should favour removal of Article 35A because it is to their advantage, I am trying to correct that thing.”\nTaking a dig at the separatist Hurriyat Conference, Abdullah said, “They have no business to issue statements on constitutional provisions as they do not believe in the Constitution of India.”\nHe said the National Conference is thinking of organizing protests in every district of Kashmir as well as Jammu soon to give a message that the party is serious over the issue.\n“Yesterday, there was a complete strike (in Kashmir). A friend told me that it was for the first time that Kashmir was observing a strike for saving the Indian constitution. The strikes earlier were for weakening the control of India in J&K….Now, the people of Jammu have also understood that they will not benefit from the revocation of this Article (35A),” he said.\nAsked whether the party would take a legal recourse, he said, “We will have a meeting of the party and will discuss it.”\nTerming as “rubbish” the allegation that NC is toeing the separatists’ line on the issue, Abdullah said, “Unfortunately, this attack (on Article 35A) is taking place when we perhaps have the weakest chief minister in our history in office.\n“I do not think even (former chief minister) Ghulam Mohammad Shah was so weak that Mehbooba Mufti is. She remains silent and peddles lies only. She also lied on GST implementation in the state and now says that the Prime Minister has assured her on Article 35A.\n“Where are the assurances? Why did the Centre not file an affidavit in the Supreme Court?”\nAbdullah added, “When we complain that you are not keeping your end of the bargain (on accession), we are labeled anti-national. We are seeking what is within the constitution. What do you talk about ‘Kashmiriyat’, ‘Jhamooriyat’ (democracy) and ‘Insaaniyat’ (humanity), (if) you do not trust the law here. You want to change the law.”\nHe insisted that Article 35A has nothing to do with land ownership. “The truth is that before 1990, there was good industry in Jammu as well in Kashmir. Why did industry die after 1990? It had nothing to do with Articles 35A or 370. It had everything to do with Jammu and Kashmir being perceived to be an unsafe destination for investment,” he said.\nIn response to another question, he said, “Pakistan, since 1947 had made attempts to separate Kashmir from India, either by war or militancy and terrorism.\n“We all know that they (separatists) need the support of Pakistan. Pakistan do help them. It is a reality and nothing new,” Abdullah said, adding the government is taking action against them.\nHe claimed that there is no gender-based discrimination after the implementation of a law by the PDP-Congress government led by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed in 2003-04.\n“My sisters have as much right over the property in Jammu and Kashmir as I have. A propaganda based on lies is being spread to attract people towards them (BJP). The fact is that after the bill was brought in by the Mufti-led government in 2003-04, gender discrimination, that was prevalent for long, is no longer effective,” he said.\nFor all the latest India News, download Indian Express App", "As the RSAF marks its 50th anniversary, a comparison between its first and most recent fighter jets highlights its development as a lethal force.\nSINGAPORE: Back in the day, a bombing run with the Republic of Singapore Air Force’s (RSAF) earliest fighter jet, the Hawker Hunter, meant first completing a math exercise.\nBefore setting off, pilots would bury themselves in charts and tables, manually calculating the perfect trajectory for the bomb drop.\nThey must consider the day’s wind and humidity, then figure out how high the aircraft should fly and how much it will drift. Once airborne, they intentionally aim off target and release the bomb.\n“One degree off your dive angle and the bomb will drop short,” said Colonel (COL) (Ret) Peter Wong, a 65-year-old former Hunter pilot. “Everything has got to be right.”\nThe RSAF has come a long way since 1970, when it bought its first British-made Hawker Hunter. As it turns 50 this year, it boasts a fleet of fourth-generation fighters, the F-16 and F-15SG.\nThe F-16. (Photo: Mindef)\nAdvertisement\nAdvertisement\n“When you drop a bomb now, all you need to do is point the laser there and just release,” COL (Ret) Wong said of the current warplanes. “Everything is calculated for you.”\nIndeed, Senior Lieutenant-Colonel (SLTC) Tham Yeow Min, an F-15SG pilot, called the aircraft a “huge technological advancement”.\nWhile the Hunter could only hit enemy planes that were within sight, the F-15SG comes equipped with beyond-visual-range missiles. For bombing, Hunter pilots sought out targets using their eyes. F-15SG pilots can rely on some of the latest air-to-ground radars.\n“It was quite crucial to be able to see the guy. If not, you could never engage him properly,” COL (Ret) Wong said. “Today’s situation is very different. From miles away, you already start to get yourself ready.”\n“It’s quite a world of difference,” he added.\nME6 Mike Pathi (left) and COL (Ret) Peter Wong chat beside a Hawker Hunter at the Air Force Museum. (Photo: Aqil Haziq Mahmud)\nThe same goes for repairs, as current fighter jets are designed for ease of maintenance.\nWhile a Hunter would be out for three months during a major service, it would take about 10 days for an F-16. Minor fixes on a Hawker would require three technicians; an F-16 would only need two.\n“The Hunter was built to fight, maintenance was secondary,” explained Military Expert 6 (ME6) Mike Pathi, a Hunter technician and F-16 ground crew. This meant the Hunter only came with three technical manuals. In contrast, the F-16 has more than 200.\nME6 Pathi, 58, said moving between the two platforms was a “culture shock”. “Because there’s so much data collected on the F-16 through the years, it’s started to become more reliable.”\nGRACEFUL HAWKER HUNTER\nToday’s warplanes might be easier to fly and maintain, but this doesn't mean a pilot’s job has become a walk in the park, said SLTC Tham, who is also deputy commander of the fighter group.\n“It seems simpler because everything is automated, but now we are tasked to do more in one pass,” the 47-year-old said. “So, we just pile up the workload.”\nFor example, fighter crew now focus on operating a range of sensors and weapons simultaneously, he added. This enables them to drop multiple bombs and strike more targets in a single mission.\n“In terms of workload for the older platforms, it was just flying the aircraft,” he noted.\nTechnical specifications of the Hawker Hunter.\nCOL (Ret) Wong’s first solo flight on the Hunter is something he will never forget. It was 1973 and the Hunter was the fastest thing he’d ever flown then.\n“The first time I took off, they always say your brains sit on the runway and you’re up a few thousand feet already,” he said.\nThe Hawker Hunter. (Photo: Mindef)\nStill, the “graceful” Hunter handled steadily, even at low altitudes. This was unlike other aircraft Singapore had at the time, he added. “The A-4 Skyhawk at low levels shakes like hell, but this guy just glides through.”\nWhile the Hunter wasn’t the most advanced aircraft at the time, COL (Ret) Wong said it was an “appropriate” addition to the then-fledgling air force. “You did not have a lot of technical expertise to support any sophisticated aircraft.”\nHawker Hunters in formation. (Photo: Mindef)\nCOL (Ret) Wong went on to fly the Hunter in overseas exercises in countries like Indonesia and the Philippines. He also took part in a number of aerobatic displays as part of the Black Knights.\nSo when the Hunters made a final appearance at West Coast Park on Singapore Armed Forces Day in 1983, before being retired nine years later, he felt sad.\n“Most pilots that flew the Hunter really loved the aircraft,” he said. “It was a joy to fly.”\nAWESOME F-15SG\nBut even before the Hunters were phased out, the RSAF had delved into supersonic flight by acquiring the F-5 in 1979. In 1983, it got its first F-16, before unveiling the F-15SG more than two decades later.\n“The RSAF is always trying to acquire the latest technology to meet our demands,” said SLTC Tham. “We also ensure our procedures are up to date to fulfil our national defence requirements.”\nTechnical specifications of the F-16 and F-15SG.\nThe “awesome” F-15SG is one example of the latest technology there is, as SLTC Tham likened it to an “extremely powerful” American muscle car.\n“The key thing is it’s an air superiority fighter,” he said. “We have a weapon systems officer employing a whole array of weapons with advanced sensors.”\nIn the bigger picture, the fact that RSAF’s warplanes and personnel do well in overseas exercises that involve foreign forces is a huge deterrence against potential enemies, he added.\nSLTC Tham Yeow Min in the cockpit of an F-15SG. (Photo: Mindef)\nSLTC Tham looked back proudly at the 2011 RSAF Open House, when he was part of the team that showed off the F-15SG to the public for the first time.\n“It’s always a privilege to show Singaporeans that we have this capability and that we are here for them,” he said. “Individually, we feel proud that we are able to operate this platform to its full capability in such a short span of time.”\nThe F-15SG dropping bombs. (Photo: Mindef)\nCOL (Ret) Wong was asked if he dreamt of flying modern jet fighters.\n“Every time I see the F-15 and F-16 fly, I wish I was up there sometimes,” he said with a laugh. “With the sheer power of the aircraft, you also feel shiok.”", "Core Banking Solutions Market, By Deployment (Cloud, On-Premise), By Solution (Enterprise Customer Solution, Account Processing Platforms, Loans, Deposits, Others), By Service (Managed Service, Professional Service) – Forecast 2023\nMarket Scenario:\nCore banking is defined as the service delivered by group of networked bank branches to customers, where they can perform all the banking activities that includes money transactions, payments, loans, debts and access their accounts. Core banking is similar to that of retail banking and most of the banks consider retail customers as their core banking customers. Core banking solutions software are adopted by number of banks for easy flow of banking activities, enhanced risk management and are able to monitor the transaction activities from any branch of bank.\nThe major factors driving the market growth includes customer demand for advanced banking technologies, cost effective solutions, managing customer accounts efficiently so that customer can anytime visit the bank and gain information of their account and increased adoption of it in bank for centralized management. The growing need of operating customer accounts from single server is one of the significant factor driving market growth. There are some restraints which may affect the market growth includes lack of awareness among enterprises of modern banking technologies, no synchronization between core banking solution and global industry expectations.\nThe Core Banking Solutions Market is segmented on the basis of deployment, solution and service. By deployment segment the market consists of cloud and on-premise. Cloud based core banking solution enable users by offering less maintenance and development cost that enables banks to focus more on customers and market. It offers adaptable technology model that provides reduction in usage of IT hardware.\nThe core banking solutions market is expected to grow approximately at USD 13 Billion by 2023, at approx. 4% of CAGR between 2017 and 2023.\nStudy Objectives of Core Banking Solutions Market:\n• To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast of the various segments and sub-segments of the core banking solutions market.\n• To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth.\n• To analyze the core banking solutions market based porter’s five force analysis etc.\n• To provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to four main geographies and their countries- North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of the World (ROW).\n• To provide country level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospective.\n• To provide country level analysis of the market for segment on the basis deployment, solution and service.\n• To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analyzing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market.\n• To track and analyze competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the core banking solutions market.\nRequest a Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/3208\nKey Players:\nThe prominent players in the core banking solutions market are Infosys Limited (India), HCL Technologies Limited (India), Tata Consultancy Services (India), Capgemini SE (France), Oracle Financial Services Software Limited (India), Temenos Group AG (Switzerland), Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (U.S.), Misys (U.K.), Fiserv, Inc. (U.S.), SAP SE (Germany), among others.\nSegments:\nCore Banking Solutions market for segment on the basis of deployment, solution and service.\nCore Banking Solutions market by Deployment:\n• Cloud\n• On-Premise\nCore Banking Solutions market by Solution:\n• Deposits\n• Loans\n• Enterprise Customer Solutions\n• Account Processing Platform\n• Others\nCore Banking Solutions market by Service:\n• Managed service\n• Professional service\nRegional Analysis:\nThe regional analysis of core banking solutions market is being studied for region such as Asia Pacific, North America, Europe and Rest of the World. North America region accounts for highest market share in core banking solutions market because of large scale adoption of advanced core banking solution software by prime banks in the region. Small and medium enterprises in the region are also implementing this solutions for efficient flow of banking activities. Europe region is one of the prominent players in the market owing to implementation of core banking solutions by banks.\nIntended Audience\n• Cloud service providers\n• Investors and consultants\n• Government Organizations\n• Research/Consultancy firms\n• Technology solution providers\n• IT solution providers\n• BFSI Enterprises\nAbout Market Research Future:\nAt Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.\nMRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by Components, Application, Logistics and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.\nIn order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.\nContact:\nMarket Research Future\nOffice No. 524/528, Amanora Chambers\nMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar\nPune – 411028\nMaharashtra, India\n+1 646 845 9312\nEmail: sales@marketresearchfuture.com", "The 2019 model year marks the start of a new cycle for some of America's top trucks, led by redesigned pickups from Chevrolet and Ram. Ford's top-selling F-150 had updates in 2018, and more may be in the offing for 2019. Typically, Japanese truckmakers Nissan and Toyota aren't far behind with their own updates. Edmunds breaks down what you need to know about today's crop of full-size pickups.\n2019 CHEVROLET SILVERADO\nArriving at dealers in the fall, the 2019 Chevrolet Silverado features a ground-up redesign that results in a longer, lighter pickup. Weight savings of around 450 pounds should pay dividends for fuel economy and acceleration.\nFILE- This Jan. 15, 2018, file photo shows the 2019 Ram 1500 at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Ram shook up the truck world a decade ago with a new rear suspension design that delivered sedan-like ride comfort without sacrificing capability. The rivals have since caught up, but the new Ram, thoroughly overhauled for 2019 and now on sale, continues to innovate. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)\nThe new Silverado offers a taller driving position and more room in crew-cab models. It also has the largest cargo box in its class and a power-lowering and -raising tailgate that's exclusive to the class.\nThe Silverado offers a variety of engines: a V6 (285 horsepower), a V8 (355 horsepower), a larger and stronger V8 (420 horsepower), and a turbocharged four-cylinder (310 horsepower). A six-cylinder diesel arrives in early 2019.\nThe Silverado's mechanical twin, the GMC Sierra, is also new and goes on sale in the fall. The 2019 Sierra will offer a more upscale interior than the Chevy, along with other exclusive features such as a carbon-fiber cargo box and enhanced technology. The MSRP for a 2019 Silverado crew cab ranges from $34,600 to $53,000.\n2018 FORD F-150\nPerennially the top-selling vehicle in America, the F-150 reigns supreme among full-size trucks. Multiple trims and configurations, four engine options, and remarkable capabilities make the F-150 a benchmark. Engines include a new base-level 3.3-liter V6 (290 horsepower), along with two turbo V6 options (325 horsepower or 375 horsepower), a V8 (395 horsepower) and a new diesel V6 (250 horsepower).\nWith towing capacity of up to 13,200 pounds and up to 25 mpg combined city/highway fuel economy, there's not much the F-150 can't do. There's even the bonkers 450-horsepower Raptor edition that can traverse broad swaths of off-road terrain without breaking a sweat. The MSRP for a 2018 F-150 crew cab ranges from $34,245 to $60,850. The 2019 F-150 is expected to be released later this summer.\n2018 NISSAN TITAN\nBuilt in Mississippi, the Titan is nearly as American as its domestic rivals despite its Japanese origins. The current Titan was redesigned for 2017 with a bold new look and a new XD model that splits the difference between the capabilities of regular half-ton and heavy-duty pickups. The Titan offers a single 390-horsepower V8 engine and can tow up to 9,740 pounds. The XD version comes with the same V8 or an optional diesel V8 that helps the truck tow up to 12,640 pounds.\nThe Titan's not our first choice among full-size pickups, but it's roomy and comfortable and it delivers legitimate capability at an attractive price. The MSRP for a 2018 Nissan Titan crew cab ranges from $35,930 to $56,800. The 2019 Nissan Titan arrives this fall.\n2019 RAM 1500\nRam shook up the truck world a decade ago with a new rear suspension design that delivered sedan-like ride comfort without sacrificing capability. A refined, comfortable cabin and advanced tech features made its rivals look like archaic work trucks almost overnight. The rivals have since caught up, but the new Ram, thoroughly overhauled for 2019 and now on sale, continues to innovate.\nA new frame and body design yield more room for rear passengers and reduce weight by about 200 pounds. The Ram's V8 engine (395 horsepower) returns with a revamped eight-speed transmission that makes more timely shifts. There's also a 3.6-liter V6 base engine that will be paired up with an electric-assist system for smoother power and acceleration and a maximum tow capacity of 12,750 pounds. Redesigned front seats, new technology features and an optional 12-inch infotainment display add to the Ram's winning streak of refinement. The MSRP for a 2019 Ram 1500 crew cab ranges from $34,495 to $56,495.\n2018 TOYOTA TUNDRA\nThe Tundra has gone the longest of any in this group without a full redesign. It's still plenty capable, offering two V8 engines (310 horsepower and 381 horsepower), two body styles and three bed lengths. It can tow up to 10,200 pounds, carry a 1,730-pound payload and handle itself well off-road. The Tundra also is built in the U.S.\nThe aging Tundra could benefit from a diesel engine (increased towing strength), a smaller turbocharged V6 (better fuel economy) and a thorough technology update. Still, the Tundra has a charm for certain truck buyers. The MSRP for a 2018 Toyota Tundra crew cab ranges from $35,450 to $50,330. The 2019 model arrives in the fall.\nEDMUNDS SAYS: With new designs from Chevrolet and Ram and further refinements to the venerable F-150, it's a great time for full-size truck shoppers. Most pickups offer similar capabilities, so look for such qualities as comfort and innovative technology to make a difference.\n____\nThis story was provided to The Associated Press by the automotive website Edmunds. Dan Frio is a staff writer at Edmunds. Twitter: @danfrio; Instagram: danfrio\nRelated links:\n- Video: 2019 Ram 1500 First Drive https://bit.ly/2N6jlxm\n- Video: Diesel or Gas? Two F-150s Face Off https://bit.ly/2KteVid\n- Video: 2019 Chevrolet Silverado Unveil https://bit.ly/2KgcIe0\n- Truck Tech: A Look at the Coolest Newest Pickup Truck Technology https://edmu.in/2MtRupB\nFILE- In this Jan. 13, 2018, file photo the 2019 Chevrolet Silverado High Country pickup is unveiled in Detroit. The 2019 Chevrolet Silverado features a ground-up redesign that results in a longer, lighter pickup. Weight savings of around 450 pounds should pay dividends for fuel economy and acceleration. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)\nFILE- In this Jan. 9, 2017, file photo, a 2018 Ford F-150 is displayed at the North American International Auto show in Detroit. Perennially the top-selling vehicle in America, the F-150 reigns supreme among full-size trucks. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)\nThis undated photo provided by General Motors shows the 2019 GMC Sierra. The 2019 Sierra will offer a more upscale interior than the Chevy, along with other exclusive features such as a carbon-fiber cargo box and enhanced technology. (Courtesy of General Motors via AP)\nThis undated photo provided by Nissan shows the 2018 Nissan Titan. It offers a 390-horsepower V8 engine as well as an XD version that splits the difference between the capabilities of a regular half-ton truck and a heavy-duty truck. (Courtesy of Nissan North America via AP)", "For the first time in more than 30 years, the Pentagon plans to develop two \"low-yield\" nuclear warheads to be launched from ballistic-missile submarines and warships, to send a message to Moscow who the Trump administration accuses of amassing a stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons.\nThe new plan is outlined in Defense Secretary Mattis's Nuclear Posture Review, released Friday afternoon.\n\"Expanding U.S. tailored response options will raise the nuclear threshold and help ensure that potential adversaries perceive no possible advantage in limited nuclear escalation, making nuclear weapons employment less likely,\" the new review said.\nThe Pentagon says Russia’s buildup of similar \"low-yield\" nukes is the reason it must match the threat.\n“The United States would only consider the use of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances,” said Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan. “Extreme circumstances could include significant non-nuclear strategic attacks,” he added without offering specifics.\nRussia and China were briefed by State Department officials this morning about the nuclear posture review posture review.\nIt's the first nuclear posture review in seven years, but much has changed since 2010, when the U.S. unilaterally reduced portions of its nuclear arsenal.\n“Over the past decade, while the United States led the world in these reductions every one of our potential nuclear adversaries has been pursuing the exact opposite strategy,” said Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette. “These powers are increasing the numbers and types of nuclear weapons in their arsenal.”\nAfter Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, it deployed nuclear-capable intermediate range missiles to Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave on the border with Poland, leaving NATO leaders feeling helpless.\n\"Russia's nuclear saber-rattling is unjustified, destabilizing and dangerous,\" said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in 2015. Any deployment of nuclear forces to Crimea would “fundamentally change the balance of security in Europe,” he added.\nRussia is bound by a decades-long arms treaty, known as the INF, from deploying ground-launched intermediate-range missiles. The Pentagon has accused Russia of violating the treaty, noting that Russia is also developing nuclear depth charges, torpedoes and anti-aircraft missiles among its 2,000 tactical nukes.\nThe United States has possessed tactical “low-yield” nuclear warheads for decades, but they can only be delivered from planes, including B61 gravity bombs, but are vulnerable because the jets must fly over the target to use them making them susceptible to anti-aircraft missiles and guns.\nCurrently, only the B-2 stealth bomber can penetrate sophisticated air defenses.\nThe Trump administration wants to build off the previous administration’s concern that the nuclear force needs to be modernized.\nIn 1982, B-52 bombers were equipped with air-launched cruise missiles, but those weapons are now “more than 25 years past its design life,” according to the review. The newest B-52 is also more than 50 years old, one of the reasons the Pentagon wants a replacement bomber as well replacement for the aging air launched cruise missile.\nThe Air Force has 46 nuclear capable B-52H and 20 nuclear-capable B-2A stealth bombers.\nIts bomber fleet is not the only aging portion of America’s “nuclear triad.\nThe 400 Minuteman-III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) currently deployed across three Air Force bases in the Midwest were first deployed in 1970 with a planned 10-year service life. They are now expected to last until 2030.\nThe Navy has 14 Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines capable of carrying 24 Trident D-5 intercontinental ballistic missiles, but are roughly 30 years old.\nThe Pentagon is worried Russia thinks it can use its smaller nukes against NATO in a limited war without a U.S. response.\n“Effective U.S. deterrence of Russian nuclear attack…now requires ensuring that the Russian leadership does not miscalculate regarding the consequences of limited nuclear first use,” the review states.\nThe last nuclear posture review came out just months after President Obama set as a policy goal a world without nuclear weapons in a 2009 speech in Prague.\n“Nuclear weapons are the most dangerous legacies of the Cold War,\" Obama said in a speech in the Czech Republic capital. \"The U.S. will take concrete steps ... [to] begin the work of reducing our arsenals and stockpiles.\"\nObama got rid of nuclear-tipped, sea-launched cruise missiles in 2011.\nThe Pentagon now wants to bring some of those weapons back.\n“Every U.S. administration over the past six decades has called for a flexible and limited U.S. nuclear response options,” said the review. “Potential adversaries do not stand still. On the contrary, they seek to identify and exploit weaknesses in U.S. capabilities and strategy.” The U.S. nuclear arsenal cannot remain “fixed.”\nDefense Secretary Jim Mattis spoke to reporters Friday morning hours before the release of the Nuclear Posture Review.\n\"What we're trying to do is ensure that our diplomats and our negotiators are in a position to be listened to when we say we want to go forward on nonproliferation and arms control. At the same time, you do so by having an effective, safe deterrent,” said Mattis.\nWhile not mentioning cyberattack directly, the Pentagon makes clear in this document that the U.S. reserves the right to use nuclear weapons to respond to any attack on infrastructure or population centers, even if that attack uses a conventional weapon.\nIt also addresses the nuclear threat from China, Iran and North Korea, in addition to Russia.\nAny nuclear attack by Kim Jong-un would “result in the end of that regime,” the report says.\nGreg Weaver, deputy director of strategic capabilities on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff said “there’s evidence the Russians think that their coercive nuclear use strategy has some prospect of success. We want to make sure that we disabuse them of that idea.”\nThe two new “low-yield” nuclear weapons are designed to do just that, Weaver said.\nA sea-launched nuclear cruise missile could be fired from a warship or a submarine, but is still seven to 10 years from being fielded, said Dr. Robert Soofer, deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear policy, in a briefing with reporters ahead of the review’s release.\nIf Russia returns to compliance with its arms control obligation and reduces its tactical nukes, the U.S. “may reconsider the pursuit” of the sea-launched cruise missile, according to the report.\nThe Pentagon is hoping history will repeat itself. After the U.S. deployed intermediate-range missiles to Europe, the Soviet Union signed the 1987 INF treaty with the United States. President Reagan’s secretary of state, George P. Shultz, said if not for the deployment of the American missiles, “there would be no incentive for the Soviets to negotiate seriously for nuclear weapons reductions.”\nAsked how the Russians were likely to respond to the Pentagon calling for “low-yield” nukes, Soofer replied, “I am sure they won’t respond well.”\nLucas Tomlinson is the Pentagon and State Department producer for Fox News Channel. You can follow him on Twitter: @LucasFoxNews", "LONDON, July 4, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --\nGresham Technologies plc, the leading software and services company that specialises in providing real-time data integrity and control solutions, today announced that it has completed the acquisition of B2 Group.\n(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/654184/Gresham_Tech_Logo.jpg )\nB2 Group adds cash management and payments integration solutions to Gresham's portfolio of Clareti applications, increasing Gresham's addressable market and advancing Gresham's strategic plan to create a global, enterprise financial technology business.\nAll B2 senior leadership and staff have joined Gresham and will continue to work together as a specialist team known as Gresham Cash Management Solutions. The B2 Luxembourg office will become a hub for growing Gresham's expanding business in continental Europe.\nIan Manocha, Gresham CEO, commented:\n\"We're delighted to be announcing today's acquisition of B2 Group. This exciting combination creates an industry leader in multi-bank integration and control solutions for corporates, banks, insurers and asset managers, it strengthens our cloud capabilities and gives us a platform to further accelerate our growth.\nWe have strategic plans for our combined organisation and remain committed to delivering innovative products, excellent support and industry expertise to our customers.\"\nHighlights of the acquisition:\n15 new customers, comprising corporates, banks, insurers, and asset managers, added to the Gresham customer base\nProvides an enlarged footprint in continental Europe\nBrings further expertise in cash management, securities and payments integration, straight-through-processing and secure cloud hosting solutions\nComplements Clareti Accounts Receivables Management and Clareti Transaction Control\nBrings proven, private cloud capability hosted at B2's trusted, secure, high-availability data centres in Luxembourg\nGresham will take B2 Group's full product set to the global market as part of the Clareti portfolio with B2's 'Multi-Bank Integrator' being renamed as 'Clareti Multi-Bank'.\nPhil Boland and Marc Binck, B2 Group Co-founders, commented:\n\"Joining with Gresham will enable us to take our innovative multi-bank solutions to a global market. Gresham shares our passion for customers and understands how to support the growth of a successful and talented financial technology team. We are delighted to be joining Gresham.\"\nAbout Gresham Technologies plc\nGresham is a leading software and services company that specialises in providing real-time data integrity and control solutions. Listed on the main market of the London Stock Exchange (GHT.L) and headquartered in the City of London, its customers include some of the world's largest financial institutions, all of whom are served locally from offices located in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.\nGresham's award-winning Clareti software platform has been designed to provide financial institutions with complete certainty in their data processing. Clareti is a highly flexible and fully scalable platform for ensuring the integrity of data across an enterprise. It is designed to address today's most challenging financial control, risk management, data governance and regulatory compliance problems.\nAbout B2 Group\nB2 Group, based in Luxembourg and with offices in London, are specialists in bank-to-corporate integration and cash management software and focus on the growing multi-bank solutions market. B2 Group's core product is an innovative, proprietary, cloud-based software platform to connect corporates and asset managers with their bank partners. It provides organisations with real-time visibility of their cash position, improved control of outgoing payments and automated processing of incoming statements.\nFurther information can be found on the Gresham website greshamtech.com or on Twitter @GreshamTech\nSOURCE Gresham Technologies plc", "Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose his fourth Independence Day speech to unveil a new rhetorical prescription for dealing with Kashmir: “Na gaali se, na goli se, lekin galey lagane se.” Not through insults or bullets, but by embracing them.\nWatch: Neither bullets nor abuse will bring a change in Kashmir, says PM Modi pic.twitter.com/fuqkEpqLUI — Times of India (@timesofindia) August 15, 2017\nThe Kashmir referemce comes even as the valley continues to be rocked by unrest as well as political headwinds that seem to be moving it further away from Delhi. On Monday, four security personnel were injured in a militant attack, while rival politicians in the valley were working to find common ground over a perceived threat to the state’s special status.\n“Stone pelters and separatists in Jammu and Kashmir have been trying to harm the country, but we are fighting against them,” Modi said in his speech. “We are committed to restoring Kashmir’s status of ‘Heaven on Earth.’”\nThe gaali-goli-galey lagane line is not the first time Modi has pulled out a characteristic one-liner as a solution to the Kashmir problem. In April, speaking at Udhampur in Jammu, the prime minister gave a choice to the youth of Kashmir: Choose between “tourism and terrorism”. In August 2016, Modi said it was sad to see youngsters carrying stones instead of laptops.\nThe lines might be catchy, but they bear almost no resemblance to Modi and his government’s behaviour on the ground. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is, after all, in power in Jammu and Kashmir in alliance with the People’s Democratic Party. Yet, despite this unusual partnership that came together after elections in 2014, the situation in Kashmir has only deteriorated, with the political space for moderate voices seeming to shrink. Public response to the killing of Hizbul commander Burhan Wani in 2016, which led to protests, stone-pelting and a months-long shutdown, and the trajectory of the state ever since has only exposed this disparity even further.\nIndeed, Modi’s hugs, not bullets or abuses line is particularly audacious in the aftermath of his government’s treatment of the human shield incident. On April 9, an Army jeep was driven through several villages near Srinagar with a Kashmiri man tied to the bonnet along with a note that said “this would be the fate of the stone pelters”. Despite the use of human shields being considered war crimes in many parts of the world, the government chose to defend the move and the Army even honoured the officer involved.\nMeanwhile, online and on TV debates, the discourse about Kashmiris – with BJP spokespersons and leaders fanning the flames – turned vicious. TV anchors have indeed been unapologetic about offering insults and calling for bullets to be used against Kashmiris. Whether they will now take up the prime minister’s call for embrace remains to be seen.\nOn this Independence Day let us all #HugAKashmiri #IndependenceDayIndia — Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) August 15, 2017\nPM Modi : \"Na Goli Se, Na Gali Se\", Kashmir will be solved by \"Gale Laga Ke\" .\nHere is a picture of Indian Army Jeep hugging a Kashmiri. pic.twitter.com/cMYfGLmJk3 — My Fellow Indians (@MyFellowIndians) August 15, 2017\nIn the call for a tighter embrace of Kashmir, others saw a different message. A 63-year-old law barring citizens from other parts of the country from acquiring immovable property in Jammu and Kashmir has become the latest flashpoint in the state. This came after the Union Attorney General refused to respond to a Public Interest Litigation against Article 35A, the law in question, saying the Centre wants a “larger debate” on it.\nRemoving Article 35A would fulfill a longstanding demand of the Hindu Right, which sees a demographic change in the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley as the only way of solving the ‘Kashmir problem.’ But the Centre’s move has inspired politicians like Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti to make common cause with her rivals in the National Conference, with both promising that any change to the law would leave “no one to shoulder the Indian flag in the Valley.”\nModi’s call for a tighter embrace of Kashmir was, for some, a reference to how the BJP government wants to handle that part of the country: Not through bullets or insults, but fully bringing it into the Centre’s embrace.\nOr is it a big big hint on #35a? — MukhiaJi (@mukhiasudeep) August 15, 2017" ]

[ "BROOKLINE, Mass. (AP) - Residents of a Boston suburb have voted to rename the elementary school once attended by John F. Kennedy because it was named for a former slave owner.\nTown meeting members in Brookline voted Tuesday 171-19 to change the name of the Edward Devotion School.\nIt will be known as the Coolidge Corner School, after its neighborhood, until a new name can be approved at next spring's town meeting.\nDeborah Brown, who proposed the change, said, \"No child should have to walk into a school named for someone who enslaved people.\"\nOpponents called the name change an empty gesture that doesn't address racism's underlying causes.\nDevotion, who died in 1744, left money to the town on the condition it is used for a school.\nThe future president attended from kindergarten through third grade." ]

[ "PARIS — Farewell, JFK. Hello, Jacques Chirac.\nA French town is changing the name of a major avenue, scrapping the name of late U.S. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy to honour a French president instead.\nThe city council in Brive-la-Gaillarde, a town in Chirac's former fiefdom in central France, voted late Thursday to rename the street \"Jacques and Bernadette Chirac,\" after the president who served 1995-2007 and his wife.\nMayor Frederic Soulier said the city preferred to honour a couple who did a lot for the region rather than a foreign leader.\nBernadette Chirac said in a letter published by radio network France Bleu that the initiative \"moves us a lot\" and called it a \"great honour .\"", "PARIS (AP) - Farewell, JFK. Hello, Jacques Chirac.\nA French town is changing the name of a major avenue, scrapping the name of late U.S. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy to honor a French president instead.\nThe city council in Brive-la-Gaillarde, a town in Chirac's former fiefdom in central France, voted late Thursday to rename the street \"Jacques and Bernadette Chirac,\" after the president who served 1995-2007 and his wife.\nFILE - In this Nov. 21, 2013 file photo, former French President Jacques Chirac and his wife Bernadette arrive to attend an award ceremony in Paris. France's former President Jacques Chirac is supplanting U.S. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in a street of the French town of Brive-la-Gaillarde in central France. (AP Photo/Jacky Naegelen, Pool, File)\nMayor Frederic Soulier said the city preferred to honor a couple who did a lot for the region rather than a foreign leader.\nBernadette Chirac said in a letter published by radio network France Bleu that the initiative \"moves us a lot\" and called it a \"great honor.\"\nChirac's name is associated with a Paris museum but it's the first street named after him.", "This week, Fox News contributor Geraldo Rivera gave viewers some shocking news: he would be resigning from his position as an associate fellow of Calhoun College at Yale University.\nRivera announced his decision after Yale revealed plans to rename the college because of former Vice President John C. Calhoun’s support of slavery. Calhoun was Vice President of the United States from 1825 to 1832. He was also a U.S. Senator and Secretary of State.\n“I made this decision because I think it is the right thing to do on principle,” Yale University President Peter Salovey said in a statement. “John C. Calhoun’s principles, his legacy as an ardent supporter of slavery as a positive good, are at odds with this university.”\nOver the weekend, Rivera took to social media to blame the school’s “intolerant insistence on political correctness” for his decision.\n“Resigned yesterday as Associate Fellow of #CalhounCollege at #Yale,” he tweeted. “Ben an honor but intolerant insistence on political correctness is lame.”\n“Slavery was abhorrent sin. Will #Yale students now petition to change name of #USA capital? #Washington was a slave holder as was #Jefferson,” Rivera continued. “To judge 200 yr old early 19th century historic figure by standards of the 21st century as #Yale is doing is more Orwellian than inspired.”\nWhat do you think of Rivera’s response? Do you agree with him?", "The long-running saga of whether buildings associated with slave traders should be renamed is rumbling on at the University of Bristol.\nA petition was started last month calling for the Wills Memorial Building to be renamed because of benefactor’s links with slavery.\nBut now a counter-petition has been set up, attracting a similar amount of signatures, wanting to keep the building’s name.\nThe prominent building at the top of Park Street is named after Henry Overton Wills III, the first chancellor of the university and a businessman who donated £100,000 in 1908 to help establish the university. The building was opened in his honour in 1925.\nStudents say the university was financed with “slave profited” cash as the family company of the benefactor, WD & HO Wills, known for its Strand, Navy Cut and Woodbines cigarettes is said to have benefited through tobacco imports from slave plantations.\nIt comes as similar calls have been made to change the name of the Colston Hall and Colston Girls’ School.\nThe latest petition, calling to keep the Wills Memorial Building as it is, states: “We feel that we need to make our opposition clear so that a few students that have not thought clearly are shown to not be representative of the view of the few calling for a name change.\n“The movement to rename Wills Memorial is based on the links between the Wills family with slavery.\n“They claim that renaming Wills memorial will somehow cleanse the sins of the past. This is not the case.\n“By deleting the Wills family from the universities identity it only serves to erase the past.\n“By keeping the name we can shine a light on the horrors of the past and ensure that they are not repeated.”\nThe original petition to rename the building has more than 680 supporters while the counter petition has more than 760, showing how split the public is over the argument.\nThe university has previously said: “We have never sought to hide our association with the Wills family. We believe that it is important to be open and reflective about our history, and the city’s historical connection to the slave trade.\n“To us, it would seem disingenuous to seek to deny or cover up our relationship with the family. We would welcome the chance to discuss this further with the organisers of this petition.”", "Brooklyn, N.Y. – Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke released the following statement on the refusal of the Department of the Army to consider renaming two streets at Fort Hamilton honoring Confederate generals, General Lee Avenue and Stonewall Jackson Drive. Congresswoman Clarke, joined by Congressman Jerrold Nadler, Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez and Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, formally asked the department to rename the streets in June following the removal of monuments honoring Confederate generals in New Orleans.\n“I am disappointed that the Department of the Army will not even consider renaming these streets honoring Confederate generals who waged war against the United States. The department claims that the streets were named ‘in the spirit of reconciliation’. But that ‘reconciliation’ was actually complicity by the North and the South to ignore the interests of African-Americans and enforce white supremacy, effectively denying the result of the Civil War for generations. We are still living with the failure of this nation to fully accept that result, as well as the post-Civil War amendments that were ratified to establish the freedom of women and men who had been held in bondage. The department describes any possible renaming of these streets as potentially ‘controversial’. Nonsense! These monuments are deeply offensive to the hundreds of thousands of Brooklyn residents and members of the armed forces stationed at Fort Hamilton whose ancestors Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson fought to hold in slavery. For too many years, the United States has refused to reckon with that history. I commend the City of New Orleans for initiating this important and often difficult work. I will continue to petition the Department of the Army to contribute to that effort.”", "2:18 Keller Girls Avoid Bi-District Upset, Outlast North Crowley Pause\n11:30 Two views of Jacqueline Craig's arrest: See the bodycam and cell phone videos side-by-side\n2:16 Institutional racism targeted by FWISD policy\n1:05 The Dallas Cowboys season in 60 seconds: Watch\n2:40 Texas woman convicted of voter fraud says she voted Republican\n1:51 American Airlines flight attendants: \"Love AAfair is over!\"\n7:28 Arlington mayor rips opponents of Texas Rangers stadium in secret audio recording\n2:26 The Impossible Burger: A cardiologist, a vegan and a butcher all take a bite\n1:48 Fort Worth Opera's 'JFK' takes the stage at Bass Hall", "What’s in a (university building) name?\nInfluential people in a university’s history — a founder, a major donor — often have the honor of having a building, department or other prominent feature on campus named for them.\nBut a look into the histories of the namesakes of buildings around many college campuses in America reveal ties to white supremacy and slavery. And in the modern era, those ties are increasingly seen as problematic.\nAt some schools, students and faculty are holding their universities accountable for their racial history by demanding their universities change the names of the buildings that honor those who advocated for and benefited from systems of white supremacy, slavery and systemic racism.\nThe newest example: Yale University. After a renewed push in 2015 by students to have a building name changed, Yale University announced Friday it is renaming one of its residential colleges named in honor of former U.S. vice president and white supremacist John C. Calhoun, who was a prominent proponent of slavery.\nNick Girard, a Yale sophomore, pointed out that the Calhoun name change “is the result of decades of activism and action” by students and faculty. “It is excellent to see the university finally recognize this continued activism and listen to the students, alumni and professors who have protested Yale’s honoring a renowned supporter of slavery,” Girard told USA TODAY College.\nGirard explained the tireless work it took for the change to happen. “So many invested academic, emotional, and mental labor in fighting to make a better, more inclusive Yale,” he said.\nStudents & local activists rallying against Yale's Calhoun College, shouting \"change the name.\" #wfsb pic.twitter.com/iyCs0xNYRN — Matt McFarland (@MattMcFarland3) October 28, 2016\nThe decision to rename Calhoun College was not always on the table. As recently as last April, Yale president Peter Salovey said the name of the building would not be changed. But by August, he had announced a committee to explore renaming the building. The committee developed a set of principles to use when considering name changes, and the board voted to rename Calhoun College on Friday.\n“John C. Calhoun’s legacy as a white supremacist and a national leader who passionately promoted slavery as a ‘positive good’ fundamentally conflicts with Yale’s mission and values,” Salovey said in a post on the Yale website.\nThe post also mentions that it followed guidance from schools like Georgetown that have recently changed building names on their campus.\nIn 2015, Georgetown president John DeGioia announced that the university would be renaming two buildings on campus that were named for two university presidents who had authorized and advised the sale of slaves to pay off campus debts. Mulledy and McSherry halls were both renamed at the suggestion of the working group on slavery, memory and reconciliation, a panel of Georgetown students, administrators and faculty. Students had lobbied the university for the building name changes.\nWhile schools like Yale and Georgetown have taken steps to address their ties with slavery, there is still an uphill battle being fought at others.\nAt Clemson and Winthrop universities in South Carolina, students and faculty have called for buildings on their campuses named Tillman Hall to be changed and have been at the center of contentious debates over the renaming efforts.\nThe buildings’ names honor Benjamin Ryan Tillman, a former governor of the state and an avowed white supremacist. Tillman was a vocal proponent of lynching.\nLast fall, Winthrop students held a sit-in to enter talks with administration about the renaming efforts and to remind the campus who Tillman was.\nMany students believe having Tillman’s name being attached to a prominent building on campus doesn’t reflect the university they attend today.\n“It sort of invalidates and nullifies all of the student activities and engagement that happen in this building because most of the activities in this building are headed by students of color,” Winthrop student Candace Livingston told USA TODAY College. Livingston pointed to events hosted at Tillman Hall as one example of how off-putting it can be for students of color “to be in a building named after a man that could care less about our bodies.”\nIn 2015, Clemson’s faculty senate and the graduate student government both voted to rename Tillman Hall — a symbolic gesture, because only Clemson’s board of trustees can officially change the name of a building on campus.\nIn February 2015, Clemson University board of trustees chair David H. Wilkins announced in a statement that they would not rename the building, citing that whether the name of the building was changed Tillman would still remain a part of Clemson’s history:\n“Every great institution is built by imperfect craftsmen. Stone by stone they add to the foundation so that over many, many generations, we get a variety of stones. And so it is with Clemson. Some of our historical stones are rough and even unpleasant to look at. But they are ours and denying them as part of our history does not make them any less so. For that reason, we will not change the name of our historical buildings. Part of knowledge is to know and understand history so you learn from it.”\nOngoing efforts to change the names of both Tillman Halls face strenuous challenges. South Carolina’s Heritage Act says that any street, park or plaque named for a historical figure in the state cannot be renamed without a two-thirds vote from the state General Assembly.\nBut Winthrop students aren’t backing down from the fight to have the building’s name changed on their campus. They’ve begun planning a letter-writing campaign and have engaged in other conversations with university officials to advance their fight to change the name of Tillman Hall.\nRyan Brooks is a Winthrop University student and a USA TODAY College correspondent.", "TULSA, Okla. – Following deadly protests in Virginia this weekend, a local school district says it will consider changing the name of an elementary school.\nA ‘state of emergency’ was declared in Virginia after three people died and 19 others were injured during clashes between white nationalists and counter protesters.\nAfter the dust settled, a petition appeared on Change.org to rename Lee Elementary School in Tulsa.\n“No one wants to see Tulsa be the next Charlottesville. There’s not much we can do to fight against White Supremacists in America, but this is something we CAN do. We have control over who we glorify,” the petition states.\nIt goes on to suggest holding a contest and allowing the Tulsa community to vote for a new name of the school.\nSo far, more than 1,000 people have signed the petition.\nOn Monday, Tulsa Public Schools Superintendent Deborah Gist responded to the petition, saying leaders will take a closer look at the names of all schools in the district.\n“We are heartbroken by the events that unfolded in Charlottesville this weekend. This blatant display of racism and bigotry by a misguided, misinformed group of white supremacists is alarming, troubling, and deeply hurtful to everyone in our community. Every person deserves love, respect, and dignity, and we remain committed to effecting transformative change by putting equity at the forefront of the ways that we teach, learn, and work together. I have discussed the namesakes of our schools with board members previously and certainly in recent days. Leading with equity means thinking critically about our traditions and histories and recognizing where changes may be needed to live our core values of equity, character, excellence, team, and joy. We are committing to undertaking a full review of the names of all of our schools to ensure that our learning communities have names that are aligned with our values. We are working to identify community members to engage with us in this effort and look forward to sharing more information as our plans develop,” Gist wrote.", "Political correctness has its limits! Thomas Jefferson did a few other things besides holding slaves: Writing most of the Declaration of Independence, helping to organize the colonies to fight the Revolutionary War and recognizing early on that all 13 colonies had to band together to throw off the yoke of an English monarchy.\nThe slavery issue bedeviled all of the Founding Fathers but to attain unity it was essential to accept slavery as a fact while taking the first step of violently separating from the king. It took another 200 years to get to \"all men are created equal\" to mean the inclusion of blacks and other non-white ethnic groups, women and children. At least the United States is still working on the issue.\nUnknown to most people is that 12 American presidents were known to have had slaves. If we start re-naming high schools based on the holding of slaves, there will a lot of name seeking to replace Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Johnson and Grant.\nI say let the current high school names remain and stress the positive achievements of these less than perfect presidents who for the most part made substantial contributions to the molding of our nation. We have enough divisiveness in the country already without raising a new specter.\n-- Jeanne Mack, Hans Neville, Gary Shaw and Jim Chapman\nJefferson High School Classmates of 1953", "An elite US boarding school that educated the likes of John F Kennedy, Michael Douglas and Ivanka Trump has released a report detailing decades of alleged sexual abuse. Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Connecticut, where tuition today costs in excess of $43,500, released a report detailing alleged sexual misconduct by 12 former teachers against students from 1963 to 2010.\nStart the conversation, or Read more at India.com.", "Describing it as a symbol of \"slavery\", an MLA of the ruling BJP in Maharashtra has demanded that the iconic Gateway of India in south Mumbai be renamed as \"Bharat Dwar\".\n\"This monument is a symbol of slavery under the British rule,\" said Raj Purohit, a local MLA.\n\"By renaming it we will be paying tributes to the martyrs of freedom struggle,\" he said, speaking to reporters in Mumbai.\n\"I met Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis today and submitted a letter stating my demand. He said he will look into the matter and forward my letter to the chief secretary,\" Purohit said.\n\"This monument served as 'Get Away from India' for the British after the first British ship sailed from here to Britain,\" he said.\n\"We have renamed Bombay to Mumbai, Malabar Hill to Walkeshwar and Victoria Terminus to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus. Why should this monument, which reminds us of slavery under the British rule, not is renamed,\" Purohit said.\nOne of the most distinguished landmarks of Mumbai, Gateway of India was built in 1924 and is now a popular tourist spot.\nLocated at Apollo Bunder waterfront, the monument, an arch of yellow basalt and solid concrete, overlooks the Arabian Sea.\nIts foundation was laid in 1911 to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to Mumbai. It was inaugurated 13 years later, in 1924, and is a beautiful confluence of Indian, Arabic and Western architecture.", "This is Orlando's Lee Middle School, which was renamed to College Park Middle School on Tuesday night. Robert E. Lee Middle School, a name that many say harkens back to a dark period in American history, will become College Park Middle.\nStart the conversation, or Read more at Sentinel School Zone.", "The fact that education authorities have already decided that it is in the best interest of somebody to change the name of Jackson Elementary, and that the time for debate has passed causes me some pain.\nFirst, I believe that all of us can come up with a historical figure we find \"offensive\" for some heavily biased reason. I believe many of those people most offended have given no thought to the dynamics of the times these historical people lived in, the definition of good and evil at that time, nor the contributions those same people have made that our current generation ignores and fails to teach.\nKnowing something about some of the Confederate generals leads me to believe that some of them were capable, caring, thoughtful, competent people who responded to their country's call. Many of them had no driving hate, greed or malice but felt personal responsibility. Teaching that story to the current generation might be more helpful than bulldozing statues.\nI strongly believe the current graffiti being painted on Washington, Jefferson and other founding fathers is very offensive in its ignorance of the contributions of those great men.\nIn regards to renaming Jackson Elementary School, I think it's troubling that the school administrators in this state bemoan how little residents' money it gets for teachers, books and facilities but will readily squander money needlessly changing names and chasing debatable \"offenses.\"\nTry to remember what it was like to be a kid going to school and then promote actions that will help a kid succeed in an increasingly demanding and competitive world.\nPlease note that I am not in that school district nor even in that county. Cache County Schools are probably next, however.\nScott Cannon\nMendon, Cache County", "Students from Central High School in Louisville watched a demonstration on Aug. 30, 2017, calling for the removal of the Jefferson Davis statue from the Capitol Rotunda in Frankfort.", "A standing-room -only crowd of 200-plus residents packed the Fenwick Fire Hall last Wednesday evening to ask questions and voice their opposition to the District School Board of Niagara’s controversial renaming of E.W. Farr Public School.\nBefore a single word was spoken, the message from residents to the school board was loud and clear — names matter to the people of Pelham.\nMayor Dave Augustyn was the first to speak at the meeting, addressing questions regarding an email he sent to DSBN Chair Dale Robinson about the name change in June 2016, an email that some found to be written in an apologetic tone.\nAugustyn asserted that the letter was not an apology, because Council unanimously requested the Board to reconsider the naming and provide them with a presentation explaining their decision.\n“This discussion occurred in public at our Council meeting and the media could be there and report on it — it was very late in the evening so I don’t blame them if they weren’t there, but it was public so it’s known,” said Augustyn.\n“We were also preparing for Council highlights for the website reporting what happened at the meeting for anyone who wants them, and I knew that this was public, and it was going to go out, so as a heads-up to the Chair — and I had already been communicating with the Chair on Friday, June 2 — I sent the email that I sent.”\nAlthough the officials from the DSBN’s school-naming committee were invited to explain their position at the meeting, they did not attend. The school board’s absence angered many in attendance who wanted to understand why the DSBN has refused to reverse their position. Dale Robinson was also invited, however she declined, saying that she would be “on holidays.”\nNancy Beamer spoke on behalf of the citizen group Names Matter. Beamer opposes the DSBN’s decision to rename the school to “Wellington Heights” for many reasons. For one, she asserts that the DSBN chose the name based on flawed research regarding the first Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, found online. For another, she said is that the name has no historical significance, since Wellesley never set foot in Pelham, or Canada for that matter. Furthermore, it is documented extensively that Wellesley was an anti-Semite, anti-Catholic philanderer who perpetuated the marginalization of Indigenous people. In fact, he was the sitting prime minister at the time residential schools were established throughout Canada.\n“The fact that he was a racist should be offensive to everyone,” said Beamer.\n“This is the main reason we do not want Wellington Heights as a name for our school. It’s offensive, it’s not inclusive and it goes against what the Ministry of Education is supposed to stand for.”\nShe believes that choosing the name of a known racist and a misogynist without any connection to the community, over a well-respected and adored local educator such as E.W. Farr sends the wrong message to children.\nAs Grade 7 students currently attending E. W. Farr Public School, Tye Phillbrick and Laura Phillips are disturbed by the DSBN’s decision to rename their school Wellington Heights. Phillbrick shared his thoughts on the contentious issue first, describing to the assembly how his hockey teammates reacted when he told them he went to Wellington Heights Public School.\n“They said that sounds like a private, rich kids school,” said Phillbrick.\n“We also chose the mascot, and some of us wanted the Wellington Heights Warriors, because it went well with the school name. They said it was too violent, yet they chose ‘Wellington Heights’ for the First Duke of Wellington, who was much worse.”\nFor two generations, the Phillips family have attended E.W. Farr. Hoping that she could carry on the tradition, Laura Phillips said she was very disappointed with the new name because she could no longer follow in her parents’ and grandparents’ footsteps.\n“It means a lot to me and my family, because my grandma and my mom went there, and I would like to grow up with the school as E.W. Farr,” she said.\nAugustyn also faced tough questions regarding the proposed changes to Cherry Ridge Park and E.W. Farr Public School’s soccer field. Because the school’s expansion ate up the land previously designated as a soccer field, the DSBN pitched the idea of forming a partnership with the Town to build a new one. After residents in Fenwick’s Cherry Ridge subdivision received a survey and draft plan from the DSBN last week, highlighting their intentions, many in the neighbourhood became outraged at the thought of losing the beloved green-space.\n“We haven’t agreed to it, what we are doing is getting your feedback on it,” explained Augustyn.\n“E.W. Farr had a quasi-soccer field, but they’re smaller kids, right, [and] there was a baseball diamond that wasn’t being used. It’s essentially replacing what was at Pelham Centre and making it available. From the Town’s perspective, it’s not like we are trying to program it or put tournaments there or anything else, it’s more for the school and the community.”\nAfter receiving a report on the DSBN’s proposed redesign for the park in June 2016, Council ordered a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to facilitate an appropriate agreement between the Town and the school board. In November 2016, Council received a draft of the proposed redesign.\nThe new soccer field would be situated partially on school board property and partially on public park lands. Fenwick resident Rob Foster expressed his concerns about the DSBN’s redesign of Cherry Ridge Park. Having worked in municipal planning and public works throughout his career, he said they couldn’t have picked a worse location for a soccer field. Foster is not against the kids having a place to play, however living adjacent to the park, he does not see a need for a soccer field. He said that once the school bell rings, the kids disappear and there is no one playing in the playground.\n“A needs analysis should have been done,” said Foster.\n“I think you’re short-changing the kids as well as the residents. By building a sub-standard place — that hill is right in the centre of that property line and they are building right on top of it. Not only does it affect how we use the park, it will also have an environmental impact. You will be cutting old-growth trees down for no reason whatsoever.”\nOthers took issue with the survey letter itself, given the tight timeframe in which the public must respond, and the fact that it did not have any contact information for a response to be made to the Town.\nThe fact it came from the DSBN — the institution proposing the development of public land — also ruffled more than a few feathers.\nThough the DSBN was not present for the meeting, the sheer magnitude of the gathering sent a message seemingly impossible for the school board to ignore — a community standing united against the renaming of a school and encroachment onto a public park.", "Wednesday afternoon Dealey Plaza was teeming, as ever, with photo-taking, pamphlet-buying, theory-trading tourists gawking at the spot along Elm Street where a president was murdered. Meanwhile, but a few feet away, a half-acre, triangular-shaped slice of highway easement went, as ever, disregarded, even though men died near there, too. Three slaves, hanged for a crime history does not show they committed.\nThe spot — an official city park, though you would never know it — is easy to access if you're willing to walk beneath the foul-smelling, trash-strewn Triple Underpass. But it took me a long time to figure out exactly where it is: The Park and Recreation Department's website lists a Commerce Street address — Dealey Plaza, wrong — and has photos from the Elm and Commerce sides of the underpass.\nMy confusion, and that of the parks employees who also had trouble pinpointing its location, stemmed from the fact there is no signage noting the existence of the place called Martyrs Park, nor any plaque that recounts the horror that took place along the former Trinity River bottoms 157 years ago. Nothing.", "DALLAS (CBS11) – There’s a freeway in Dallas named after a Ku Klux Klan member and former mayor.\nRacial violence in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend is giving new life to an effort by a Dallas man to change the name of the freeway.\n“African Americans, Hispanics, everyone, whites should be insulted that we have a freeway named after a former Klansman,” said James Dunn, a former teacher and activist.\nCertain stretches of I-30 and I-35 in Dallas are named for Robert L. Thornton. He served as mayor in the 1950s and 60s.\nThe banker and businessman played an important role with the State Fair of Texas. A statue of him stands at Fair Park, and there’s an elementary school named after him.\nThornton was also a prominent member of the Ku Klux Klan.\n“Why would you have somebody’s name who’s a klan’s man on a school like that,” asked Anthony Miller, who lives near the school. “That’s not right.”\nDunn started a petition to get Thornton’s name off the freeway and rename it after President Barack Obama.\nHe plans to present the signatures to Dallas’ mayor and city council next month.\n“The mayor and council are going to have to get a spine and understand that we in Dallas must show that we are not going stand by and tolerate racists symbols, racist imagery,” said Dunn. “People say that this is just remembering our history. If you have a street named after R.L .Thornton, that’s not remembering history, that’s celebrating history.”", "BELLEVILLE -\nRenaming Moira Secondary School isn’t sitting well with a lot of people – more than 1,500 of them.\nAn online petition objecting to a new name for the 58-year-old east end high school was started Thursday evening on change.org and had grown to include almost 1,600 names at press time Sunday evening.\nStudents from Quinte Secondary School are to move in September to what is now Moira Secondary School at Victoria and Farley Avenues. Some Quinte students will instead attend Centennial Secondary in the west end.\nFormer Moira student Brendan Coffey, who now teaches at a local elementary school started the petition and said it’s all about the money.\n“I’m just trying to be a responsible tax payer and think about the money involved,” he said. “I haven’t seen a cost analysis for changing the name and I think the money would be better spent on things like after school programs or technology for the classroom.”\nCoffey admits after spending four years at the school before transferring across town to finish at Centennial he does have sentimental ties to Moira, but says that didn’t factor in his decision to start the petition.\n“To be perfectly honest with you, I think had they included an option to keep the name the same on the ballot, I would have just checked it on my vote and hoped for the best,” he explained. “But I think if we’re in the position of having to close schools then we should really pay attention to the costs involved with it.”\nBelleville councillor Egerton Boyce said the city’s hands are tied on the matter but said he firmly believes the name should remain the same.\n“I think it’s just an effort to appease the people from Quinte, but I don’t think this is going to make them feel any better about their school closing and in fact, I think it’s just re-opening wounds for a lot of those people who have had to deal with this,” he said. “It seems to me that if the reason they are closing schools is financial, then the last thing they should be spending money on is renaming and re-branding an existing high school. It would be a different story if they do end up closing Moira and building a new school, but until that happens I see no good reason for changing the name. Heck when they closed BCI and a lot of the students moved to Quinte, they didn’t entertain a name change then.”\nThe Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board is currently holding a vote on the five most popular names submitted during a naming contest. The names include Gord Downie Secondary School, Belleville East Secondary School, East Hill Secondary School, East Side High School and Meyers Creek Secondary School.\nThe names were selected from the 314 submitted to the board. Online voting ends on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017 at midnight and the committee will review the votes the following day.\nBoyce said it appears the board has already committed to a name change and the only way to slow the process is by public outcry.\n“They haven’t even included leaving the name as Moira on the ballot so I’m quite certain their intention is to change it,” he said. “People need to get their names on this petition and let the board know they are not happy and do not support this.”\nRetired elementary teacher James Hurst said the board needs to slow down its plan to rename the school.\n“As the saying goes, ‘If it ain’t broke then don’t fix it,’ and I don’t see anything broken with the name (Moira),” he said. “If they build a school at another site then I can see the need for a new name, but right now they’re simply wasting money for no good reason.”\nThe petition is called Lucille Kyle: Stop Moira Secondary name change and can be found at change.org\nbbell@postmedia.com", "A group looking to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in Kansas City supports naming the new Kansas City International Airport after the Civil Rights leader.", "Former U.S. Sen. Ernest \"Fritz\" Hollings of South Carolina is being honored outside the federal courthouse in Charleston that used to bear his name. Former Vice President Joe Biden is the main speaker Monday at the dedication of a Hollings statue outside the J. Waties Waring Judicial Center.\nStart the conversation, or Read more at WWSB.", "Confederate Army Gen. Robert E. Lee was vilified during the Civil War only to become a heroic symbol of the South's \"Lost Cause\" — and eventually a racist icon.\nHis transformation, at the center of the recent violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, reflects the changing moods in the United States around race, mythology and national reconciliation, historians say.\nLee monuments, memorials and schools in his name erected at the turn of the 20th Century are now facing scrutiny amid a demographically changing nation.\nBut who was Robert E. Lee beyond the myth? Why are there memorials in his honor in the first place?\nTHE SOLDIER\nA son of American Revolutionary War hero Henry \"Light-Horse Harry\" Lee, Robert E. Lee graduated second in his class at West Point and distinguished himself in various battles during the U.S.-Mexico War. As tensions heated around southern secession, Lee's former mentor, Gen. Winfield Scott, offered him a post to lead the Union's forces against the South. Lee declined, citing his reservations about fighting against his home state of Virginia.\nLee accepted a leadership role in the Confederate forces although he had little experience leading troops. He struggled but eventually became a general in the Confederate Army, winning battles largely because of incompetent Union Gen. George McClellan. He would win other important battles against other Union's generals, but he was often stalled. He was famously defeated at Gettysburg by Union Maj. Gen. George Meade. Historians say Lee's massed infantry assault across a wide plain was a gross miscalculation in the era of artillery and rifle fire.\nA few weeks after becoming the general in chief of the armies of the Confederate states, Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia on April 9, 1865.\nTHE SLAVE OWNER\nA career army officer, Lee didn't have much wealth, but he inherited a few slaves from his mother. Still, Lee married into one of the wealthiest slave-holding families in Virginia — the Custis family of Arlington and descendants of Martha Washington. When Lee's father-in-law died, he took leave from the U.S. Army to run the struggling estate and met resistance from slaves expecting to be freed.\nDocuments show Lee was a cruel figure with his slaves and encouraged his overseers to severely beat slaves captured after trying to escape. One slave said Lee was one of the meanest men she had ever met.\nIn a 1856 letter, Lee wrote that slavery is \"a moral & political evil.\" But Lee also wrote in the same letter that God would be the one responsible for emancipation and blacks were better off in the U.S. than Africa.\nTHE LOST CAUSE ICON\nAfter the Civil War, Lee resisted efforts to build Confederate monuments in his honor and instead wanted the nation to move on from the Civil War.\nAfter his death, Southerners adopted \"The Lost Cause\" revisionist narrative about the Civil War and placed Lee as its central figure. The Lost Cause argued the South knew it was fighting a losing war and decided to fight it anyway on principle. It also tried to argue that the war was not about slavery but high constitutional ideals.\nAs The Lost Cause narrative grew in popularity, proponents pushed to memorialize Lee, ignoring his deficiencies as a general and his role as a slave owner. Lee monuments went up in the 1920s just as the Ku Klux Klan was experiencing a resurgence and new Jim Crow segregation laws were adopted.\nThe Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, went up in 1924. A year later, the U.S. Congress voted to use federal funds to restore the Lee mansion in the Arlington National Cemetery.\nThe U.S. Mint issued a coin in his honor, and Lee has been on five postage stamps. No other Union figure besides President Abraham Lincoln has similar honors.\nA NEW MEMORY\nA generation after the civil rights movement, black and Latino residents began pressuring elected officials to dismantle Lee and other Confederate memorials in places like New Orleans, Houston and South Carolina. The removals partly were based on violent acts committed white supremacists using Confederate imagery and historians questioning the legitimacy of The Lost Cause.\nA Gen. Robert E. Lee statue was removed from Lee Circle in New Orleans as the last of four monuments to Confederate-era figures to be removed under a 2015 City Council vote.\nThe Houston Independent School District also voted in 2016 to rename Robert E. Lee High School, a school with a large Latino population, as Margaret Long Wisdom High School.\nEarlier this year, the Charlottesville, Virginia, City Council voted to remove its Lee statue from a city park, sparking a lawsuit from opponents of the move. The debate also drew opposition from white supremacists and neo-Nazis who revered Lee and the Confederacy. The opposition resulted in rallies to defend Lee statues this weekend that resulted in at least three deaths.", "× Expand Max Goldberg Iowa State University rally showing solidarity with students protesting racism at University of Missouri, and calling for reform from the college administration.\nAn important chapter of America’s reckoning with its racist history is playing out on college campuses. Whether it is pressure from student protests or findings by internal research committees, university officials are having to decide how to acknowledge or distance themselves from racist pasts.\nOne of the latest institutions to unearth troubling history is the University of Wisconsin-Madison. On April 19, the university released a report by a research group formed in 2017 by Chancellor Rebecca Black after three people were killed at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.\nThe report notes that several campus spaces are named for alumni who were members of the campus chapter of the KKK in the 1920s. It describes a past that included such “routine” acts as white students participating in “blackface” and the yearbook featuring anti-semitic drawings.\nBlank has said the school would consider renaming the campus spaces. She also announced that the university will create a $1 million history exhibit recognizing those who fought prejudice on campus, and hire four new faculty members in departments focused on minority groups.\nTwo students mentioned in the report—Porter Butts and Fredric March—would later go on to attack bigotry in their careers. Butts became president of the student union and prohibited segregated groups from using the space. March defended people targeted by the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s.\nMore troubling, Blank said, was the research committee’s inability to find evidence that university administrators, faculty, or student leaders did anything to resist the KKK’s presence on campus. “Exclusion does not seem to have been contrary to campus values in this era,” the committee concluded.\nOther universities have had similar reckonings.\nIn 2006, Brown University released the findings of a three-year-long study of the school’s connection with the transatlantic slave trade. The research group—made up of faculty, students and administrators—found that about thirty of Brown’s first administrators owned slaves or had cargo ships involved in the trade, including the family who is the school’s namesake. Much of the money used to found the university came from the slave economy. In response, Brown commissioned a public sculpture and plaque detailing slavery’s role in its history.\nRutgers University did similar research in its Scarlet and Black project, which included discovering activist Sojourner Truth and her parents were owned by the university’s first president.\nGeorgetown University has taken steps to reconcile the history of its Jesuit priest administrators selling 272 slaves in 1838 to pay off debts. The university announced last year that descendants of the slaves would receive preferential treatment on applications and renamed a student residence Isaac Hawkins Hall, after one of the slaves owned by the school.\nAt the College of William & Mary in Virginia, the Lemon Project researches the role of slavery in the school’s history. The project is named after Lemon, a slave owned by the college in the early 19th century. The project began in 2009 and engages the campus and surrounding communities on issues of race.\nFurther south, the University of North Carolina renamed an academic building in 2016 following protests going as far back as the 1970s. The renamed Carolina Hall replaced Saunders Hall, which was named after the state’s Ku Klux Klan leader Williams Saunders.\nMany of the steps taken by institutions of higher learning to acknowledge past racism are modest in scale and scope.\nIn 2016, Harvard University announced that student dormitory leaders would be called “faculty deans” rather than “house masters,” a title loaded with connotations of slavery. The school already faced a troubled history of administrators and faculty promoting eugenics. Former Harvard presidents include Charles William Eliot, a eugenics advocate in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He believed “each nation should keep its stock pure” and that blending of races would lead to “moral degeneracy.” Today, students can still live on campus at Eliot House.\nPrinceton University decided to keep U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s name on its school of public and international affairs, despite protests over Wilson’s support for racial segregation. Wilson, who also served as Princeton’s president from 1902 to 1910, allowed Jim Crow laws to be passed, and segregated federal offices. The school did say it would expand efforts to diversify campus.\nMany of the steps taken by institutions of higher learning to acknowledge past racism are modest in scale and scope.\nThe University of Mississippi placed a plaque to offer historical context near a stained glass memorial for students who fought in the Confederate Army. After public criticism about the move not going far enough, the university placed more plaques around campus and joined a group of universities studying slavery, which include Brown, William & Mary, Georgetown, and North Carolina.\nNot all of the campus protests have focused solely on history. Students at the University of Missouri staged months of protests in 2015 about racism on campus, drawing examples from recent events. In the years leading up to the protests, cotton balls were placed outside the school’s Black Culture Center, and people yelled racial slurs at the student government president. The protests ended with the resignations of the university system president and chancellor of the Columbia campus.\nWhile welcoming these efforts to reconcile and rectify racism, activists say schools can do more to promote racial equality. Black and Latinx students are less represented on elite campuses today than thirty-five years ago, according to The New York Times.\nMeanwhile, universities continue to struggle with nonwhite students not feeling welcome on campus. Students have come forward again and again and again to say they feel targeted and disrespected at school. The white nationalist march at the University of Virginia in 2017 brought national attention to a problem long experienced on campuses. In a 2016 survey of black and African-American students at Northwestern University, more than half said they had seen or experienced harassment on campus. Nearly 40 percent reported having been threatened because of their race.\nUniversities will continue to reconcile their histories as more information comes to light about those who higher education has marginalized and profited from decades ago. Given recent history, it appears this is not a matter of whether long-standing institutions of education will need to face these tough questions, but when.\nWyatt Massey is a Wisconsin freelance journalist covering human rights and social justice.", "“They represent a time in the history of the state board that must be acknowledged and never repeated,” the interim superintendent, Ed Richardson, said in a letter about the action that he read at the meeting. “I regret that it has taken 58 years to correct this injustice. I can only hope that this action will provide a modicum of comfort to the people affected.”\nThe board also expunged the records of four teachers at the college who were fired for “disloyalty” in the early 1960s, including Lawrence Reddick, a renowned historian, who was accused of being a Communist in 1960.\n“It was their actions that allowed for us to be in this space that we are in now,” said Quinton T. Ross Jr., the president of the college, which was renamed Alabama State University, in an interview on Tuesday. “The role they played in the civil rights movement, it sends chills down your spine.”\nThe Alabama State students waited nearly six decades for the apology, which comes in a time of heightened sensitivity to racism. For 58 years, the expulsions clung to them through college transfer applications, job interviews and in most cases to the grave. Six of the nine are dead. The three survivors spoke to The Times this week.\n“There are only a few of us who were directly evolved who are still alive,” James McFadden, 78, said in an interview. “We can hear it and pass it along to the ancestors of those who are gone.”", "Last evening Great Hearts was made aware that one of our teachers at the Monte Vista North campus assigned homework that was very inappropriate and entirely inconsistent with Great Hearts philosophy and culture. In the 8th grade American History class students were asked to reflect on the differing sides of slavery. To be clear, there is no debate about slavery. It is immoral and a crime against humanity.\nOur review of the situation found this incident to be limited to one teacher at just one campus. It was a clear mistake and we sincerely apologize for the insensitive nature of this offense. We want to thank the parents who voiced their concern and brought this to our attention. Please know Great Hearts is taking this seriously, including placing this teacher on leave while we have time to collect all the facts.\nWe are removing from classrooms and will conduct an audit of the American History textbook in use, \"Prentice Hall Classics: A History of the United States\". If we deem this textbook imprudent, we will permanently remove it and replace it with a history book that accurately reflects our values.\nFinally, the headmaster and teachers at the Monte Vista North campus will spend time with the impacted students to explain the mistake and engage them in lessons that are more thoughtful about this period of American History.\nWe fully intend to make sure something like this does not happen again and will keep parents posted as we address this issue further. We have scheduled a follow up communication on May 9, 2018.", "× Expand Picture courtesy of Landmarks Illinois Hamilton Primary School in Otterville was named to Landmarks Illinois' Ten Most Endangered Historic Places for 2014.\nELSAH | Beth McGlasson will tell the remarkable story of “Dr. Silas Hamilton, His Freed Slave, George Washington, and the First Free School in Illinois,” at 7:30 pm Thursday, May 3, at Farley’s Music Hall.\nHamilton and his slave, George Washington, whom he freed, founded Hamilton Primary School in 1835 in Otterville. It was Illinois’ first free school and the country’s first integrated school. The two men created a trust to fund a school “that it shall be open to all classes of people and denominations of Christians.”\nMcGlasson will talk about how this extraordinary event occurred in rural Jersey County, 30 years before the end of the Civil War and slavery and 120 years before Brown v. Board of Education, the decision by the Supreme Court that ended segregation in public schools.\nBeth is a local historian and vice president of the Jersey County Historical Society. She and her husband, Dennis, have spent nearly a decade researching and documenting local cemeteries. She also co-wrote “Lunch Pails & Pigtails: Jersey County’s One-Room Schools and the Students Who Attended Them.”\nThe presentation will be the second of this year’s Hosmer-Williams Lectures, sponsored by Historic Elsah Foundation and underwritten by Liberty Bank.\nThe program is free and open to the public. Reservations are not required. Parking is available. Refreshments will be served following the lecture.\nFollow AdVantage on Facebook and Twitter", "A mother is upset with her son's middle school over the way a question on slavery was worded. (Source: WSB/CNN)\nDULUTH GA, (WSB/CNN) - It was an assignment for Lyndon Nichols’s seventh grade social studies class that made both him and his mother upset.\nThe question read, \"Slavery wasn't such a bad thing because slaves were an important investment and people take care of important investments? Explain why you agree or disagree.\"\n\"What bothered me the most is that they said it wasn't that bad,\" Lyndon said.\nConcerned about the assignment, Lyndon went home and told his mother Angela Nichols.\n\"Right now I’m still haunted by it, that he saw something like that,\" Nichols said.\nThe school district confirms the question was one of several agree or disagree questions asked in that specific class. and it was not part of a wider curriculum.\nNichols said the question should have never reached the students in the first place.\n\"They should have thought about it, looked at the lesson plans.\"\nThe school’s principal apologized to Lyndon and his mother, removed the question and exercise from the lesson plan, and has worked with the family to address their concerns.\n\"The struggle is still there. We still have these issues,\" Nichols said.\nLyndon has been moved to another class.\nCopyright 2018 WSB via CNN. All rights reserved.", "CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (AP) — Confederate Army Gen. Robert E. Lee was vilified during the Civil War only to become a heroic symbol of the South’s “Lost Cause” — and eventually a racist icon.\nHis transformation, at the center of the recent violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, reflects the changing moods in the United States around race, mythology and national reconciliation, historians say.\nLee monuments, memorials and schools in his name erected at the turn of the 20th Century are now facing scrutiny amid a demographically changing nation.\nBut who was Robert E. Lee beyond the myth? Why are there memorials in his honor in the first place?\n___\nTHE SOLDIER\nA son of American Revolutionary War hero Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee, Robert E. Lee graduated second in his class at West Point and distinguished himself in various battles during the U.S.-Mexico War. As tensions heated around southern secession, Lee’s former mentor, Gen. Winfield Scott, offered him a post to lead the Union’s forces against the South. Lee declined, citing his reservations about fighting against his home state of Virginia.\nLee accepted a leadership role in the Confederate forces although he had little experience leading troops. He struggled but eventually became a general in the Confederate Army, winning battles largely because of incompetent Union Gen. George McClellan. He would win other important battles against other Union’s generals, but he was often stalled. He was famously defeated at Gettysburg by Union Maj. Gen. George Meade. Historians say Lee’s massed infantry assault across a wide plain was a gross miscalculation in the era of artillery and rifle fire.\nA few weeks after becoming the general in chief of the armies of the Confederate states, Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia on April 9, 1865.\n___\nTHE SLAVE OWNER\nA career army officer, Lee didn’t have much wealth, but he inherited a few slaves from his mother. Still, Lee married into one of the wealthiest slave-holding families in Virginia — the Custis family of Arlington and descendants of Martha Washington. When Lee’s father-in-law died, he took leave from the U.S. Army to run the struggling estate and met resistance from slaves expecting to be freed.\nDocuments show Lee was a cruel figure with his slaves and encouraged his overseers to severely beat slaves captured after trying to escape. One slave said Lee was one of the meanest men she had ever met.\nIn a 1856 letter, Lee wrote that slavery is “a moral & political evil.” But Lee also wrote in the same letter that God would be the one responsible for emancipation and blacks were better off in the U.S. than Africa.\n___\nTHE LOST CAUSE ICON\nAfter the Civil War, Lee resisted efforts to build Confederate monuments in his honor and instead wanted the nation to move on from the Civil War.\nAfter his death, Southerners adopted “The Lost Cause” revisionist narrative about the Civil War and placed Lee as its central figure. The Lost Cause argued the South knew it was fighting a losing war and decided to fight it anyway on principle. It also tried to argue that the war was not about slavery but high constitutional ideals.\nAs The Lost Cause narrative grew in popularity, proponents pushed to memorialize Lee, ignoring his deficiencies as a general and his role as a slave owner. Lee monuments went up in the 1920s just as the Ku Klux Klan was experiencing a resurgence and new Jim Crow segregation laws were adopted.\nThe Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, went up in 1924. A year later, the U.S. Congress voted to use federal funds to restore the Lee mansion in the Arlington National Cemetery.\nThe U.S. Mint issued a coin in his honor, and Lee has been on five postage stamps. No other Union figure besides President Abraham Lincoln has similar honors.\n___\nA NEW MEMORY\nA generation after the civil rights movement, black and Latino residents began pressuring elected officials to dismantle Lee and other Confederate memorials in places like New Orleans, Houston and South Carolina. The removals partly were based on violent acts committed white supremacists using Confederate imagery and historians questioning the legitimacy of The Lost Cause.\nA Gen. Robert E. Lee statue was removed from Lee Circle in New Orleans as the last of four monuments to Confederate-era figures to be removed under a 2015 City Council vote.\nThe Houston Independent School District also voted in 2016 to rename Robert E. Lee High School, a school with a large Latino population, as Margaret Long Wisdom High School.\nEarlier this year, the Charlottesville, Virginia, City Council voted to remove its Lee statue from a city park, sparking a lawsuit from opponents of the move. The debate also drew opposition from white supremacists and neo-Nazis who revered Lee and the Confederacy. The opposition resulted in rallies to defend Lee statues this weekend that resulted in at least three deaths.", "If you're anything like the students at Alexander Ramsey Middle School in Minneapolis, you're not down with genocide. And that's what makes the school's namesake -- Alexander Ramsey, Minnesota's second governor -- so problematic.\nStart the conversation, or Read more at City Pages.", "- Advertisement -\nRenowned lawyer and philanthropist, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN) has blamed leaders in the country for the alleged slavery many Nigerians in Libya have been subjected to, saying failure to provide responsive and responsible leadership on the part of our leader was largely responsible for the debasing treatment Nigerians are receiving overseas.\nOlanipekun said the leadership failure, leading to the wanton neglect of Nigerian youths has led to a migration of ambitious but frustrated young Nigerians who seek greener pastures in other countries such as Libya only to meet worse things there.\nThe senior lawyer spoke in Ikere-Ekiti, at the weekend, when the Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Ogunwusi commissioned the newly built Hall of Fame at the Palace of Ogoga, Oba Adejimi Adu Alagbado.\nThe museum, according to Ooni and Ogoga, will protect the historical heritage of the town and serve as a veritable ground for learning and research.\nThe hall consists of six compartments thus: historical museum, royal court, brave men of oath, Ikere from another town, pioneers and the town’s legends in history.\nThe duo of Oni and Fayemi are from Ifaki and Isan in Ekiti North senatorial districts, respectively.\nOlanipekun said the slavery in Libya and other countries will continue unabated if the government fails to identify and empathise with the unemployment youths.\n“When I was in the university of Lagos in the 70’s, I had over six offers as a fresh graduate who had not attended the law school. But today, nobody sympathised or empathised with the youths, they were abandoned in their own fates.\n“After graduation, no unemployment, nobody attends to them and they thought they have to take the tortuous , winding and dangerous routes to where the greener pasture is.\n“And most of us who are successful are not helping matters, we are wicked. We don’t tell the government the truth . What is in Libya that our youths are going for? This is a shame on all of us.\n- Advertisement -\n“Libya has just been rescued from a major crisis, they have no human rights protection mechanism, no freedom, because they have always been in military dictatorship.\n“The main reason why we are not faring better is that government is muzzling the private sector. They didn’t allow it to grow. A private body can only plan based on budgetary provision and policies of the Federal Government, that is why it is difficult to classify our economic system, it was so narrowed and monolithic in nature.\n“But let me say this, if Nigeria fails to take care of its youths by creating tomorrow for them, we are inadvertently planting a revolution and threat for the future”, Olanipekun warned\nAdvocating for a governor from his town Ikere, Olanipekun, who praised the state’s PDP for adopting the deputy governor Kolapo Olusola, an indigene of the town, as its sole candidate, urged the APC to follow suit, saying the town parades excellent aspirants in the party that can do the state proud.\nHe said Ikere, as the second largest city in Ekiti State, after the state capital, is ripe to produce the governor 21 years after the creation of the State, adding that the town is also the biggest town in Ekiti south senatorial district, a zone that has not produced a governor since 1999.\n“The APC has a successful medical doctor, Wole Oluyede, a businessman, Mr. Kola Alabi, and a retired permanent secretary, Sesan Fatoba, and many other Ikere indigenes as aspirants. The party must field one of them because I know they will do the party proud.\n“I know some politicians may not like my position, but that is the truth, Ikere deserves it. As the President of Ikere Development Forum, I have to lead the course of Ikere people. We have over 86 professors and tested technocrats and the population to make things happen.\n“But let me warn that this may not happen when we are in crisis. There are no two Obas in Ikere except Ogoga. Let us rally round him for development to be sustained and for the governorship we are eyeing to come to fruition,” he advised.", "I cover schools in the region with a particular focus on innovation and trends.\nBlackstone Group chairman and CEO Stephen Schwarzman, whose $25 million donation is awaiting a final vote from the Abington School Board.\nThe Abington school board was poised Tuesday night to accept a $25 million gift from private-equity billionaire Stephen Schwarzman that had caused deep division within the Montgomery County district, even as it fielded last-minute complaints from stakeholders at a meeting that dragged late into the evening.\nBoard members launched the meeting — in which a final vote on the donation was scheduled — with an effort to assure parents and other community members there will be transparency surrounding the implementation of the donation from the Blackstone Group CEO, such as progress reports on a new computer and technology curriculum.\nAbington school board president Raymond McGarry told attendees that semiannual reports that Schwarzman had requested on the curriculum changes will also be made available to the public.\n“When you go to somebody and ask for money, they want to see what you’re going to do with the money,” McGarry said.\nThe board was moving ahead to accept the Schwarzman gift, and the conditions attached to it, despite complaints from some parents who want more time to review and debate the terms of the deal as well as the structure of a nonprofit foundation created to accept the donation.\n“Based on the last meeting, trust is now a major issue,” said one parent, Samantha Bromley, who peppered the board with questions about the curriculum changes envisioned after the donation, which will help pay for major renovations to the aging Abington Senior High School and the construction of a new science and technology center.\nSchool leaders are seeking to put an end to a controversy that has divided the nearly 8,000-student school district since the gift was announced in February, praised by backers as a model for how private philanthropy could aid public schools in an era of tight budgets.\nThe uproar over the gift peaked in March when the board voted, with virtually no advance warning, to rename the high school for Schwarzman and to accept the billionaire’s money without making public the terms of its agreement with him.\nIn the face of opposition, Abington Superintendent Amy Sichel announced that Schwarzman had agreed to abandon the renaming, and then released a letter of apology over the district’s handling of the matter. Earlier this month, the district released the initial contract with the billionaire, who graduated from Abington High School in 1965 en route to Yale and a career on Wall Street.\nThat first plan — rescinded by the board two weeks ago — had also called for a portrait of Schwarzman to be prominently displayed in the high school, his name to be placed at six building entrances, tributes to his twin brothers to be installed, and oversight of the school’s computer technology curriculum, among other demands.\nBut some Abington stakeholders complained that the new agreement unveiled April 10 was too open-ended and didn’t explicitly prevent some aspects of the first deal that they’d objected to. One leading critic — Gabrielle Sellei, a lawyer and mother of two Abington students — wrote school board president Raymond McGarry urging a delay of Tuesday’s scheduled vote while raising questions about the Foundation for the Abington School District that was created in 2017 to handle the Schwarzman donation.\nSellei attended Tuesday night’s meeting and raised question about the standards for removing the names of Schwarzman or anyone else who are honored in the renovated high school if they violate a “moral turpitude” clause. She said the current pact — which only permits the removal for a criminal conviction — is too high a bar, noting that entertainer Bill Cosby has seen honors yanked at numerous colleges even though Cosby has never been convicted of a crime despite widespread allegations of sexual misconduct.\nThe district solicitor, Kenneth Roos, defended the current language.”It needed to be objective criteria,” Roos said. “A criminal conviction is objective.”\nMcGarry also defended the structure of the new foundation, saying changes would be made at a May 1 meeting that would benefit Schwarzman for income-tax purposes but that the new philanthropy will be open and transparent. Its main function, he said, will be to liquidate Blackstone stock donated by Schwarzman to benefit the school district.\nPlease enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.", "Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE After decades standing sentinel, New Orleans' Confederate monuments are all gone, with a likeness of Gen. Robert E. Lee the last to go amid debate over whether they represented Southern heritage or were symbols of slavery and oppression of blacks. (May 19) AP\nIn this July 2, 2015, file photo, the Confederate Memorial Fountain is shown in Helena, Mont. (Photo: Matt Volz, AP)\nAfter the church shooting in South Carolina, the old granite Confederate Memorial Fountain that had sat for a century in Hill Park became a flash point.\nThe monument described by its inscription as “a longing tribute to our Confederate soldiers’’ was really, one man said at a public meeting, honoring “traitors and rebels … not ‘fallen comrades.’ ’’ Some people wanted to remove it, some to rename it, some to leave it alone.\nIt was a debate like many that erupted almost two years ago — except it happened 2,000 miles west of Gettysburg and 200 miles south of the Canadian border, in Helena, Mont., a state that was not even a state during the Civil War.\nHelena’s memorial fountain is one of at least 700 and possibly more than 1,000 Confederate monuments in 31 states — in public parks, courthouse squares and state capitols.\n► Related:Lawmaker apologizes for heated post on Confederate monuments\n► Related:New Orleans removes its last monument honoring Confederates\nSome of these monuments have become rallying points for white nationalists and other far-right groups, including Southern neo-secessionists.\nMany are where you might not expect them – including Charlottesville, Va., a liberal college town that was convulsed Saturday by protests against the removal of a statute of Confederate hero Robert E. Lee from a public park.\nAnd they’re not all antiques. In North Carolina, for instance, 35 monuments have been added since 2000.\nMany, including Helena’s, were created by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which was advancing the spurious idea that the South left the Union and fought the Civil War over states’ rights, not slavery.\nMany Confederate monuments from this era have attracted national attention since a white gunman with a passion for the Confederate battle flag killed nine black members of a bible study group in Charleston.\nNew Orleans’ removal of four Confederate monuments from prominent locations spurred protests and threats against work crews. And even before Saturday's melee, weekend, the Lee statue controversy in Charlottesville, Va., had prompted a torch-light protest that evoked memories of the Ku Klux Klan.\nSuch monuments have been embraced or embellished by the right-wing neo-Confederate movement, which calls the Civil War “the War of Southern Independence\"; advocates Confederate doctrines such as secession and legislative nullification; and longs for the day of white Christian cultural and political dominance.\nRoscoe Adair, 6, draws a heart with chalk in the street as workers prepare to take down the statue of former Confederate general Robert E. Lee in New Orleans on May 19, 2017. (Photo: Gerald Herbert, AP)\nHelena’s fountain is comparatively obscure. But it illustrates two surprising things about Confederate monuments:\nThey’re not only in the Deep South: Although the vast majority of these monuments are in former Confederate states, they are also in border states that fought with the Union (like Kentucky, Missouri, West Virginia and Maryland); in Union states, including Massachusetts, Iowa and Pennsylvania; and states that in 1861 were mere territories, such as Montana, Arizona and Oklahoma.\nTwo-thirds of Kentuckians who fought in the Civil War did so for the Union. Today, however, the state is saturated with Confederate memorials. The Fairview birthplace of Confederate President Jefferson Davis is marked by a 35-story obelisk, one of the nation’s tallest.\nThey’re not just memorials to the fallen: Helena’s Confederate memorial was constructed more than 50 years after the end of the Civil War. Most of its counterparts also came decades, not years, after the war. Historians say that time lag reflects white Southerners’ focus not so much on remembering the dead as providing a justification for rolling back black civil rights, which had advanced during post-Civil War Reconstruction.\nThis historical revisionism in support of a system of segregation known as Jim Crow was not restricted to the South; it stretched across a nation more concerned with national unity in the face of foreign threats than with black rights.\nThey’re still cropping up: The establishment of Confederate monuments, which crested between 1900 and 1930 and again during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, didn’t end with the 20th century.\nTheir numbers actually have been increasing. One, dedicated in Mitchell County in 2011, commemorates 79 men “who died for their freedom and independence.’’ And not for slavery.\n'Who wore the grey … were in the right’\n“Confederate monument’’ conjures images of imposing equestrian statues of Lee and Stonewall Jackson on Richmond’s Monument Avenue, or the huge bas-relief sculptures of Lee, Jackson and Davis at Stone Mountain, Ga.\nBut some monuments are more Confederate than others. They range from the strictly funereal to the aggressively polemical, like one in front of the Anderson County, S.C., courthouse with the inscription: \"The world shall yet decide, in truth's clear, far-off light, that the soldiers who wore the gray, and died with Lee, were in the right.\"\nAfter Charleston, Confederate monuments fall roughly into three categories:\nThe vast majority that have remained unchanged and largely unremarked upon.\nThe relative few that that have been “contextualized’’ by additional plaques or signs. For example, the Confederate soldier statue in The Circle at the University of Mississippi had two different explanatory signs last year; critics objected that the first did not mention of slavery.\nThe even fewer that have been moved. A statue of Davis that enjoyed an honored spot on the University of Texas’ Austin campus for 82 years is now in a museum. The city of Louisville exiled its seven-story Confederate memorial late last year to a Civil War re-enactments site in Brandenburg, Ky.\nFew public Confederate monuments have been changed, moved or razed since 2015. While flags can be lowered, songs censored, mascots switched and schools renamed, monuments are the most tangible and least mutable memorial symbols.\nSeveral factors favor the status quo.\nOne is financial: It took $400,000 to move the Louisville memorial. A second is legal: Several states have moved to prevent or impede the movement of war memorials. A third is philosophical – ambivalence about tampering with a historical artifact, no matter how unpalatable its message.\nThe issue makes strange bedfellows. Both Gary Gallagher, a prominent University of Virginia history professor, and Richard Spencer, a prominent white supremacist, advocated leaving Charlottesville’s Lee statue in place.\nTo Spencer, the statue is a symbol of white power.To Gallagher, it tells an important story about the time in which it was erected — although he told a city commission last year that he’d like to see other statuary in the park that tells other stories.\nIn a further irony, Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer, who voted against the statue’s move, was the one who likened Spencer’s torch light march to a Klan rally, saying it was “either profoundly ignorant or designed to instill fear in our minority populations.’’\nPeople gather at Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., on May 13, 2017, to protest plans to remove the Gen. Robert E. Lee statue. (Photo: Allison Wrabel, AP)\nMontana and the Lost Cause\nIn 1916, Helena was a Northwestern city with a Southern heritage. Southerners followed the Missouri River north to Montana during and after the Civil War. They included Confederate deserters and veterans; released POWS; war refugees; and, after gold was discovered in 1864, prospectors.\nThey settled in and helped shape Helena, whose very name was pronounced Southern style — HELL-in-ah, rather than heh-LEE-nah.\nGeorgia C. Young, a nurse who was born in Georgia, came to town in 1885 at age 28. She was a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The UDC had grown out of groups formed immediately after the Civil War by war widows and other white women to give Confederate veterans, who were excluded from federal cemeteries, a decent burial.\nBut over time they became invested in the white battle against the black vote. To that end, they promoted the “Lost Cause’’ theory of the war: that it was fought not because of the South’s insistence on slavery, which benefited slaves as much as their masters, but on states’ rights.\nPart of the UDC program was installation of Confederate memorials, many mail-ordered and mass-produced (in the North). One at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill (of a soldier today known as ‘‘Silent Sam’’) was modeled on a Harvard student who posed in Boston for a Canadian sculptor.\nGeorgia Young raised about $2,000 for a fountain carved by a sculptor whose father was a Union soldier.\nLike most of its counterparts around the nation, the fountain aroused no opposition. For one thing, it was designed to enhance Hill Park in the spirit of “City Beautiful’’ urban planning. For another, it stood for national unity — especially important since the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914.\nIn March 1916, six months before the fountain was dedicated, D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation made its Helena premiere. The film, as racist as it was innovative, was shown in the city’s largest auditorium, where it played for weeks to packed houses.\nAt the fountain dedication ceremony, the paper reported, Georgia Young “lauded the present day American spirit, a spirit of union with no feeling between the old North and South that caused such bitterness and sorrow years ago.’’ That for some the war was one of liberation went unsaid.\nIn this July 2, 2015, file photo, an inscription on a memorial to fallen Confederate soldiers is shown in Helena, Mont. (Photo: Matt Volz, AP)\nThe post-Charleston compromise\nFor 99 years the fountain was notable only as the answer to a trivia question: What is the northernmost Confederate monument?\nBut after the Charleston shooting some saw it differently. A city council member worried about “an inaccurate perception of our city as not warm and welcoming.’’ Another suggested it be renamed “the Civil War Memorial’’ (despite its one-sided inscription).\nA third council member called that “a knee jerk reaction” and “a solution in search of a problem.’’\nFinally, a compromise was reached: a sign explaining how the monument came to be and what it originally signified. “Ten years from now, if a tourist asks, ‘Why is there a Confederate fountain in Montana?’ there’s an answer,’’ says Andres Haladay, a council member.\nEd Noonan, another council member and a film teacher, has studied the city’s reaction to Birth of a Nation and now understands the fountain’s real value: “We look at the nation’s racial problems as distant from us in Montana. But the fountain shows that we, too, played our role in Jim Crow.’’\nRead or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2qNimtf", "by\nI love Charlottesville. For nearly a decade, Charlottesville has been my favorite retreat from the chaos of big cities. I have family who live, just barely outside of cell-signal range, in the breathtaking rolling hills west of town. My fiancé, Brad, attended – and I seriously considered attending – the University of Virginia Law School. I love visiting. I’ve explored its romantic colonial streets; hiked its peaceful mountains; day-dreamed about living there forever.\nBut this year Charlottesville has become a flashpoint for racial tension. After years of studied discussion, the City Council voted in February to remove confederate statutes and rename two confederate-honoring parks. (One of those parks, Stonewall Jackson park, was built after the city in 1914 seized land from private citizens in order to destroy a burgeoning black community.) The parks have since been renamed, but plans to remove the statute stalled when the City was sued under a state law protecting historic monuments. A month ago a small KKK rally at Justice Park (formerly Stonewall Jackson park) was overwhelmed by a thousand counter-protestors. When a “Unite the Right” group applied for a permit to hold a further rally, they had to obtain a federal court order protecting their right to free speech. Counter-protestors again rallied to flood the streets.\nThis weekend I was headed to Charlottesville to see my family when chaos erupted. Skirmishes had broken out downtown; the police had intervened; and then a neo-Nazi sympathizer had sped his car into the crowd, killing a woman and injuring many. My plans changed rapidly. There would be no leisurely window-shopping stroll around the downtown streets. I would not be attending evening mass with my fiancé at Holy Comforter Catholic Church, located directly between the two controversial parks. Those favorite locales were now the middle of a crime scene. Instead we stopped miles further north, ate a quiet dinner, and sadly watched the local news.\nThis morning we attended both Mormon and Catholic services north of town. At the beginning of Sacrament Meeting the Bishop made a statement about the violence of the day before – mourning that such hatred could infect the tranquil safe haven he had always found Charlottesville to be, and calling for healing through Christ. A talk on the atonement then juxtaposed Charlottesville’s joys with yesterday’s tragedies, then reminded us that everyone is a child of God. God doesn’t care about politics or money or power or influence – he cares about individuals, and calls us to love and serve our neighbors. In Priesthood meeting, the teacher spoke about how yesterday he been downtown at a Charlottesville hotel which, somehow, had come to be hosting both a mostly-black group, and a contingent of the alt-right. He had strived to ensure peace. Turning to Matthew 5:43-48 he asked, what does it mean to love your enemies?\nSince we were still avoiding Holy Comforter, Brad and I wended our way to Church of the Incarnation. There the congregation prayed to heal Charlottesville of “racism and bigotry” and to seek the peace of Christ. We sang a psalm, proclaiming “Kindness and truth, justice and peace; truth shall spring up as the water from the earth, justice shall rain from the heavens.”\nThe Priest’s homily, in a somewhat rambling way, sought to trace a history of Catholics standing up for social justice. He connected yesterday’s events to Catholic efforts to protect Jews in Nazi Germany. In a powerful moment, he decried all forms of nationalism. “As soon as we think of ourselves as Americans, we are no longer Catholics, because catholic means universal.”\nHis words echoed to me those of President Hinckley’s 11 years ago: “I am told that racial slurs and denigrating remarks are sometimes heard among us. I remind you that no man who makes disparaging remarks concerning those of another race can consider himself a true disciple of Christ. Nor can he consider himself to be in harmony with the teachings of the Church of Christ.”\nThen the Catholic Priest did something I have never before seen in a Catholic Church. He called for an impromptu testimony meeting. A few women stood up to talk about their attendance at yesterday’s events. One began “I have been a protestor since my youth, as a result of a Jesuit education.” She went on to describe attending yesterday’s interfaith sunrise service at First Baptist Church and then counter-marching downtown. “Faith-filled people must stand against hatred.”" ]

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